Strong People Can Vote Against Trump Without Forcing Themselves To Wear Blinders About Who Joe Biden Is

Slimeball by Nancy Ohanian

In the early days of DWT, Paul Lakasiak occasionally graced this blog with guest posts. They were always among my favorite contributions. Paul was back yesterday with a response to a post-- Is The Tent So Big That The Party Has Become Meaningless As Anything MoreThan A Vehicle To Save The Country From Trump?. "The answer to your question is 'yes'," he wrote in the comment section. "And the Democratic Party is getting worse, not better."

Watching the convention over the first three days, I was actually working up some enthusiasm for helping the Dems win big in November. Then I saw the news that Pelosi had endorsed Joey With the Good Hair over reliable, principled progressive (and INCUMBENT) Ed Markey. And now I'm outraged.

I'll still crawl through broken glass laced with tetanus laden rusty tacks and fire ants to vote against Donald Trump in November. But don't ask me to tell anyone that things will get better with Democrats like Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House -- because all I can say is that, under Biden, things won't be as bad as under Trump.

And I suspect that this viewpoint will be shared extensively among real progressives. They know that the democratic party is completely corrupt-- and that Pelosi is thoroughly worthless. And we're most likely to see repeat of 2010 in another two years, as Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer betray the American people in favor of their corporate sponsors.

Biden's acceptance speech Thursday night was excellent. Whoever wrote it with him deserves a lot of praise. Biden delivered it very, very well too. I'm a big admirer of John Pavlovitz and share his thoughts here at DWT frequently. I've never disagreed with him-- until his post yesterday: Joe Biden Is Not The Lesser of Two Evils. Obviously, anyone could agree with his observation that "The only people still defending [Trump] are brainwashed Evangelicals, looney conspiracy theorists, and abject racists. The raking light of history is recording all of it, whether these people like it or not. The human rights violations and the assaults on our Constitution and the attacks on our institutions and the rampant criminality cannot be denied or explained away or buried in fake Fox News headlines." It's his next line, though, that merits some debate: "Joe Biden is not the lesser of two evils, because he is not evil by any measure."

For someone like myself, who doesn't vote for evil, whether it is lesser or not, that's an important assertion, and one I entirely disagree with. Politically-speaking, Biden is profoundly evil. Unlike Paul Lukasiac, let alone John Pavlovitz, I'm not even going to vote for him. On a relative basis of evil, he pales next to Trump. Trump's evil isn't normal political evil... Trump's evil comes from the bowels of hell and I pray that selfless and courageous Secret Service agents spend time meditating on a Satwant Singh and Beant Singh solution to what plagues our country and is bringing it to its knees.




I respect people who look at Trump and Biden and conclude that Trump is so much worse that they will... "crawl through broken glass laced with tetanus laden rusty tacks and fire ants to vote" against Trump in November. I haven interest in trying to persuade anyone to not vote against Trump and do what I can to remind everyone I know-- and readers of this blog-- that Satan has a servant in the White House.

But that doesn't change how I see the Joe Biden I've gotten to know since the mid-1970s, when he only had one issue he ran on as a newly-minted Democrat: racism. His campaign was based on dog-whistles vowing to protect white suburban voters from the horrors of integration. And once he got to the Senate, he was in a constant battle for the position of that body's worst Democrat, consciously-- no, literally, consciously-- fighting to present himself as a conservative. Like I said, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from voting against Trump and I spent the last year talking about Biden's shortcomings. That said, this kind of drivel is not something I'm buying into, no matter the source:

He is a profoundly decent man: a man of faith, a man of compassion; a man who is willing to listen to different viewpoints, capable of evolving, and able to admit his mistakes. He is a man who loves deeply, mourns greatly, and gives fully. He is a man with actual meaningful, healthy relationships with other human beings. He is a humble man who sees others as more important than himself.

Biden is a corrupt conservative and he will head a corrupt conservative administration. Mainstream Republicans love him and they will love him more. He may even achieve their biggest goal-- and his own-- wrecking Social Security with some kind of bogus Grand Compromise he's been working on for his whole miserable career. Is he still better than Trump. Of course. One would be hard-pressed to see Trump as anything less than demonic. Biden is, admittedly, a "flawed human," as Pavlovitz put it. The Democratic Party is also very flawed, very, very, very flawed. There are no Republicans in Congress worth re-electing, not even one. The Democrats have many decent members of Congress-- certainly not a majority-- most congressional Democrats should be defeated-- but there are dozens and dozens of good ones too. Something to build on. The GOP? Needs to start over from scratch.

Pavlovitz is no dummy and only an imbecile would dismiss his thoughts. "It’s one thing to be a good-hearted but flawed human being who sometimes says something stupid or occasionally has an error in judgment or simply gets it wrong," he wrote. "Most of us fall under that category. We’re not any kind of evil, we’re just imperfect , emotional people, and so we fail and fall-- sometimes slightly and sometimes spectacularly. That’s who Joe Biden is. He is one of us. He is human. We need more human these days." How can anyone disagree with that? Especially when he offers the contrast: "It’s something else entirely to be an inherently malevolent creature: to be incapable of empathy, defiantly unwilling to admit mistakes; to wake up every day intending to do harm and feeling no remorse for it. If the word evil can apply to anyone, it’s the current President. He lacks a single noble impulse. Even his supporters know that."

Pavlovitz says he "would much rather be led by a well-intentioned human who sometimes misses the mark, than a purposefully cruel sociopath who has no concern for other people’s pain. False equivalencies are irresponsible here. These are fundamentally different people in every important way one can measure such things."

He should vote for Biden. He's going to. Most voters are going to. Nearly everyone I know and respect is going to. All my relatives-- except one seriously deranged one-- are voting for Biden. All my friends are voting for Biden. I am fairly certain that even my partners at Blue America are voting for Biden. I hope that on November 4th, I'll be thanking God for having defeated Satan the day before. And when Biden starts being Biden, I'll be interested to see how long it takes Pavlovitz to rethink his thoughts on relativity. For example, is Austerity evil? Not as evil as Trumpism, but... well, maybe I'm wrong and that nearly 50 years of Bidenism is suddenly going to change. But I doubt it.

One man pulls us toward unity, the other stokes division. 
One man speaks to our collective better angels, the other to the worst of who we are.
One man is burdened to inspire, the other compelled to engender fear.
One man is continually turned outward and the other is fully self-absorbed.
One man expresses his love for America, the other vilifies over half of it.

Stop telling me the choice isn’t clear.

I’m not voting for Joe Biden begrudgingly.

I’m not holding my nose or halfheartedly standing behind his campaign, and I’m not supporting him simply because he’s opposing Donald Trump.
I'm voting for Joe Biden because I know that he won’t deny the existence of a pandemic.
He won’t blame viruses on Republicans.
He won’t silence medical experts.
He won’t reject Science.
He won’t allow tens of thousands of Americans to die in order to protect his ego.
He won’t tweet demeaning nicknames for his opponents.
He won’t validate nonsensical conspiracies.
He won’t shout over female reporters.
He won’t shut down social media apps when teenagers hurt his feelings.
He won’t dismantle the Postal Service in order to deny Americans their essential liberties.
He won’t make fun of people with disabilities.
He won’t call racists fine people.
And on and on and on.

Republicans for Biden feel a lot like Pavlovitz. Below, on the Bulwark podcast-- a #NeverTrump outlet for conservatives-- two staunch conservative Republicans, Charlie Sykes and Tim Miller, had a discussion of the Democratic Convention. Tim Miller, a former RNC spokesman and Jeb Bush Communications Director, said "I wanted to share one thing that we discussed after the show was over. Both of us we were caught off guard by how emotionally attached we were last night to this candidacy. We had sort of expected to feel this reluctant, begrudging support for the Democratic nominee, to have been left in a tough spot between one normal bad choice and one existentially bad one. But that isn’t what happened. Joe Biden has me energized. And frankly, that he has both Charlie and I reflecting on whether maybe in the past we were just…in the wrong…"


In his wrap-up of the Democratic Convention for Politico yesterday, Ryan Lizza wrote that "Much of the week was spent by Democrats balancing praising Biden for his empathy and character and attacking Trump for-- well, just about everything. What was missing from the big speeches-- with the notable exception of Bernie Sanders-- was a clear articulation of the specific policies Biden would pursue to combat the pandemic and recession. Biden filled in those gaps clearly. He discussed, with some specificity, infrastructure, education, health care, climate change, and tax policy. He gave a detailed list of actions he would take to stop the spread of Covid-19. Overall this was a nimble speech that responded to the dramatically changed circumstances of the last few months, when Biden transformed from being the leader of a faction within his party to the leader of the most diverse electoral coalition in modern politics. In that span, the pre-existing crises he knew he would face as president-- climate change, the diminished standing of America in the world-- were shoved aside by three additional and equally urgent crises."

This morning, a trusted progressive leader in Congress suggested that if I could try to "take it easy on Joe until after the election that would be great-- have to beat the Nazis before we can worry about USSR (to torture an imperfect analogy)." I get it... and believe it or not, I have been "taking it easy" on Joe... relatively speaking.

Isn't It About Time For Some Racial Justice Reform In Our Country?

Later-- after the CNN appearance above-- on Fox News Sunday, Cornel West said "What we’re seeing here is the ways in which the vicious legacy of white supremacy manifests in organized hatred, greed and corruption. We’re witnessing the collapse of the legitimacy of leadership, the political class, the economic class, the professional class, that’s the deeper crisis... The beautiful thing is we’re seeing citizens who are caring and concerned hitting the streets. The problem is we have a system that’s not responding and seems to be unable to respond." And Trump does nothing but make everything worse-- in this case much worse.

Roxane Gay isn't as well known but her NY Times OpEd yesterday was just as salient and just as important. "Eventually," she wrote, "doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait for a cure for racism... The economy is shattered. Unemployment continues to climb, steeply. There is no coherent federal leadership. The president mocks any attempts at modeling precautionary behaviors that might save American lives. More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19." Actually, that 106,128 deaths in the U.S.

Many of us have been in some form of self-isolation for more than two months. The less fortunate continue to risk their lives because they cannot afford to shelter from the virus. People who were already living on the margins are dealing with financial stresses that the government’s $1,200 “stimulus” payment cannot begin to relieve. A housing crisis is imminent. Many parts of the country are reopening prematurely. Protesters have stormed state capitals, demanding that businesses reopen. The country is starkly dividing between those who believe in science and those who don’t.

...The disparities that normally fracture our culture are becoming even more pronounced as we decide, collectively, what we choose to save-- what deserves to be saved.

And even during a pandemic, racism is as pernicious as ever. Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the black community, but we can hardly take the time to sit with that horror as we are reminded, every single day, that there is no context in which black lives matter.

Breonna Taylor was killed in her Louisville, Ky., home by police officers looking for a man who did not even live in her building. She was 26 years old. When demonstrations erupted, seven people were shot.

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in South Georgia when he was chased down by two armed white men who suspected him of robbery and claimed they were trying perform a citizen’s arrest. One shot and killed Mr. Arbery while a third person videotaped the encounter. No charges were filed until the video was leaked and public outrage demanded action. Mr. Arbery was 25 years old.

In Minneapolis, George Floyd was held to the ground by a police officer kneeling on his neck during an arrest. He begged for the officer to stop torturing him. Like Eric Garner, he said he couldn’t breathe. Three other police officers watched and did not intervene. Mr. Floyd was 46 years old.

These black lives mattered. These black people were loved. Their losses to their friends, family, and communities, are incalculable.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis took to the street for several days, to protest the killing of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Trump-- who in 2017 told police officers to be rough on people during arrests, imploring them to “please, don’t be too nice”-- wrote in a tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The official White House Twitter feed reposted the president’s comments. There is no rock bottom.

Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was in Central Park’s Ramble when he asked a white woman, Amy Cooper, to comply with the law and leash her dog. He began filming, which only enraged Ms. Cooper further. She pulled out her phone and said she was going to call the police to tell them an African-American man was threatening her.

She called the police. She knew what she was doing. She weaponized her whiteness and fragility like so many white women before her. She began to sound more and more hysterical, even though she had to have known she was potentially sentencing a black man to death for expecting her to follow rules she did not think applied to her. It is a stroke of luck that Mr. Cooper did not become another unbearable statistic.

An unfortunate percentage of my cultural criticism over the past 11 or 12 years has focused on the senseless loss of black life. Mike Brown. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Tamir Rice. Jordan Davis. Atatiana Jefferson. The Charleston Nine.

These names are the worst kind of refrain, an inescapable burden. These names are hashtags, elegies, battle cries. Still nothing changes. Racism is litigated over and over again when another video depicting another atrocity comes to light. Black people share the truth of their lives, and white people treat those truths as intellectual exercises.

They put energy into being outraged about the name “Karen,” as shorthand for entitled white women rather than doing the difficult, self-reflective work of examining their own prejudices. They speculate about what murdered black people might have done that we don’t know about to beget their fates, as if alleged crimes are punishable by death without a trial by jury. They demand perfection as the price for black existence while harboring no such standards for anyone else.

Some white people act as if there are two sides to racism, as if racists are people we need to reason with. They fret over the destruction of property and want everyone to just get along. They struggle to understand why black people are rioting but offer no alternatives about what a people should do about a lifetime of rage, disempowerment and injustice.

When I warned in 2018 that no one was coming to save us, I wrote that I was tired of comfortable lies. I’m even more exhausted now. Like many black people, I am furious and fed up, but that doesn’t matter at all.

I write similar things about different black lives lost over and over and over. I tell myself I am done with this subject. Then something so horrific happens that I know I must say something, even though I know that the people who truly need to be moved are immovable. They don’t care about black lives. They don’t care about anyone’s lives. They won’t even wear masks to mitigate a virus for which there is no cure.

Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.

I asked some of the top congressional candidates from around the country how they are thinking about the weekend's protests and if they're at odds with their opponents about the racial justice issues.

Lisa Ring is running in the coastal Georgia district and her opponent is a Trumpist Republican, Buddy Carter. Lisa told us that on Sunday she "attended a peaceful protest in Savannah along with hundreds of protesters in my district. Sadly, protesting against racial hatred, brutality and murder has become all too familiar on the coast of Georgia. Just a few weeks ago I was in Brunswick (also in my district) protesting the murder of Ahmad Arbery and the corruption of the Glynn County D.A.s office to arrest the perpetrators who hunted down and killed Ahmad. Rep. Buddy Carter offers the usual platitudes. Yet, he would never join us at a protest or propose any significant change involving racial justice or law enforcement accountability. To do so would anger his support base which remains at the heart of a systemically racist system that refuses to die. We marched this same route in 2016 shouting 'black lives matter' after the deaths of Philando Castile and Eric Garner. We heard the same canned responses from our leaders. If we expect change, we must do more than march, we must take power away from the ineffectual leaders in our country who lack true compassion and provide no solutions to injustice.

The Democratic candidate in Riverside County's 42nd district is progressive Liam O'Mara and he's taking on serial Trump enabler Ken Calvert. "Year after year,"he told us this afternoon, "we see the same stories, about young men and women of color savagely beaten or killed for non-violent crimes. At some point you would think the country might listen to the many sociologists and historians who have been describing the causes for decades. But no, every time it seems to follow a predictable pattern of short-term outrage, then a return to business as usual, with public figures seldom asking the hard questions or proposing viable solutions. And solutions do exist! Instead of terrorizing poor communities with heavily-armed enforcers, we should invest in businesses and civic renewal projects. We need fully to break the school-to-prison pipeline, and that means taking the emphasis off of law enforcement and placing it on things like counselling and adequate resources for success. In addition, we need to create a stronger culture of individual accountability among the police, and get back to the spirit of community policing to restore trust in law enforcement. Our congressmember, Ken Calvert, has made an appeal to God and called for us to move forward in peace. This is a polite way of saying nothing should change, the protesters should go home, and life for middle class white America can return to blissful ignorance of the daily challenges faced by people of colour. We don't need a 28-year incumbent with a history of race-baiting-- we need a new voice to tackle the challenges of our times.

Cathy Kunkel is running in the central district of West Virginia, also against a Trump Republican, Alex Moonie. "In the WV Can't Wait movement," she told us today, "we are fighting for a government for works for all of us. Not just the 97% white population of West Virginia, but all of us. That means taking on a broken criminal justice system where 12% of our prison population is black, an education system that disproportionately funnels black students into a school-to-prison pipeline, and an economic system where the racial wealth gap is growing even wider. These are problems that must be tackled at the federal, state and local level, and we must do so by listening to and lifting up the voices of black leadership - leaders who have been speaking up for decades about the pain and fear in their communities. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'"

Texas progressive Mike Siegel is taking on GOP incumbent Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered Texas district that was created to prevent Travis County (Austin) from being fully represented. Siegel told us that "We are looking at a 400-year history of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism, compounded by a national health pandemic, compounded by an economic crisis, compounded by a hateful and divisive presidency. There will be no easy fixes or 'going back to normal.' What is needed is massive, structural change to how we approach public safety, policing, and criminal justice. The Texas 10th has long been a center of struggle for racial justice. This is the home of Prairie View A&M, a leading historically-- black college located on a former slave plantation. This is where Sandra Bland died in police custody after an unconstitutional arrest. This is where Rodney Reed has been on Texas Death Row for decades for a crime that was committed by a white former police officer who was protected by his friends in law enforcement. And this is where Michael McCaul has been a 'representative' for sixteen years in name, never lifting a finger to fight for Black lives in any of you nine TX-10 counties. This week I am joining Ayanna Presley’s call for passage of

The People’s Justice Guarantee, a comprehensive demand for criminal justice reform. We have much to do to create an equitable and just society, and eradicating racism in criminal justice is an essential part of this work."

There's just one progressive challenger in Arizona who has a chance to replace a conservative, Eva Putzova. She told us that her "ex"-Republican Blue Dog opponent is mouthing the same tired platitudes that all conservatives save for a weekend like this. "Tom O'Halleran's response to the latest brutal murder of a black man at the hands of a white police officer was 'we need to improve our understanding of racism.' These are empty words from another politician who has no plan or intention of providing real solutions to systemic racism in our country. A bill to just study the idea of reparations for African-Americans has been in Congress for 5 months and he hasn't co-sponsored it. To save lives, we need bold reform that flips the system on its head. That's why I proudly signed current and former congressional candidates Cori Bush (MO-01) and Anthony Clark’s (IL-07) Pledge to End Police Violence, which includes comprehensive reform to tackle police violence head on. To address the systemic racism embedded in our country, we also need deep criminal justice reform, including the federal legalization of marijuana, and ending cash bail and for-profit prisons. And that's just to start. We can't solve systemic racism in a few bills, but it's the duty of our Congressmembers to move us closer towards justice. Right now, Tom O'Halleran is sitting still."

Monroe County, NY progressive Robin Wilt is taking on a do-nothing career politician of her own party. Racial justice is an important issue for her; though not for him. "According to 24/7 Wall Street, my Congressional District is ranked second-worst in the nation in terms of outcomes for Black Americans," she told me. The only one that ranks worst is the Minneapolis Congressional District in which George Floyd was murdered. What that means in terms of health care, educational, and wealth and income disparities, is that Black Americans in my district are three times as likely to be impoverished, three times as likely to be unemployed, and have a homeownership rate of less than half that of their white counterparts. These disparities are borne of the structural racism and unjust policies of which my opponent, as a three-decades-long state Assemblyman in the region, is one of the architects. As one of my supporters so eloquently said, 'You cannot expect the people who made the system, who have spent their lifetime benefitting from the system, to change it.'

Rochester has also had its own issues with police brutality and lack of accountability. Recently, the electorate overwhelmingly passed a referendum establishing a civilian review board that has subpoena power in matters of police discipline. In an ongoing lawsuit, the Police Union has attacked the Police Accountability Board civilian oversight provision on constitutional grounds. My opponent has remained silent on the matter.

The Rochester City School District, which according to the same 24/7 Wall Street article, is comprised of approximately 90% students of color, recently faced a $30-million dollar budgetary shortfall. My opponent, instead of calling for New York to live up to its obligation to fully-fund the district’s foundation aid that is its due, callously called for Donald Trump’s Justice Department to investigate the Rochester City School District’s finances. This is the self-same segregated school system that LA School Report identified as having the most economically segregating school district border in the country.

As I listened to the impassioned testimonials at the Rochester Black Lives Matter protest this past Saturday, out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed my opponent ducking out. I was surprised that he had deigned at all to make an appearance, so when he exited prematurely, in the middle of one Black and Brown person after another expressing the pain and anguish of the inequities that our communities of color endure, I couldn’t help but think that his act of turning his back and ducking out on the speakers, after taking his photo opportunity, was the perfect analogy for how he has treated our communities of color during his tenure as an elected official.

It is time that we had a representative in the 25th Congressional District who not only understands that it’s not okay to turn one’s back on our most vulnerable and disaffected communities, but also that in order for us to make progress as a district, we must do so together; it cannot be achieved at the expense of our most marginalized.

Tom Guild is also taking on a pathetic excuse for a Democrat, but in Oklahoma City. His opponent is Blue Dog Kendra Horn, one of the most anti-progressive members of the House Democratic caucus. "There are so many pernicious and vexing problems begging for systemic change in America," Tom tildes today. "The ruling political class plays games with people’s lives in order to stay in the saddle and continue to not only not solve existing problems but to add new quagmires to the top of the heap. Black and Brown people in our country start their struggle to survive more often than not dealing with the heavy weight of poverty on their backs. We desperately need systemic change. For instance, most people of color in America have either no health care available or woefully inadequate options. We could make systemic change to help nearly everyone by moving to a single payer health care system. It would take the profit incentive out of the equation and greatly diminish the grating weight on the backs of Americans. It would also help Black and Brown Americans the most, because they are the ones suffering the most under the current for profit system.

"Even the Pelosi-led Democrats in the U.S. House are simply kicking the lead weight down the road by propping up the private health care system and maximizing profits for Big Insurance and Big Pharma, and calling that reform. The Senate Republicans are even worse. Black and Brown neighborhoods tend to have poor educational opportunities, which exacerbates the problems faced by our Brothers and Sisters of Color. At the state legislative level, most legislatures have Democrats 'fighting' to provide too little funding for minority schools, while many Republicans want to defund public schools altogether and plow what little public money there is available into 'charter' and private schools, either directly or indirectly.

"So our Black and Brown Brothers and Sisters are stifled by poverty and lack of quality educational opportunities. As they grow up, many minority children learn to fear law enforcement officials and are often treated with disrespect, threats to their lives, and too often actually lose their lives at the hands of police officers who are charged with protecting them. The recent list of Black Men and Women unarmed and submissive to police, who nonetheless end up losing their lives grows like topsy. Not only is the George Floyd case very recent, it is also particularly heinous and egregious. White officers had him subdued and completely under their control, while one of the white officers put his knee and the weight of his body on the neck of Mr. Floyd for nearly nine minutes and for three+ minutes after George Floyd begged for his life by painfully communicating that he could not breathe. Mr. Floyd’s alleged crime was trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. There are so many words or phrases to describe Mr. Floyd’s horrific experience. Heinous. Brutal. Despicable. Unforgivable. Racist. Inhumane. Heartbreaking. Senseless. The list goes on and on.

"We desperately need systemic change in the criminal justice system. It way too often treats people of color as the dreaded-- other. First, police forces should closely mirror the demographics of the areas they serve. E.g. If 30% of a city’s population is black, 30% of the police department should be black. We need to solve the cruel problem of poverty. We need to provide all of our brothers and sisters with a quality education. We need to treat everyone with respect. We need to prosecute errant law enforcement officials, so that justice is truly blind. We need to love one another. We need to follow the Golden Rule. We need to elect people to represent us who want to make systemic changes and solve intractable problems. We need to defeat or not elect candidates who are on the make and are political social climbers and don’t care about the people they represent. God knows we have a lot to do, a lot of systemic changes to make, and a whole lotta love to dole out by the truckload. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother or sister or neighbor or co-worker or fellow American or human being. It seems a daunting challenge, but as the old saying goes-- a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Do Black Lives Matter? Hell. YES! Once we wrap our minds, hearts, and souls around that one, we begin the process of systemic and healing change and the opportunity to solve difficult and vexing problems, instead of adding to the list horribles! We should adopt Jackie DeShannon’s Put a Little Love in Your Heart as our second national anthem!"

Democrats Need Someone Who Can Defeat Trump-- And That's Bernie, Not A Pale And Doddering Imitation Of Hillary

Yesterday, Bernie had an immense endorsement-- the Sunrise Movement. There were three more notable Bernie endorsements as well, one from Kshama Sawant, a Socialist member of the Seattle City Council, one from actress Emily Ratajkowski, which you can watch in the video below, and one from the Dream Defenders. Sawant: "we need a political revolution against the billionaire class, an Organizer-in-Chief prepared to build the movement of millions needed to win far-reaching change."




Jessica Corbett, writing for Common Dreams, explained the significance of the Dream Defenders endorsement. "Praising the 'visionary agenda' of Sen. Bernie Sanders and decrying the corporate media's treatment of him as a 'fringe candidate' in the Democratic presidential primary race, the Florida-based social justice group Dream Defenders on Wednesday joined the massive grassroots movement Sanders is building for his second presidential run."

Dream Defenders initially formed to fight for justice for Trayvon Martin but has since blossomed into a broader "movement for freedom and liberation in Florida." A lengthy statement from the group's Fight PAC endorsing Sanders spotlighted his campaign slogan ("Not Me, Us") and explained that "Bernie is not our political savior. It is the movement behind him that will change this country."

"Our people believe in Bernie and his vision for building power with us," the statement said. "He has the most diverse, the youngest, and the most working class base of any candidate. He has more donations from students, Walmart Workers, Amazon workers and teachers than anyone else-- at an average of $18."

"The mainstream media is afraid of this," the group added, condemning how some major media outlets have regarded Sanders' campaign. "That's why they've attempted to paint Bernie as some fringe candidate and his support base as comprised of only 'white Bernie bros' and erase the millions of black, brown, and immigrant youth and women at the helm of his campaign."

Welcoming the group's support in a tweet, Sanders thanked Dream Defenders for its "incredible" work in Florida, emphasized the power of young people, and reiterated his commitment to working with his movement "to create a nation where every person is able to live with justice and dignity."

Sanders also shared a video that Dream Defenders released detailing its history and goals. As the group's statement explained, "Because our lives and the lives of the people we love depend on it, we have chosen to take a side in this election: to stand against a world order rooted in greed, authoritarianism, and violence."

Dream Defenders highlighted how Sanders' agenda aligns with that of the group, including tuition-free public college, the elimination of student and medical debt, Medicare for All, a jobs guarantee, a moratorium on deportations, the reunification of separated families, overhauling the immigration system, ending mass incarceration, a just transition for incarcerated individuals, cutting the U.S. military budget, pursing diplomacy with Iran, and respecting the rights of Palestinians.

"Bernie's track record is consistent. Throughout his career, he has pushed visionary ideas long before they were politically popular," the group said of Sanders, a democratic socialist. "Bernie is not offering band-aid solutions to the crises we are living in. He believes in a total transformation of our economic and political systems."

Pointing to recent polling that shows significant support among U.S. millennial voters for socialist political candidates, Dream Defenders added that "the media's erasure of young women, and people of color as core constituencies of the Bernie Sanders campaign reflects the establishment's discomfort with acknowledging that the working-class is in fact multi-racial, and the growing consensus that capitalism cannot save us."

In a Politico piece that came out in the midst of all these endorsements, reporter Natasha Korecki acted as a press agent for the Biden campaign. One of the most vile and evil sources within the Democratic Party is New Dem founder and former DCCC anti-progressive strategist Simon Rosenberg, currently urging Status Quo Joe to go all out in calling Bernie a "socialist!!!!" and using the whole GOP panoply of smears against him. "The gloves-off strategy didn’t work for Clinton, " fumed Rosenberg, "and it isn’t going to work this time either."

To counter AOC's appeal as a Bernie surrogate, Biden has dug up some of his old friends from their graves and gotten them into a bus.

Since the start of the year, Biden has sharpened his messaging to highlight the distinctions, dedicating a bigger portion of his stump speech toward making the case that he is the candidate best-suited to work with Republicans and heal a divided country-- something the campaign says draws a sharp contrast with both Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

As Biden hits his stride in Iowa, that theme represents a big part of his closing argument. As part of the case for his electability, he asserts that he, more than any other candidate, can help win back the Senate by providing a top of the ticket boost in places like North Carolina, Arizona and Texas-- states where there are questions about whether a candidate as liberal as Sanders would be an asset to the eventual Democratic Senate nominee.

“We think it is a clear point of difference with the approach of some of the other major candidates and one that is authentic to Biden and his record,” Dunn said.

Biden has recently sought to counter Sanders’ practice of rolling out star surrogates like Ocasio-Cortez, who drew massive crowds in the state in November and electrified Sanders’ supporters. Her tour through Iowa drew more than 2,000 people at each of the events.

Biden’s relatively staid endorsement events here couldn’t be more different from the razzle dazzle rallies showcasing Ocasio-Cortez. But they’ve featured political heavyweights designed to highlight Biden’s messaging about his experience and electability.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry-- who won the Iowa caucuses en route to the 2004 Democratic nomination-- was the headliner among a group of Democratic officeholders who embarked on a "We Know Joe" bus tour this week.

Former Gov. and ex-Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and his wife Christie, recently toured with Biden through rural Iowa in small, intimate venues. Rep. Abby Finkenauer-- a rising Democratic star in the state-- campaigned with Biden in mid-size events, the largest bringing about 700 people.

Finkenauer isn't a rising star in Iowa or anywhere else. She was a lazy hack in the Iowa legislature who was swept into Congress in the 2018 anti-red wave. Since getting to Congress, she has run up an entirely putrid record-- earning an "F" from ProgressivePunch. With Van Drew out of the party, she now has the 13th worst voting record of any Democrat in the House. That's the kind of garbage the Biden campaign is pushing forward as their version of AOC. AOC outdraws her 10 to 1 in her own district! No one cares about Abby Finkenauer. She means nothing to anyone; she was just an alternative to the lousy Trump asskisser who the voters wanted to replace. "Biden advisers and surrogates," parroted Korecki, "have framed the endorsements as clear markers of the differences between Sanders and Biden, with Ocasio-Cortez representing the left flank of the party and Finkenauer representing the mainstream-- she knocked off a Republican incumbent in a Northeast Iowa-based swing district, the kind of place that the Democratic nominee will need to defeat Donald Trump in November."

Glad they brought it up. IA-01 was a nice blue district that went for Obama 58.5% to 40.4% in 2008 when the PVI was D+5. In 2012 the district went for Obama again-- 56.2% to 42.5%. It wasn't until Wasserman Schultz and her corrupted DNC stole the nomination for Biden-in-a-skirt that IA-01, started turning red, (PVI is now D+1). Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 45.2%. This is Bernie country, not Biden country. In 2018 the two big counties where virtually all the Democratic votes come from, looked like this:

• Linn- Bernie 52.3%, Hillary 47.4%
• Black Hawk- Bernie 52.9%, Hillary 46.7%

The Status Quo Joe people are right about one thing: IA-01 is the kind of place that the Democratic nominee will need to defeat Donald Trump in November-- and the candidate best suited to do that is the candidate of change, Bernie, not the candidate of "nothing fundamentally will change."

Robert Reich Explains What The Center Is-- And What It Isn't

Bernie's ideas seem very popular. Have you noticed? And that means Third Way, a major player among those who are part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, is on the attack. Matt Bennett, Third Way’s senior vice president, when talking about senators running for president noted that "We’re open to everybody except for him." That was a year ago. The Republican wing of the party is putting all they've got into poisoning the well for Bernie. They know he means what he says and they know what that means for the status quo they've grown fat on.

"The 'center,'" said Reich in the video above, is not halfway between what most Americans want and what big corporations, Wall Street and the super-wealthy want. The 'center' is what the vast majority of Americans want." Reich could have explicitly included the mass media in with "big corporations, Wall Street and the super-wealthy."

In any case, polling shows that Americans favor the agenda the GOP has been trying to paint as "socialist"

• higher taxes on the super-rich- 76% favor
• a wealth tax on fortunes of over $50 million- over 60% favor
• Medicare-For-All- 70% favor
• lower prescription drug prices- 92% favor
• drug importation from Canada- over 70% favor
• paid maternity leave- over 70% favor
• more affordable child care- 79% favor
• free college tuition- 60% favor
• climate change is man-made and needs addressing- 62% agree
• money has too much influence in politics- 84% agree
• put limits on campaign spending- 77% agree

Yes, Americans, but not Mitch McConnell, not Laura Ingraham and not this country's political and economic elites, which thrive on gaming the system and benefit from the status quo.




I asked some of the Blue America candidates and some of the candidates we're still vetting about the issues they're running on and about how they're using those issues to fight back against the Republicans who label them "socialism."

Mike Siegel is a progressive Democrat running in a gerrymandered red Texas district that he nearly won in 2018. This time he has sky high name recognition and his chances to beat the reactionary GOP Trump enabler are much better.

"The National Republican Congressional Committee," he told me this morning, "just ran an ad targeting me as 'socialist' based on my support for the most basic aspects of a social safety net-- exactly what Reich identifies as the political center. In 2018, I ran for Congress in what was called a 'deep red' district-- the Texas 10th was considered R+19-- and I ran on a platform including Medicare for All. By the end of the race, the incumbent McCaul, who thinks Obamacare is socialist, only had a 4% advantage. We can run and win on these issues. Healthcare, better schools, progressive taxation, infrastructure spending and jobs programs. We have to lean into our commitment to using government for the greater good, because that is what a democracy is supposed to be."

Kathy Ellis, has an even redder district in southeast Missouri-- the reddest district in the state, huge, rural, very poor, abandoned by the national Democratic Party-- and she is also trying to reach out to her neighbors with a populist-progressive campaign. "For too long," she said, "the political system has not worked for average, working-class people-- people like you and me. It's been built to represent the needs of the super wealthy and super powerful. It's time that we change that and begin the work of building a country that works for us all, not just the wealthy few. For this reason, I support issues that prioritize the needs of everyday, working people. These include healthcare for all, campaign finance reform, universal childcare and pre-k, debt-free college, and increased environmental protections."

Marie Newman is running for a very different kind of seat, one in a nice blue Chicagoland district, but with a Republican-lite Blue Dog as an incumbent. She will make a very different kind of representative than he is: "When 65-80% of Americans are supportive of policies such as raising taxes on the ultra rich, providing universal childcare and paid leave, but conservatives call it ‘fringe’, I guess the new meaning of fringe = most Americans."

Kina Collins is the progressive Democrat running for the Chicago seat occupied by Danny Davis. "As a former organizer for Physicians for a National Health Program," she told me this morning, "seeing everyday people suffering from preventable illnesses and not being able to afford health insurance showed me how urgently we need single-payer Medicare for All in our country. We cannot wait. The majority of Americans support health care reform, we need to take bold action on this issue."

Shaniyat Chowdhury is also running in a blue district represented by a corrupt conservative Democrat, this one in southeast Queens. His perspective is that "We're starting to see the seeds of change make a difference when every working class and poor American participates on a massive scale. Without a doubt, vast majority of Americans believe our current representatives are influenced by big money, condoning their luxurious lifestyles. These actions have caused the most vulnerable Americans to not have access to healthcare, education, jobs, and a productive solution to climate change. Once we collectively drain the swamp of corrupt and bought politicians, we will open the doors for solutions such as Medicare for All, Free College Tuition, Federal Job’s Guarantee, and a Green New Deal. It’s not 'time for a change.' We’ve just been long overdue for everyday Americans to stand up with morals, ethics, and courage to take big money out of politics."

Kara Eastman is in a 50/50 swing district-- Omaha, Nebraska and the surrounding suburbs. NE-02 voted for Obama, Romney and, narrowly Trump. Kara came close to winning in 2018 and-- like Mike Siegel-- can probably go all the way in 2020. She told me that "It’s clear that people I talk to from across the political spectrum understand money’s corrosive influence on our government at all levels. My relatives who are more affluent, who lean right, as well as my supporters actually agree we have to fix the political system we have inherited. That’s why my decision to refuse all corporate PAC money is broadly supported by constituents in Nebraska but not necessarily by our two political parties."

Audrey Denney is another progressive Democrat trying to win a tough red district. She did incredibly well in 2018 and intends on going all the way in 2020. "It is far past time," she told me today, "that we had elected leaders who were responsible and accountable to the people they served-- instead of corporations and special interests. Campaigns in 2020 should about things that matter to people-- things that make people’s lives a little bit better. Making sure Americans don’t go bankrupt when they have a health emergency. Making sure new parents can rest and recover and care for their infants before they go back to work. Making sure young people can get a degree without trying to climb out of debt for the rest of their lives. Making sure all Americans can find dignified jobs that let them provide for their families. Making sure we are doing all we can to address the existential threat of climate change. These aren’t radical ideas. These are common sense American values."

Bernie Calls For Banning For-Profit Charter Schools-- Strengthening Public Schools

Lara Trump isn't supposed to be the brightest of the Trump menagerie and she's certainly always welcome at Fox. Yesterday she was babbling some incoherent nonsense about how sad it is that Democrats want to beat her father-in-law, almost universally recognized as the worst"president"-- if history will even remember him as a president-- on history. "Shouldn’t you want someone that you think can run the country well, that’s gonna do the best job at being president, not just beat Donald Trump? But I think it actually speaks to the fact that there are still a lot of people who out there that are very upset that Hillary Clinton did not win in 2016." There may be, but the only people I know who pine for Hillary are people who recognize how much better she would have been than Trump. Anyone-- even Status Quo Joe, the worst of the Democratic alternatives, would be better than Trump.

Author and Princeton history professor Julian Zelizer reported how Trump is trying to be king. He singled out 4 precedents:

• Delegitimating oversight
• Using the bully pulpit for disinformation
• Legitimating conflict of interest
• Using national emergency power to replace legislating

The Worst. Ever. So... according to Newton's third law of physics, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." That suggests that following Trump-- the worst-- the U.S. is ready for-- not some mediocrity like Status Quo Joe Biden-- for someone as good as Trump is bad-- a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or-- better yet-- the two of them on a unity ticket.

Today, Bernie, basically ignoring the ugly and demeaning Trumpism that almost defines everything in our world, delivered an important education policy speech in Orangeburg, South Carolina-- as if Trump didn't exist. He called for a ban on all for-profit charter schools-- pretty much the opposite of what both corporate Democrats and the Republican Party have been working for-- and a moratorium on the funding of all public charter school expansion until after a national audit, a policy suggestion that comes from the NAACP.

California already has a new ban on for-profit charter schools. This will immediately put Bernie at odds with more corporate Democrats-- particularly Beto, Cory Booker, Tim Ryan and McKinsey Pete all of whom have admitted to being for charter schools, No other Democratic candidate has called for a ban on for-profit charter schools yet, but probably will now that Bernie has. These are the positions he laid out today:

• Mandating that charter schools comply with the same oversight requirements as public schools
• Mandating that at least half of all charter school boards are teachers and parents
• Disclosing student attrition rates, non-public funding sources, financial interests and other relevant data
• Matching employment practices at charters with neighboring district schools, including standards set by collective bargaining agreements and restrictions on exorbitant CEO pay
• Supporting the efforts of charter school teachers to unionize and bringing charter schools to the negotiating table

Watch who lauds Bernie's position and who unmasks themselves as the corporate whores being paid off to go on the warpath against him. I wonder how long Biden can keep quiet on the subject and not take a stand one way or the other. See if you can identify the corporate whore below (hint: she's completely in sync with both Betsy DeVos and that wretched Trumpanzee daughter-in-law).

Sanders will concede that the initial goal of charter schools-- to help kids with unique learning needs-- was admirable. But he will argue the system has been corrupted by wealthy activists who spent millions to privatize these schools, leaving them unaccountable and draining funds from the public school system.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, lauded the Sanders plan. In a statement to CNN, she called the proposal "vitally important" and said that it would provide real checks and balances for the charter school system.

"For the last several decades, the unregulated growth of private charter schools has siphoned off money from public schools, with little protection against fraud, and little attention paid to equity or quality when it comes to educating kids," Weingarten said. "The senator's plan takes tangible steps toward making the charter school industry accountable to parents and the public."

Those who operate these schools feel differently. Amy Wilkins, senior vice president of advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, points out that three California branches of the NAACP broke with the national organization's call for a moratorium on funding. She noted that there was evidence that charter schools have helped thousands of children in at-risk situations.

"Sanders' call is out of touch-- as usual-- with what African Americans want," Wilkins said in a statement to CNN. "More disturbing, the senator-- for personal political gain-- would literally lock African American students into schools that have failed them for generations."

Really? Out of touch? Here's Bernie's plan; please read it and decide if he's out of touch, the way the charter school shills-- like Jonathan Chait-- are saying he is. "Our nation," he wrote, "used to lead the world in the percentage of young Americans with college degrees. We were number one. Today, we are number 11, behind countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Australia-- and that is not acceptable. And here is the simple truth: 40 or 50 years ago, in California and Vermont, virtually any place in America, if you received a high school degree, the odds were pretty good that you would be able to get a decent paying job, raise a family, buy a house, buy a car, all on one income. That was the world 40 or 50 years ago. But that is not the world we live in today. The world has changed, the global economy has changed, technology has changed, and education has changed. Over the past decade, states all over America have made savage cuts to education, while, at the same time, providing massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations in America. Our kids and our students are too important to cut back on education, especially when those cuts reduce educational opportunities for underserved students, students of color, low income students, LGBTQ students and students with disabilities."

In the twenty-first century, a free public education system that goes from kindergarten through high school is no longer good enough. If we are to succeed as a nation, public colleges and universities must be tuition free. Higher education should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few. That means we have got to make public colleges and universities tuition free and we must substantially reduce student debt. Each and every year, hundreds of thousands of bright and qualified young people do not get a higher education for one reason and one reason alone: their family lacks the income. That is unfair to those families; and it is it is unfair to the future of this country.

Instead of pursuing their dreams of being an environmentalist, a teacher, a social worker, or an artist, too many Americans end up taking higher-paying jobs on Wall Street or as accountants or as corporate managers simply to pay back their student loans. We need environmentalists. We need people to take care of the poor. We need health care providers to choose to work in community health centers. We need good teachers. Each and every American must be able to get the education they need to match their skills and fulfill their dreams.

In fulfilling those dreams, we must make teaching a highly attractive profession again. Teachers have one of the toughest and most demanding jobs in America. Teachers have been the leaders in the fight to improve public schools, reduce class sizes, and provide every student with books, computers and safe, high quality schools. What encourages me and gives me so much hope about the future is that teachers across the country are standing up and saying enough is enough! The wealthiest people in America cannot have it all, while public schools all over America are falling apart.

Over the past year, tens of thousands of teachers across the country have gone on strike to demand greater investment in public education. The wave of teacher strikes throughout the country provides an historic opportunity to make the investments we desperately need to make our public education system the best in the industrialized world, not one of the poorest.

Bernie’s education plan addresses the serious crisis in our education system by reducing racial and economic segregation in our public school system, attracting the best and the brightest educational professionals to teach in our classrooms, and reestablishing a positive learning environment for students in our K-12 schools. This plan calls for a transformative investment in our children, our teachers and our schools and a fundamental re-thinking of the unjust and inequitable funding of our public education system.

Universal school lunches and a $60,000 floor on teachers salaries, which Bernie proposed in his South Carolina speech today-- seem like a pretty good straight-forward idea too. Right? Where do you think the opposition to those two proposals will come from? Come on, take a guess. It's not a trick question. On a macro-level, it hasn't changed since the debate in the colonies on whether or not we should declare our independence. A third of the population opposed that. Many fought on the side of the colonial occupiers. Don't remember? Starts with con...

Sanders Supporters Begin to Abandon Clinton

Ignore Chris Matthews' aggressive pro-Clinton badgering. Focus on Turner's determination to keep her progressive powder dry ... for the moment.

by Gaius Publius

I'm not saying this is a trend ... yet ... and I'm presenting this just as news, not as something I do or do not want to happen.

Frankly, part of me is watching this drama with a novelist's fascination, or more accurately, with a novel reader's fascination. We're in the middle of one of those turning-point political stories — the fall of Athens perhaps, or the year Atilla showed up — where anything could happen, all of it seems to matter, and everything starts to point to a final transformational clash on a world-historical scale. Or at least so it seems.

As a result I'm riveted, and refuse to preference an outcome. For one thing, I have no idea what it would be best to want, outside of a Sanders presidency. None of the other outcomes seem ... well, easy to live through, to tolerate as a "shape of things to come." But who knows?

Too Many Possible Outcomes

There are way too many possible outcomes for this story. One of the possible outcomes of this watershed election season is a Clinton win against Trump in a two-person race, which will enable the neo-liberal ("we serve the educated 10%") Democratic consensus to keep control of their own party through the next four years, for better or worse. That outcome would also allow the billionaire ("we serve the .01%") Republican consensus to reassert control on their side of the aisle. (After that, I don't think the Republican consensus will come apart, but I think the Democratic Party could split, depending on what Clinton does as president.)

Another outcome is a three- or more likely, a four-person race — Clinton, Trump, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson — with the outcome (or outcomes) very much in doubt. I'll treat those hypotheticals separately.

In any case, the real deciders will be the mass of "radical independent" voters, who have control of the story this time around.

Sanders Tries to Lead the Flock to Clinton...

Let's assume that Sanders is sincerely trying to lead the people empowering the "Sanders political revolution" to support Clinton. (I've read plausible speculation that his motives may be multiple, including making sure that if she does still falter, in the polls or in the courts, he's now tied so closely to her that he's the only one next in line. Still, speculation.)

If Sanders is trying to lead the flock, how is he doing so far? With voters, not that well, though it's clearly early days. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, is polling above 3% nationally, and there's a fair amount of talk on Sanders-supporting social media about turning to her, and also about getting her above the controversial 15% polling threshold that would make her eligible for the presidential debates. Her star seems to be rising on Sanders media. If interest in her candidacy — and she's doing all she can to spark that interest — reaches critical mass, Clinton could have a problem. She's already on thin ice of her own in the polling, running roughly even with Trump in key battleground states at this point.

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, is polling above 5% nationally. We'll know soon enough if those numbers will increase as well.

...While Some of Sanders Leaders Are Defecting from Clinton

Which brings me to the part of the tale that just caught my eye. Within the last week or so, several of Sanders' strongest public supporters, including surrogate Dr. Cornel West, have respectfully but publicly declined to support Clinton, despite Sanders' decision to do so himself.

Cornel West, writing in The Guardian, starts with President Obama's decision to go to Dallas, but not Baton Rouge or Minneapolis, to address racial justice and killing (my emphasis throughout):

Obama has failed victims of racism and police brutality

The president and his cheerleaders refused to engage deeply with systemic problems facing our country. That came back to haunt America last week

A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy. We either hit it head on, or it comes back to haunt us. That’s why a few of us have pressed the president for seven years not to ignore issues of poverty, police abuse and mass unemployment. Barack Obama said it very well, following the shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, that some communities “have been forgotten by all of us”.

And now – in Dallas, Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and beyond – this legacy has comes back to haunt the whole country.

Obama and his cheerleaders should take responsibility for being so reluctant to engage with these issues. It’s not a question of interest group or constituencies. Unfortunately for so much of the Obama administration its been a question of “I’m not the president of black people, I’m the president of everyone.” But this is a question of justice. It’s about being concerned about racism and police brutality.

I have deep empathy for brothers and sisters who are shot in the police force. I also have profound empathy for people of color who are shot by the police. I have always believed deliberate killing to be a crime against humanity.

Yet, Obama didn’t go to Baton Rouge. He didn’t go to Minneapolis. He flew over their heads to go to Dallas. You can’t do that. His fundamental concern was to speak to the police, that was his priority. When he references the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s to speak to the police. But the people who are struggling have a different perspective. ...

Unfortunately, Obama thrives on being in the middle. He has no backbone to fight for justice. He likes to be above the fray. But for those us us who are in the fray, there is a different sensibility. You have to choose which side you’re on, and he doesn’t want to do that. Fundamentally, he’s not a love warrior. He’s a polished professional. Martin Luther King Jr, Adam Clayton Powell Jr and Ella Baker – they were warriors.

Which leads him to this reflection on neo-liberal notions of justice:

Obama’s attitude is that of a neo-liberal, and they rarely have solidarity with poor and working people. Whatever solidarity he does offer is just lip-service to suffering but he never makes it a priority to end that suffering.

Obama has power right now to enact the recommendations made after Ferguson. Better training, independent civilian oversight boards, body cameras. But he has not used executive orders to push any of these changes through.

This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein. I am with her – the only progressive woman in the race – because we’ve got to get beyond this lock-jaw situation. I have a deep love for my brother Bernie Sanders, but I disagree with him on Hillary Clinton. I don’t think she would be an “outstanding president”. Her militarism makes the world a less safe place.

Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., prominent black writer and intellectual leader (and frequent guest on the old Rachel Maddow AAR show), writes in Time:

My Democratic Problem With Voting for Hillary Clinton

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. | July 12, 2016

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., is the chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of Democracy in Black.

I'm turning my back on the party that turns its back on our most vulnerable

I am not voting for Hillary Clinton, regardless of her endorsement by Bernie Sanders. My decision isn’t because of the scandal around her emails or because of some concern over her character. My reasons are pretty straightforward. I don’t agree with her ideologically.

Democratic values centered on economic and racial justice shape my own politics. I’m not convinced those values shape hers. Nothing Clinton says or intends to do if elected will fundamentally transform the circumstances of the most vulnerable in this country—even with her concessions to the Sanders campaign. Like the majority of Democratic politicians these days, she is a corporate Democrat intent on maintaining the status quo. And I have had enough of all of them.

What has Clinton offered the American people as a substantive alternative to the status quo? How would her position on free trade, her view of foreign policy, on immigration, her call for “common sense policing” in the face of the murders of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge or Philando Castile in Minneapolis redirect our course as a nation? Transform the condition of black and brown communities?

Given the state of the country and of black and brown communities, these questions must be asked. But for many, especially for Clinton supporters, these questions reek of the unreasonableness of the American left or of people like me: that somehow to ask them reveals that we don’t understand the incremental nature of American politics or that we have crossed over into some forbidden realm of politics. ...

Will this trend continue? It's early days, as I said, but these events are important enough that I want to put them on your radar now. I don't expect Robert Reich, another Sanders surrogate, to follow Dr. West's lead, but you never know. I do have my eye on Nina Turner, however. Watch her again in the video above and decide if she'll ever drop her coin in the Clinton slot.

Maybe not. The mark of the Sanders campaign is its adherence to principle and policy, not personalities and candidates.

Playing God's Spy

This is a very rocky road, the one ahead. I don't envy any of these people the decisions they have to make. Me, in my chair by the window, I have only one decision between now and this November — try to keep you caught up on the unfolding drama played by better men and women than I.

As one of those better men once wrote:

So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—
Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out—
And take upon ’s the mystery of things
As if we were God’s spies.

Not sure there's much else for us to do. Those with real "agency" (as the kids say today) are the mass of Sanders supporters, the millions who turned out for him, plus the few with "names" who joined him in those stadiums offering public introductions and praise. We in the bleachers are relegated to a less prominent position — "God's spies."

As long as that's our role, we may as well watch.

GP