Tag Archives: Bernie

Organizing in the Aftermath

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I first got involved in advocacy and political organizing during the 2004 presidential elections. People around me at that time, and one professor in particular introduced me to ideas that I hadn’t thought about before. I’m going to list them here and then share a little bit about what I think they mean in the context of President Trump’s inauguration and the incredible mobilization of demonstrators for the Women’s March that followed this past weekend. I hope this spurs a discussion here on GMD about what happens next in Vermont and beyond.

1. Civic Responsibility – Our political institutions are inherently adversarial and require a diversity of opinions and ideas to evolve.

2. Privilege – The special advantages that one group of people has that another does not are invisible to many of us, but are real and powerful.

3. Organizing – There is a difference between strategy and tactics. Effective communications, field work and fundraising require skills that can be taught. Learning how to effectively organize and mobilize people is the way to bring about change in a democracy.

My first reaction to the Women’s March was something like “Where the hell were all of these people last year?” I was running for a seat in the Vermont House (a race I narrowly lost) so I was deep in the thick of talking up Democratic candidates, attending and putting on events, making phone calls and knocking on hundreds of doors. Over and over I heard people say things that scared me about hating politics, hating all of the candidates and NOT voting. I heard longtime Democrats say they weren’t coming to help work at the campaign HQ because of what the Dems did to Bernie or because of one of Hillary Clinton’s scandals.

A lot of people who were mobilized by the 2008 Obama campaign (and even 2012) were MIA in 2016. Why didn’t people feel the same sense of civic responsibility? Some thought that there was no chance Trump would win. Some felt betrayed by the DNC and the Party’s (very predictable) resistance to a challenger from the outside in the form of Bernie Sanders. People weren’t excited about Hillary as a candidate in the same messianic way they were excited about Obama. So, they excused themselves from organizing and mobilizing and the leaders of the Democratic party, including Hillary Clinton, had no effective message to fire them up.

What does this have to do with Privilege? The first campaigns I worked on were about global access to health care, especially HIV/AIDS treatment. I felt (and initially had to be called out) when I was 19  that my privilege and the power it gave me obligated me to do what I could to advocate for people who did not have the same privilege and power. I still feel that sense of obligation and I feel strongest when I help lift up voices that aren’t as powerful as mine. I was proud to work with Migrant Justice to get Driver’s Privilege Cards for undocumented farm workers. I loved working on the campaigns of women who were running for State Senate.

A photo has gone viral that to me captured a troubling aspect of the difference in the acknowledgment and the manifestation of privilege between serious advocates and first-time demonstrators, not to mention between white and minority participants in the marches. If you were wearing a PussyHat and taking selfies, please don’t take offense. I’m glad you were out. Thanks for demonstrating. Just listen to what Angela Peoples had to say, too.

Angela Peoples holding sign (Kevin Banatte)

The people I was trained by when I was bird-dogging John Kerry and Howard Dean while they were running for President in 2004 taught me that good campaigns have a clear strategy. Our strategy in 2004 was to get the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria funding by raising the profile of global health issues during the presidential campaign. Our primary tactic was to bird-dog the candidates, showing up at every public appearance and asking whether they would Fund the Fund. We had a clear ask of all of the candidates that was directly connected to the accomplishment of our goal.

Marching and demonstrating is a tactic- not a strategy. I spent some time at womensmarch.com trying to figure out what the march was officially about. Friends and family have told me that it was about “being inspired”, “making voices heard”, “solidarity”, “protesting Trump’s illegitimate election”, “protecting reproductive rights” and a host of other reasons. I could not for the life of me find a single concrete “ask” on the website.

Angela Peoples, the woman in the photo with the sign said,

“[Fifty-three percent] of white women voted for Trump. That means someone you know, someone who is in close community with you, voted for Trump. You need to organize your people.” And some people said, “Oh, I’m so ashamed.” Don’t be ashamed; organize your people.

Angela Peoples knew why she was at the march. She wanted to be inspired and she wanted to guard against complacency. She recognized that the Women’s March had to be the beginning of something, not the end of something. The key to achieving any of the disparate and diverse goals of the marchers would be sustained organizing and engagement.

So are you ready to take responsibility for your part? Are you ready to exercise and protect the privileges that we have to speak, demonstrate and run for office? Are you ready to organize? Come to a meeting, bring your friends. Organize your people. It’s going to be a long four years and there’s plenty of work to do.

Is Judd Gregg really blind to socialism or just a fool in The Hill?

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New Hampshire’s former senator and governor Judd Gregg is menaced by socialism and worried, very worried about growing support for Bernie Sanders’ bid for president. I wonder what trigger threshold, visible only to financial industry lobbyists and certain Democratic pundits Bernie just reached.

In an opinion piece in The Hill titled: Sanders fans are blind to reality of socialism Gregg wonders where “a significant percentage of the Democratic ‘base’ is headed.”

chartdemos
Charts documenting Denmark’s socialist “hell”. [not from Gregg’s opinion piece]

Says Gregg in The Hill: Now large segments of the Democratic Party are embracing with gusto the socialist creed as carried forth by Sanders — and at a less dramatic level by the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Gregg suggests Sanders’ support comes from naive college age voters, schooled in the dark arts of socialism by professors who fail, he says to teach of “the horrors of socialism.”

They might start with the experience of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Notice the name. Or the National Socialist movement called Nazism. Notice the name again. Or Maoist China, a socialist state again in name. Millions of people died under these banners of socialism and millions more were impoverished.

Notice this name: The Securities Industry & Financial Marketers Association.  I imagine they wouldn’t welcome any extra scrutiny from Sen. Warren or a President Sanders and for years they paid Gregg millions to help avoid that possibility. Juddsifma

It is no secret but The Hill doesn’t bother to mention in his bio that most recently Gregg was not senator or governor but the CEO of the Securities Industry & Financial Marketers Association, an industry lobby group. SIFMA in 2014 spent $7,430,000 on lobbying, and made political contributions totaling $833,175.

Thankfully Gregg (or his ghostwriters; could he actually write this stuff?) doesn’t belabor the fascist/red baiting theme for more than a beat before trying a different angle. He evokes American exceptionlism and chants the holy names of the American hyper rich: Zuckerberg, Musk, Schultz, and Gates.

They all give America a unique economic edge in a competitive world. And they are all products of America, and our market economy.

Try to find such opportunity or such prosperity in a socialist nation.

Well Gregg might be shocked — shocked! — to learn that socialist Denmark has a rapidly rising number of dollar millionaires [individuals whose net wealth exceeds one million US dollars]. This in part is due to Danish stock prices increasing more rapidly than those in other European countries, according to a 2015 report on worldwide wealth patterns by the Royal Bank of Canada.  That’s a kicker — a growing number of millionaires and a thriving equities market in a nation where socialism has been allowed to run rampant!

 Some 69,000 Danes can proudly call themselves millionaires when measured in US dollars, reveals RBC’s annual World Wealth Report.

“[…] the Danish dollar-millionaire club is growing significantly faster than in most European countries. In 2011, there were only 45,600 Danes that fell into this category – a figure that has since risen by 51 percent.

“The number of dollar millionaires is rapidly rising,” Jacob Graven, chief economist at Sydbank, told Ekstra Bladet.

So Judd, who is going to tell all the Danes and their recent millionaires they are living and thriving in a socialist hell? Or maybe if he closes his eyes real tight, he can keep pretending they just don’t exist.

Bernie vs. Hillary: duelling meme’s in the dead of night

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Like many of our GMD readers, I was up late last night searching the intertubes for early
comments on Super Tuesday results.

If you are among our saner readers and simply went to bed, you might have missed a couple of contrasting blogposts that deserve greater attention.

The first, by Bernie supporter Cenk Uygur, appeared on HuffPost at 12:56 AM.

The piece focuses on a campaign narrative that I myself sensed was developing last night, but could not possibly have so well-articulated. It is well worth a read.

Hillary (predictably) won in all the deep southern states, but other than that, only Massachusetts went to her, and by the narrowest of margins.  Remember, despite all of her union endorsements, Hillary only scraped by in Nevada because the turnout was poor; and Iowa was a virtual tie.

This Tuesday, Bernie won in every state in which he actually spent some time letting people get to know him. The problem with Hillary’s southern wins is that in almost every case, Donald Trump outdrew her at the polls. . Those states aren’t even likely to be competitive; and when she lost to Bernie,  she lost big time.

In fact, in the states she won, Democratic turnout overall was down from the Obama years.

Her electoral delegate count looks impressive at this point, but so it did against Barack Obama.  The difference of course is that at this point in 2008, lots of super delegates were moving to Obama; but the super delegates are party loyalists like no others.  If they see that Hillary is not as likely as Bernie to win in the general, they will gradually begin to come around.

The second blogpost to consider is by Hillary supporter, Richard Wolffe, writing at 2:39 AM in the Guardian, presumably after reading Mr. Uygur’s earlier post.

I was not familiar with Mr. Wolffe’s reputation but was astonished by the ungracious tone. Mr. Wolffe seemed to have a major bug up his ass, making statements like

‘…it’s only a matter of time before Sanders stops perpetuating his own hoax and looks at the data of the delegate count.’

and

‘…“In Vermont,” Sanders explained, “billionaires don’t buy town meetings.” Well, they would be strange billionaires if they did.’

okay…

This is where all the dark energy goes in the really underground campaign…to seeding the ‘news’ shows, the blogosphere, Facebook and what-have-you with memes that favor your candidate. The Clinton’s are masters of that resource with an impressive network of seasoned operatives and powerful contacts.

What’s interesting is not so much the vitriolic and completely over-the-top attack Mr. Wolffe unleashes on Bernie, but the pushback in the comments section…all 3,282  of them!!   It’s a real reflection of those ‘unfavorable’ numbers we’ve seen for Clinton.

Somewhere in the first page of comments, I came across one that spelled out the connection of the writer to the Clinton campaign, something the casual reader wouldn’t know. Unlike Mr. Uygur, who wore his heart on his sleeve, Mr. Wolffe was not so transparent. Suddenly the angry tone of the article made perfect sense, and I read it in a new light.

Unfortunately, it would be a full time job spotting these things and where they come from.

To Hillary: as if it matters

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Piece of advice, Hillary?

Lose the Silver Fox with his foot in his mouth.

Allowing Bill Clinton to lash himself to your campaign did you no favor in 2008. This year, its an even worse idea.

As everyone within shouting distance knows, I am a HUGE Bernie Sanders supporter.

Nevertheless, I recognize Hillary’s competence and experience. If, after a fair primary season, she is the nominee, I will support her.

That being said, I never liked Bill and am liking him less every time he opens his mouth.

What Hillary has to understand is that many Bernie supporters don’t dislike her; but this is despite her husband, who falls just a little to the left of George Bush in the greater scheme of things.  He does nothing to burnish her progressive credentials, if that’s as important to her as it seems to be.

Worse than Monica Lewinsky, he gave us NAFTA and “Don’t ask, don’t tell”…which probably was his personal motto.

Under Boyfriend Bill, the rich got still richer and the myth of American exceptionalism was on steroids.

If it’s all about summoning some sort of racial divide based on voting habits from twenty years ago, that seems more than a little demeaning to minority voters who are, after all, individuals  whose lives have been shaped, much like everyone else’s have, by events and emerging issues from the intervening years.

Please Hillary, PLEASE: send the big boy home.

He will be toxic for your campaign and, by extension, the whole Democratic party.

Tales from the Trail: Bernie NH Canvass

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I went down I89 and crossed over into the full swing of primary election GOTV insanity today. I rode into Claremont with my friend Nick, who happens to be managing Matt Dunne’s campaign for Guv. I’m proud of Matt for being one of the few Vermont pols to endorse our hometown hero. He’s walking the walk too, knocking on doors during the last push before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

I teamed up with a Claremont local volunteer and went to work. At this stage the campaign is totally focused on turning out likely Sanders supporters, so the doors we were hitting were almost entirely friendly, if not enthusiastic.

One guy I spoke with was reluctant to tell me who he was supporting, but by the end he admitted he would be voting for Bernie in this, his first, primary. I guess there’s some truth to the notion that Bernie has the millennial vote locked up.

There were more than a few voters who would qualify for a senior citizens discount on my list, and many of them shook my hand and thanked me for helping Bernie win. One guy sent me across the street to talk with his son, and they both said that the primary was “serious business” and they’d be voting for Bernie on Tuesday.

At the field office, Franklin county native Lindsay Hunn and her sister Claire were  checking in volunteers and cutting turf for canvassers. It’s not surprising that  Bernie is doing so well in NH when some of the best field organizers from Vermont are staffing the campaign. Great to see them rocking it.

I’m hoping to take Tuesday off to hit the doors again on Election Day. Ain’t democracy beautiful?