God bless, but minority progressives have been at this way longer than the Greens or the Sanders movement. They're latecomers. Most of Detroit voted for Clinton-- not Stein, not Sanders-- if neither run for any office again, fine by me. I don't represent either. I'm looking at Detroit and other urban centers. I'm very grown up, don't go there, come on now--
my gripes are in observing how cities like Detroit get treated economically, and how state and national campaigns frequently ignore urban centers or set up these areas as bogeymen. The big national names don't live on the ground here, they're not plugged into the struggles of inner-city culture. The policies they promote work the best for people who are already part of their own safely middle-class life.
conservatives have gradually pushed public policy off of a cliff for decades now, I get nothing out of the rhetoric that says these people are "a little misguided" or approaches that hyper-incrementalism is the only moral, "sane" purpose. hell no it's not. Circa the 2014 elections, I remember seeing Chuck Schumer openly lament at a town-hall style meeting that he wished that Dems hadn't pushed for the Affordable Health Care Act so hard and (paraphrasing) it "cost them" (votes). That was beyond bonkers to me, straight up. Throwing your own policy under a bus is not the way to build your brand. Dems have seen Republican takeovers coming for years, but collectively were more into appealing to middle class whites without being seen as going "too far" with more progressive ideas. Sanders/Stein have not been responsible for the takeovers in state assemblies in the 80s/90s/00s. We all know this. Jesse Jackson was the "Sanders" of the 1984 and 1988 election cycles, and he built up a much more organically multicultural coalition than Sanders. Obviously he didn't secure any final nominations. But for him to not be brought in as a VP candidate after the conventions was extremely short-sighted.
Tell people who have nothing that incrementalism is all that. it's not working, certainly not at the local level. I'm not talking about eventual "results". Make the attempt to be bold in your ideas, stop reflexively going with "well that's never going to work here so let's advocate for 10% of that and maybe the neo-cons won't cut it down to 1% by the time the negotiations with them are over". That's what I'm not trying to hear. Self-compromise to the point of absurdity. It makes no sense.
Why hasn't anyone with a national platform tried proposing a new Works Progress Administration initiative, or Civilian Conservation Corp? Talk about it publicly, don't just privately dismiss it. Openly defend affirmative action.
The dialogue that rampantly mentions "the middle class" but statistically does not remotely mention advocating for "the poor" nearly as much is grossly intellectually dishonest. I'm not hung up on a federal $15 minimum wage-- I seriously doubt it's coming anytime soon-- but it inspired grassroots efforts to advocate for better wages, work conditions.
State-based party infrastructure misses the boat with urban outreach. People aren't being educated on voting rights. People with no connection to the party apparatus are not being serviced with only threadbare acknowledgment of an imbalance in voting access in urban centers. Considering the census is coming in 2020 (not just the pres. election) I hope Dems are prepared to vigorously advocate for reform in the way that voting districts are drawn. Dems mostly keep losing at the state assembly level, and given that these bodies have the right to design voting districts, a lot of states are poised to have screwy-looking voting bloc maps again.
There is a hell of a lot of longstanding apathy in urban minority communities where they feel that they're simply not being listened to. TV appearances with Jay-Z, Mary J Blige., etc., don't accomplish this. You want to appeal to them? Hire them. Find the money. Get some hedge-fund/limousine liberals to set up a fund. Invite them to volunteer. State DNC managers, do more urban minority recruitment. cut back on sending well-meaning college-aged white kids to the 'hood to go door-knocking.
"Liberalism" as exemplified by the Clintons and their affiliations are certainly not the staunch Marxist ideologues that the conservative culture portrays them to be, but they are also not remotely the pinnacle of what can be done better in comparison. $1,000 a plate fundraising dinners mean nothing to people who can't afford that. You want to have those fundraisers, cool especially in this era of Citizens United. Then after that, go do an event where low-income folks get to talk with you and have dinner for free.
This is such a tough choice.
