Those Contradictions Won’t Heighten Themselves!
Verbatim Susan Sarandon: ““Really [I may not vote for Clinton],” Sarandon said, adding that “some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in, things will really explode.”
Shorter Susan Sarandon. “Tell you what. I’ll take a big tax cut. Many of you can take loss of access to safe abortion, any possibility of civil rights enforcement and the loss of your health insurance, just for starters. My theory is that the American political economy would become just like Denmark’s in 2021. If I’m wrong I owe you a Coke.”[Note: debt may not be honored.]
Susan Sarandon saying dumb shit is totally to be expected. But why is the Sanders campaign using her as a surrogate? Feels like amateur hour.
Next election cycle, I’m going to set up a surrogate certification program.
I’ll train surrogates to say exactly the right things in a 30 minute webinar, followed by a short quiz. If the candidate pays extra, I’ll throw in an add-on course for specific issues.
I’ll make millions! And the scam should last for a while… when is someone going to admit that they went through a training program and still said something stupid?
Your problem is – when is anyone who would be of value as a surrogate going to admit that they might actually need some training?
Also, too many ‘surrogates’ are happy to say their dumb things totally free.
And none of them realize or admit that what they say IS dumb.
It’s outreach to a valuable segment of the electorate — dumb people.
I would say this is one area where the Clinton camp is in no position throw stones. (Although, to be Scrupulously Fair, at least this cycle has been relatively Lady Forester de Rothschild free.)
One of the interesting things about election cycles is the faster loops for media. Back in the dark days before the intertubes, the outrage was the outrage of the week. Then came blogging and the outrage of the day. Now with twitter it’s the outrage of the hour and it’s almost pure noise.
I still have no idea what it takes to cut through the noise and make it to the outrage of the day. And I don’t know if we’re ever going to get back to the outrage of the week.
It has led me to care a lot less about what surrogates say in general. I’m still annoyed by campaign managers saying terrible things, but those people are also easier to train on message discipline.
Where is Sarandon registered to vote? NY? CA? Do you really think the Democrats will lose either state in November, regardless of what Sarandon does personally?
She matters as a public surrogate, not because of her own vote.
She can sway a couple of hundred thousand votes in CA and NY alone? Interesting.
Why are you so obsessed with New York and California alone?
Nobody except you is talking about those states, Phil.
I had no idea that MSNBC was broadcast only in NY and CA.
Don’t know if you know this, but we get MSNBC out here in the swing states.
If Susan Sarandon isn’t joined on the air by a bunch of her friends in the coming months, this likely won’t be such a big deal. But we’re going to have enough trouble with celebrities coming from the right to endorse the Donald.
They picked Cornell West, too. Both West and Sarandon have some some value on the fringe, and both are unlikely to broaden your appeal. I do think this is evidence of amateur hour.
Well, ‘Killer’ Mike wasn’t exactly a professional choice,either.
Ralph Nader is dead to me
One of those times we liberals have to grit our teeth and remember that we don’t actually care about the politics of “liberal” entertainment figures.
I figure the number of people whose voting preferences are influened by movie stars approaches zero.
I’m not saying no entertainers have any influence — talk shows hosts probably have at least some, because of the nature of their shows — but I think the specific category of “actor” isn’t going to have any clout at all with Jane or Joe Voter.
Since “talk shows” these days = partisan, polarized, often hateful gabfests, I think the only influence the host/ess may have is in intra-party (primary) disputes. Nobody that listens to Rush or Hannity is going to vopte for HRC anyway.
I’m not sure a movie star will flip a voter from Candidate A to Candidate B, but a movie star may be able to mobilize a person who prefers Candidate A to actually go out and vote for Candidate A. A movie star can also help reinforce pre-existing preferences.
I have a co-worker who leans heavily into Bernie-or-bust territory and who this morning referred very approvingly to Sarandon’s video. Sarandon didn’t cause him to go Bernie-or-bust, but her comments constitute one more brick of support in his belief structure.
I have a friend flirting with this territory, who replied to a critical posting of this story with, “Do you think Bush’s disastrous eight years paved the way for Obama?” I suspect this legend of heightened contradictions working exists at the core of Creeping Naderism.
that requires no teeth gritting whatsoever. I don’t care, or care to know, the political leanings of entertainment figures I enjoy watching. If they’re on the left it has no effect on me, and if they’re on the right it tends to spoil my enjoyment of their performances. It’s even worse if they go off into tinfoil lala land.
This. I occasionally pay money for some of these people to provide a certain kind of diversion — music or acting or some other performance. I care about them only to the extent that they provide that particular service. Outside their narrow fields of expertise they have no interest to me.
Right. Athletes, too.
Their celebrity gets them attention, after that it’s up to them to make a persuasive argument. I think Colbert managed that sometimes, I think Muhammad Ali had an impact, half of standup is political nowadays. It’s not futile to speak your mind but it’s pretty rare that actors are great at it.
Kevin Sorbo’s nuttery diminishes my ability to enjoy Hercules, although I concede it probably shouldn’t.
I’m really fed up with these folks. How did they get infected by the libertarian crazies?
Too much money. At a certain point it seems one crosses a financial Event Horizon and the moral compass starts spinning in circles.
Nicely put.
Isn’t amazing that the people who want to contradictions the most are the people that will be less hurt by it?
On a less sarcastic note, it is warming that a wealthy white woman can be just as self-interested as a wealthy white man. Calvinistic egalitarianism strikes again.
Affluent people vote more often than do the less well off. Of course, most non-voters don’t speak of heightening the contradictions, but then, neither does Sarandon. The Daily Beast headline and dek are deeply misleading — something SL would probably bother to notice in the absence of the temptation to beat his favorite drum.
I was gratified that Chris Hayes did specifically use the phrase “heighten the contradictions” when pushing Sarandon on her stance. She appeared to accept that characterization.
I’m sold that someone who spouts that sort of thing is either:
1) Like Saradon, rich enough that they will be insulated (or believe they will be); or
2) Has nothing to lose (or thinks they don’t).
I can muster a little bit of sympathy for the latter. A little.
Thing is, we don’t hear from them much, ’cause they don’t write stupid op-eds for Salon and suchlike. We hear lots from #1s.
Speaking of heightening the contradictions… seems to me the GOP has been doing an excellent job of that and yet we have yet to achieve liberal utopia.
You know who else didn’t believe in heightening contradictions? Hitler!
Just saying……
It wasn’t until recently reading a history of pre 1933 Germany that I understood what that actually meant – whenever there was a vote of no confidence in the Reichstag those challenging the government of the moment could always count on the members of two parties – the Communists and the National Socialists.
The official position of the KPD was that the Social Democrats were “Social Fascists”, who were actually worse than the actual fascists because they were so insidious. So they marched merrily on the path to their own destruction.
After Hitler, our turn.
which .. happened. If not how they envisaged
The SPD’s role in putting down the revolutions of 1918/1919 left pretty damn deep scars.
I saw a picture floating around of Susan Sarandon campaigning in 2000 for…Ralph Nadar.
/end thread
If you want to misspell it, use Nadir.
…I didn’t want to misspell it :(, sometimes I just suck at spelling.
We only objected because the historical Nadar is an interesting figure (see the awesome Rossini portrait, for example).
Invented aerial photography, IIRC. With balloons.
Not just that – the article Scott linked to above reminded me that she was a chairwoman on his National Steering Committee in 2000. She was fully into the depths of the Nader campaign and yet didn’t learn any lessons from it at all.
Whenever I think about people complaining that Scott beats the dead horse of Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign too much around here, I’m reminded that far, far too many people who should effing know what the lessons of that debacle should have been just refuse to learn. Sarandon is clearly one of them.
Correct. And it’s for the reasons we all know – she, like the Salon writers, is insulated from the results of their choices. It’s all so selfish.
And yet she hasn’t learned any lesson at all if she thinks that voting Trump is somehow an option for advancing the causes she claims to want advanced.
I think this is just a period of emotional turmoil for a bunch of Sanders supporters who both really thought he had a chance to win, and was even the favorite, and also have steadfastly resisted every sign that they’re not THE BASE but, rather, a pretty small segment of the Democratic Party.
If you want less war, elect a democrat. If you want big anti-war rallies, elect a republican.
Ooh, ooh, do we get to build puppets? That sounds like a lot more fun than doorknocking for the local State House rep or whoever appoints the next redistricting board. And I’m sure it will have more long term impact on governance!
“On the downside, many more people will die. On the upside, more Uncle Sams on stilts.”
What could be more upside than people on stilts? They’re way up high!
Wow, that’s terrific.
On the downside aging anti Vietnam war protesters will tell us all over again how modern protesters are doing all wrong.
And Freddie Deboer will tell the aging hippies how even they were doing it wrong.
What’s sauce for the gays is sauce for the hippies, kind of thing?
mmmmm gay goose sauce
Most of the geese I encounter are morose.
Sounds like a step up to me.
Most of the ones I encounter around our pond are vicious.
Ugh. The only species I support the complete extirpation of (to include a thorough audit of all homes to ensure DNA is not retained in the form of feathers).
Fake Edit 1: Well, geese and the Falmer from Skyrim (seriously, fuck those guys).
Fake Edit 2: And the jews, obviously.
Fake Edit 3: “Among those species that I support the extirpation of are… …I’ll come in again.”
The vodka road not taken. I admire your restraint.
Vodka corrupts, Absolute Vodka corrupts absolutely.
Be fair, Scott: there are only so many puppet Oresteias mounted in a given year, so most of those guys haven’t been able to get a gig since 2004-2005.
I dunno, there’s plenty of crap to deal with at the local level too. For example: everything the Scott Walker administration has done to my beautiful home state of Wisconsin since taking office. But yeah, there is a core (corps?) of committed protesters whose identity seems to be wrapped in marches and vigils and protesting the injustice of the hour. And I support them here in Wisconsin, because we agree on most of the issues, but at some point it does become exhausting.
Bravo.
I actually have seen the Peter Arnott puppet Oedipus, Bacchae, and Antigone.
They were spectacular.
I do like Sanders (full disclosure: I like Clinton more), but some of his supporters remind me of those right wing types who are willing to see things get very bad because it hastens the apocalypse.
Those right wing folks at least have a peculiar chapter of the Bible to blame for their wacky worldview.
I think that to some people the thought process goes something like:
* Things are broken
* Fixing them is slow and hard
* It would be easier to burn it all down and start from scratch
* Let’s do the easier thing, because the hard thing sounds difficult/boring/slow/not possible in my lifetime
I can see the appeal, in that I can often see the appeal of not wanting to put the effort into making a change that you might not see results for in your lifetime, but it’s an ugly attitude in a lot of ways.
It’s not like burning everything down might not work in some sense. Germany after the war turned into a much more liberal progressive state than at any time before the war. But a lot of stuff and people went up in the smoke. It really behooves people to try to find a better way towards securing a higher minimum wage.
The cockroaches have been patiently waiting for their turn as the planet’s dominant species.
patiently? where do you think all those extra republican votes come from?
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
-Churchill
I don’t even know if “burning it all down” is what would happen, metaphorically.
The 49ers were very prepared for a players’ strike in the NFL one of the times it happened. Perhaps even illegally so,having scouted replacement players and maybe more. I just imagine some crapsack team then saying “let’s blow it all up cos there’s not gonna be a Super Bowl!”
And the Niners won plenty of games and went deep into the playoffs that year.
The pukefunnel of, say, ALEC lege crap isn’t gonna stop by writing in any name in November. ALEC and the Federalist crackpots aren’t blowing anything up.
They’ve done a pretty good job demolishing The American Dream…
Is there someone out there with a Marshall Plan for us?
Nein. A martial plan, maybe.
Has anyone ever seen the animated movie Home?
If we get offered that deal, I say we take it.
Um, if you mean the 2nd war, yeah. The “war to end all wars”, not so much.
That was in fact what I meant. After the Great War, German militarism reinforced itself in a self pitying conflagration of butt hurt.
I have never heard of such a thing!
Yeah, burning it all down and starting from scratch worked out so well in Iraq, I can see why people want to try it here.
Evidence that rebuilding on the ashes is actually easy, fast and or non-boring is sadly lacking.
But you DO get to burn things down, so that I guess has entertainment value.
I have made a point this year of asking my “Bern It All!!!!*” Facebook friends this year “when you burn everything down, what do you say to the people who can’t escape the flames?”
*apologies for the bad pun.
Good lord are Sander supporters on Facebook annoying. Posting pictures of Sanders’ rallies and wondering how the DNC is fixing the election because he isn’t winning in a landslide counts as deep political analysis to them.
The dialectic can be some people’s Bible…
Yes! “Once we get all the Jews to Israel, the anti Christ will start his war and everyone will die, bringing Jesus back to Earth…happy days!!!”
the world doesn’t effect Susan Sarandon
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/susan-sarandon-net-worth/
The effects of time affect her affect just as effectively as they do anyone else, however. Time the Avenger.
I really liked her in Bull Durham.
What worries me about liberals and leftists (well, I guess just leftists) who talk about Trump being in office kicking off “the revolution”… what the fuck is it about the GOP in the past 50 years that didn’t through to you how eager they would be to start… “the reaction”?
(My first version read “The Reactionary Reaction”, but that kinda sounded like a band name.)
I expect it’s mostly along the lines of trying to figure out how to not vote for Clinton in the general election. I’ve seen similar arguments from Sanders supporters on how Trump doesn’t really mean he’s rhetoric or he’ll be good on trade deals or he’s an isolationist who will try to avoid war.
I also expect it will go away after the primary is over. Clinton-Obama in 2008 was much worse rhetorically and there were more angry Clinton supporters (I think the peak number being cited is 50% of Clinton supporters saying they wouldn’t vote for Obama in June). And then the party unified pretty easily. It won’t take much to break the anti-Clinton echo chamber. Once Sanders is no longer a candidate, people will start to have discussions about Trump and the Republican party… and oh yeah, how awful they are.
Yes, but women threatening to not vote for Obama might have inspired McCain to select Palin as his running mate. Do we want the Republicans to pick another Palin this time around?
Considering how well that worked the last time, yes we do.
No, really Republicans, nothing terrifies me more or is more likely to attract liberal voters than an incoherent twit whose speeches are so bad SNL can make jokes simply by quoting them directly.
If trump and the opossum on his head is actually the nominee, they can pick Rowdy Roddy Piper or Ron Jeremy for all it matters.
He’d have to settle for Zombie Roddy Piper.
I dunno, Ron Jeremy is kinda beloved by some, and seems to be a nice guy. He would balance a ticket led by a man who merely acts like a big dick.
“Short hands” Trump isn’t about to lose to Ron Jeremy in that contest!
Trump is the Palin this time around.
“A violent backlash makes a revolution 22% more likely to succeed.”
That’s a direct quote from one of my Bernie-or-ELSE acquaintances. She’s a professional revolutionary – teaches revolution/protest tactics to folks who go on to start Arab Spring or Umbrella Revolution-type movements. And she has all sorts of studies about what makes successful vs. unsuccessful revolutions.
The only thing she cares about is the numbers. Revolutionaries don’t care that that “22% more likely to succeed” is the result of dead innocents.
Not only are they well aware that the GOP would start “the reaction” – they are just as eager to have it happen.
22% is a very specific number. Did she polish it after pulling it out of her ass?
The Mythbusters proved that you can in fact shine a turd.
On the meaning of “shorter” as opposed to “verbatim”: “shorter” means “in fewer words”. It doesn’t mean “an assy paraphrase that I make up to support what I think”.
You are clearly not aware of all internet traditions.
To be fair, I’m not sure that “shorter” is really what Sarandon meant, though I admit that I don’t know what her beliefs are.
Of course that’s not what she meant. It’s true, though, and I rather doubt the fact that she’s heavily insulated from the potential harm done by a GOP win has nothing to do with her takes on the issues.
I am guessing she is rather low on self-awareness.
She was speaking, apparently (to be clear), for people who are predicting they’d be in the streets bringing the revolution themselves that Wednesday, if Trump won, and that lots of other people would be there with them (possibly including Sarandon, possibly not?). So it wouldn’t matter, we’d never get Trump policies, because Trump would magically take us right from step 1 to step 3. (You know who else was going to take a country right from step 1 to step 3?)
Though since there was less social media in 2000 I’m only really aware of her insistence that believing a feminist should support a woman candidate is not part of what she considers “feminism,” so I’m also assuming she holds to a Hollywood version of feminism that includes the idea that women can only get jobs if they’re conventionally feminine, pretty and deferential to powerful men.
Here’s the problem with this idea – if Trump wins, that means that he has a majority of the country behind him. Even if he somehow won an electoral college victory that wasn’t a popular majority, absent evidence of shennanigans, he would still have most of the country saying “he won the election so he’s the president – that’s how the system works”.
I don’t see a mechanism where Trump becomes president and suddenly a majority of the country takes up arms to “take their country back”.
Okay, but remember I didn’t say it, Sarandon did, and I’m the one putting her on the hook for saying it instead of pretending she said something more in her own self-interest (financially and in terms of reputation).
Maybe she means that Trump’s supporters would wage “revolution” in favor of Trump.
Only because of false consciousness. A moment’s mature reflection, they’d back Bernie.
I think to some people who agree with Sarandon, it will be “obvious” that Trump doesn’t have a majority of the country, because he will have only won because the Sanders supporters who voted for him.
My reading on Sarandon is that what she thinks she’s saying there is that George W Bush wasn’t a terrible enough president to destroy the country enough to bring about REVOLUTION! But if Trump becomes president then finally the sheeple will wake up and realize how bad things are and they will throw off their false consciousness and embrace a radically leftist or socialist agenda.
What comes across is more like what Scott posted – “I’m a person who doesn’t have to think about the consequences of the politics I’m promoting because I’m very rich and, if it gets really bad, I can move to the UK or Canada or France and be fine.”
I’m curious why. Do we just pretend the phrase “bring the revolution immediately” isn’t there, because people’s actions count, but their reasons and what they say about their actions are only rationalizations?
But s/he clearly is aware of all traditions from the far off land of Pedantia.
It doesn’t bother me that the “shorter” is longer, but it sort of bothers me that the “verbatem” contains a paraprase in brackets.
Even if they were right and the election of Trump caused people to rise up in violent revolution to overthrow the government….this is desirable? Lots of people may die in a revolution. And they can sort of get out of hand and end up in places you didn’t expect/desire…
Yeah, the last time a presidential election caused a large number of Americans to take up arms against the state, it was pretty horrific.
Looks to me like a reminder that Hillary Clinton and the DNC need to put some thought into how to win the votes of the harder-core 1/5-1/3 of Sanders supporters.
Without whom they can’t win the White House or Senate.
Or that Sarandon herself is kind of a political idiot.
I mean, Clinton should be thinking about how to win over Sanders supporters – largely probably by having Sanders campaign with her to get them on board. But what Susan Sarandon says or how she votes in November is not really representative for the mass of Sanders supporters who are not as rich as Sarandon is.
Actually, what Sarandon said was about other people. Scott’s “Shorter” isn’t what she said.
But you know, whether she’s an idiot or floating a balloon, the significance is the same.
Clinton should be thinking about how to win over Sanders supporters – largely probably by having Sanders campaign with her to get them on board.
This perfect expression of the most arrogant, condescending (both to the candidate and his supporters) possible way to think about how Clinton should appeal to Sanders supporters is luckily not how Hillary Clinton will think about it. This si coming from someone who generally gives Hillary Clinton none too much credit for political acumen.
She should just “have him” campaign with her. Like he’s her employee. My god.
Yeah. That’s the wishful thinking from Clinton supporters I talked about here.
If Hillary wants Sanders supporters to vote for her and vote for the party in sufficient numbers to deliver the White House and the Senate, he’s going to have to keep campaigning as himself, not as her surrogate, and push, at least to some audiences, a “hold your nose and vote” message.
This isn’t 2008, when the primary was mainly about who could spread the same message more effectively. There are meaningful differences this time, and it’s going to take some actual coalition politics, which isn’t the same thing as unity politics.
Yes. Some basic differences are being missed here.
I think we view the meaning of Sanders’ recently joining the party a bit differently, so YMMV. And it isn’t the main reason for what you say there at all. But I think it’s an indicator of the power dynamic. I think the party has broadly sort of viewed his erstwhile independence as something they’re in a position to forgive him for. In fact, he was just making the basic necessary move to make clear he was not looking to splinter the left in the general. But his priorities really do depart from mainstream Democratic Party priorities and interests, and I believe that is going to make the process of integrating his support much more complicated than it was for Obama with Clinton. After all, Clinton in ’08 even after Obama clinched was still the leading figure of the Democratic establishment, and certainly was looking ahead to a major role in the party going forward. It’s at least a question how Sanders views his future in the Democratic Party (or how he view the Democratic Party itself) going forward.
All this talk (it seems to be in every column about the Dem race for the last two weeks) about how Sanders “will surely support Clinton” in the general is both strictly true, and also very blithe about the process that will be necessary to arrive at that outcome.
Meh, Sanders is in a position to take on a major profile in the Senate and lead a decent sized element of the party electorate, all of which would be blown up if he toyed around with the idea of not supporting the nominee. Plus it’s pretty clear that Sanders thinks the GOP must be stopped as a first priority. I think there’s no chance at all he doesn’t play ball once the primary season is over.
Oh, sure. What we’re talking about is how he plays ball.
They’re going to have to pitch him something.
Perhaps the most useful thing Sanders could do after the convention is say a few nice things about Clinton and concentrate his efforts on down-ticket campaigns. Clinton can probably win the general election without much active support from Sanders. She might not have long coattails.
If Sanders helps elect Democrats to the House and Senate, he strengthens the progressive faction of the party, makes it easier for HRC to get her appointments confirmed, and means that some of those Senators and Reps will owe him favors, which will make a difference on foreign affairs and trade policy.
This is also the course that keeps Sanders from looking like a sellout to his base or a traitor to centrist Democrats.
Is there any doubt that Sanders will be on board if Clinton wins? He’s not the problem here (not that you said that he was) – it’s some of his noisy and evidently insane supporters.
You’ve got to be kidding. There is nothing she says that is believable, because she lies all the time. Why should anyone who supports Sanders, support Clinton? The assumption here is that Sanders makes Clinton more honest, more liberal. But she is conservative, and it is simply a given that she has no intention whatsoever to honor anything she says now as an ersatz liberal.
She’s part of the problem. People are sick of dynastic politics and establishment condescension. No. With HRC, the Democratic Party takes its voters for granted.
Saying she has no intention of honoring what she says ignores the nature of coalition politics. Politicians in Washington take the deals they cut among themselves very seriously, if only because they want to be taken seriously when they cut deals in the future.
I’ll tell you why we should support Clinton:
To stop Donald Trump.
To get Bernie Sanders some power over Hillary’s appointments and legislative agenda.
Because a Republican victory shuts down the political revolution cold. We’ll be laying down on railroad tracks just to prevent open-season by the police.
Because the mainstream of the Democratic Party reacts to defeat in presidential elections by lurching to the right. Like the DLC being formed after Dukakis, or Jimmy Carter being nominated after McGovern.
There’s a lot more to think about than Hillary Clinton here.
How many Valuable Pedant Points do I earn for pointing out that the DLC was formed in response to Mondale’s 1984 defeat?
At least some!
Right you are, founded in 1985. I could have sworn it was ’89.
Woo hoo! Show us your wits!
“wjts”. My username is “wjts”.
T’ain’t what the bear is asking for.
I read it as a Mardi Gras beads joke.
Pronounced “widgets”, I assume.
That’s just Dutch for wits.
Fine, no beads for you then.
All the reasons are good, but I wanted to emphasise this. (I’ve also pointed this out in the past.)
The second best, and it’s a very good second best, outcome for Bernie and Bernie supporters is that Clinton wins with Bernie and his supporters as reliable allies after a close, but largely cordial, primary. (First best, obviously, is winning the primary and the election. Very bad is winning the primary and losing the election.)
We’ll have some direct influence now, and be well set up for future races. If we can figure out how to get turnout for midterms up, then all sorts of interesting things can happen.
From your keyboard to God’s ears. Some influence is better than none. This is the way adults function.
But she is conservative
This is idiotic.
But she’s more conservative than a not-insignificant part of the Democratic Party’s membership, which surely means she’s exactly as conservative as anyone currently in the Republican race, no?
Well, you’re basically conservative, so, unsurprising response.
Her whole approach to the economy is conservative. She has a history that tends to be socially conservative. She’s no friend to American workers, based on her craven support for everything from NAFTA to TPP. She’s absolutely hostile to the environment in her support for Keystone, fracking. She is a hideous war monger. She’s conservative.
Nah, she’s a squishy liberal who’s spent too much time surrounded by big-money guys.
She not in any way part of modern conservatism or the conservative movement. She’s an opponent of theirs.
Squishy. I can’t believe I’m going to vote for her. I don’t blame other people for not voting for her. I don’t think Susan Sarandon is stupid.
Well, you’re basically conservative
[cites omitted]
Her whole approach to the economy is conservative
Based on the political center of gravity in Sweden? Sure. Based on the American one? Pure nonsense.
She has a history that tends to be socially conservative
This is even dumber.
Your support for HRC, and some of the stupid things you said about Sanders (he’s a terrible candidate, for example). You’re a mainstream liberal.
She is an intellectual prostitute for Wall Street finance banking. Grotesque.
She is completely unprincipled when it comes to opposing any kind of cultural status quo.Bruce Reed, who should know, has said she is socially conservative. For example, she basically opposed same-sex marriage until 2013, for fuck’s sake.
and some of the stupid things you said about Sanders (he’s a terrible candidate, for example)
[cites omitted]
You’re a mainstream liberal.
Leaving aside whether or not this is true, so not a “conservative”?
Bruce Reed, who should know, has said she is socially conservative.
This remains incredibly dumb.
For example, she basically opposed same-sex marriage until 2013, for fuck’s sake.
Pretty much like Barack Obama, whose Supreme Court nominees — who are exactly like the ones Hillary Clinton would have appointed — provided the crucial votes to overturn DOMA and same-sex marriage bans. What an amazing coincidence.
Heighten the coincidences!!!
The only thing I remember you ever having to say about Bernie Sanders is that he was a bad candidate, before he was certainly not. You consistently supported HRC. I haven’t met any leftists who prefer HRC over Sanders. I don’t think you are a leftist – I think you are a DNC mainstream liberal/Political Heideggerian. You always find the center that you seek.
How do you know she would appoint the same justices? You don’t know that.
So many bare assertions, with no evidence whatsoever, because you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Political Heideggerian
I may regret this, but here goes:
What the fuck is a “political Heideggerian”? without context I’d say “Nazi” because, well, you know, but that doesn’t seem to be quite what you’re going for here. (Can one simultaneously be a conservative, mainstream liberal, and Nazi?)
“The only thing I remember you ever having to say about Bernie Sanders is that he was a bad candidate, before he was certainly not. ”
This is hilariously silly for a number of reasons. Bernie Sanders is clearly a bad candidate for President. He’s never been an official member of the party whose nomination he’s seeking until last year. He’s apparently never really thought about running before, and hasn’t spent any time building relationships and networks of national support outside of his home constituency. Similarly, he hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about issues outside of his principle focus, and struggles to talk about them in debates and other formats where he’s challenged on them. None of that is to say he’s a bad guy, or even a bad Senator, but it does, in fact, make him at least a below average Presidential candidate.
And yet, he’s doing really well anyway! It should be an encouraging sign that Sanders is doing so well despite his many obvious shortcomings as a candidate. Future candidates from the left end of the party spectrum should be optimistic about their chances if they can combine Sanders’ progressive outlook with more traditional campaign strengths.
Comrade Das Deng Dengt.
This comment is the mirror image of the “Obama is a terrible politician because doesn’t fire up the progressive base” comments we used to laugh at from the fire baggers in 2009-2012. It’s an exercise in projecting one’s own opinions onto the larger electorate, and in defining one smallish segment of the pluralistic Democratic coalition as “the base.”
Bernie Sanders came from low-single digits to within low-single-digits against the most strongly-positioned primary candidate in American politics history. There is no longer any space to claim he is bad as a candidate.
What reasons are we giving to believe Sanders is a bad candidate? Why, because he is unimpressive to the writer himself, has not devoted himself sufficiently to making appeals to the faction of Democrats to which the writer himself belongs, and emphasizes an issue set that the writer himself doesn’t get enthused by.
It’s FDL all over again.
This is excellent trolling.
“She is an intellectual prostitute for Wall Street finance banking.”
Someone didn’t get the memo that BernieBros don’t exist.
FDR, LBJ and Obama would all bill themselves as “mainstream liberals” and look what they managed to get done. It isn’t nearly the insult you want it to be
And given the self identified “leftists” running around the internet…dear god I’ll get a “Liberal” tattoo on my forehead before I identify with those people.
Seriously. Pro-choice, anti-racism, pro-children’s interests…
Political Heideggerian – he just sort of roles with the zeitgeist.
In any case, why would anyone who is a leftist prefer HRC to Sanders? I read the blog. Prof. Lemieux supports HRC. He has, to my knowledge, never defended Sanders.
The More You Know.
Scott is:
1) A Conservative
2) A Mainstream Liberal; and
3) A Political Heideggerian “he just sort of rolls with the zeitgeist.”
He apparently contains multitudes.
“Political Heideggerian” – is that like a Kantian Nihilist?
Amateur philosophy has killed more people than amateur brain surgery, dude. I’d strongly recommend you give it a fucking rest, and not just ejaculate random words you think sound impressive. OK?
Man, I ain’t seen slothrop in ages. Is it Old Trolls Week here at LGM?
He’s been in all the Sanders/Clinton threads for months now.
Because Hillary Clinton will govern in a manner that is far closer to the policy preferences of Bernie Sanders than any other remaining non-Bernie Sanders candidate?
The assumption is not that Bernie makes her more honest, or awakens True Liberalism in her heart. It’s that if she has to secure her left flank, she cannot actually “shake the etch-a-sketch” and BETRAY! BETRAY! BETRAY! There will absolutely be some betrayals, just as there were from Obama. And, even if she turns out to be a liberal rock, the fact of the GOP House (at minimum) remains. But this idea that she’s just going to reverse herself on everything is silly.
Hillary Clinton is not a Conservative. She’s a liberal-to-centrist, depending on the issue. She actually wants to govern. She is, mostly likely, still a “triangulator” but what people can miss about that is that it’s not all bad. Things have changed since the 90s. Triangulation today won’t have the same results as in, say, 1995.
Because Hillary Clinton will govern in a manner that is far closer to the policy preferences of Bernie Sanders than any other remaining non-Bernie Sanders candidate?You don’t know this! She’s such a liar, that there is no way to really know how she would govern. All we have to go by is who buys her – she’ll do whatever she can for financiers and pharmaceuticals and other evil assholes, and she will get her war on, and on, and so forth.
Ok, man.
In case anybody cares about exactly why I think this is so ridiculous, you are actually claiming that me saying Clinton is closer to Sanders than Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich is questionable.
Bernie Sanders is to the left of Hillary Clinton on many issues. This does not make her Attila the Hun.
Hillary Clinton is not my favorite politician. I don’t like her FP instincts, in particular, and I think Bernie’s got some strong points about the scope of our “rigged game” problem. So I’ll be voting for Bernie in a few weeks. But then I’ll be voting, fairly cheerfully, for Hillary in November. This is not a difficult choice.
It is a difficult choice for many leftists. Prof. Lemieux ridicules individuals who struggle to make this decision. The struggle is honest.
It can be both honest and ridiculous.
It is not a difficult choice on the merits.
The difficulty lay in overcoming the baser aspects of your pride.
I can understand people who struggle with their pride. It is an inescapable byproduct of investing yourself in a cause. People should not be humiliated over it – unless they lose the struggle. Anyone who allows foolish pride to dictate their vote in November should be publicly ridiculed, remorselessly and eternally.
The difficulty lay in overcoming the baser aspects of your pride. I can understand people who struggle with their pride.
This is why I really can’t see this being a problem in November (as this kind of primary frustration almost never is). Few people are so stubborn as to hang on this kind of irrational prideful stubbornness for the 6+ months.
So many words, so little content.
OK, but even given the range of positions she’s held over the course of her various evolutions, the very worst ones still leave her significantly closer to Sanders than any conceivable Republican candidate.
I was thinking about this, and yes, there are a few narrow exceptions when it comes to Donald Trump. His position on TPP/free trade may be better than some of the positions she’s held on those over the years. Still, that’s a very narrow band, and it comes in a context of a candidate who, with his violent mass-movement and other fascist tendencies, is a great deal worse than even the median Republican candidate on a very wide range of issues.
You also have to believe that Trump actually means the things he says.
No more than Hillary Clinton, so in this discussion, it’s a wash.
Alright we get it, you think that Hillary Clinton is the worst and most dishonest human being on the planet. She’s probably the antichrist.
The idea that Clinton is particularly dishonest in a political context has no support I can see and I’d be willing to bet pretty significantly she’ll govern about like Obama on most issues, but a little more bellicose overseas. If anything, she’s been too honest about the later for her own political good.
I’d prefer she be other than what she is, but what she damn sure isn’t is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Or Jim Webb.
Right. She’s got strengths and weaknesses, like anyone, but as far as mainstream democrats go, there’s no rational reason to treat her as an outlier compared to the last three. The only explanations for this kind of nosense I can come up with are a) the staggering effectiveness of decades of Republican smear campaigns, and b) rank sexism. If we’re dealing with people who also thought they were too good and pure to be part of a coalition supporting Gore/Kerry/Obama, fine, but the discovery of one’s inner purity troll in time for the first shot at a female president is, at best, a hell of a coincidence.
It’s her long record as a public official that, compared to Sanders, is shot through with political positions at odds with leftists. So, it’s hardly surprising that many leftists are enormously reluctant to support HRC. To say that these leftists are just stupid is arrogant. To say that the consciousness of a leftist who hesitates to vote for HRC has been colonized by the “staggering effectiveness of decades of Republican smears,” or “rank sexism,” is just offensive bullshit.
The accusation that she is dishonest is absolutely just the residue of decades of Republican smears. She has a long history in American politics, right out in the open, of being perfectly reliable and a woman of her word. In fact she couldn’t have been a successful Secretary of State if she weren’t well known to be a reliable and honest person because you can’t successfully engage in negotiations of any kind if you are not trusted to keep your word. Ditto for her work on SCHIP and in the Senate. She is not, within any ordinary meaning of the word, a dishonest person or one who lies for temporary advantage or any of the other crap that the right wing and bernie fans throw around about her.
Is that different from a leftist who calls her liar whose policy positions are no different than the Republicans or are just trying to erase your ridiculous statements up thread?
Yeah, Whitewater and all that, right?
Clinton takes voters for granted? Did she say (like certain Sanders’ supporters did) that the SC win didn’t count because 1) the African American voters there were low-information voters, and 2) that win was in a red state and so doesn’t count – since a Democrat will never ever ever ever win a red state in the general election.
Finally, Clinton is about as conservative as Obama. So, there you go.
Are you going to tell us that Kos is a conservative too?
Since Sanders is seen as the candidate of young voters, people often overlook the fact HRC also attracts supporters who are brand new to politics. Good on you and her.
Good point, but it does go both ways. HRC’s plan seems to be to stress issues and attack Trump, which puts her in position to try to appeal to Sanders supporters, but not yet. Sanders, I think, needs to pivot back from a personalized campaign to a movement approach, as in “win or lose, the work goes on, we’re all in it for the long haul.” That has various benefits for Sanders: it makes him seem realistic, hopeful but not in magic-wand mode; it could help attract those who share his values but think he can’t govern; and it ought to ease the transition (which I see as somewhere between very likely and inevitable) to supporting the nominee when he bows out.
It has other benefits for Sanders, ones beyond this campaign:
It keeps his “political revolution” going, instead of it petering out after the 2016 election cycle ends. It allows him to downplay single elections (and even single candidates, see his “I can’t do this alone” line) in favor of longer-term, broader movements.
I don’t think Sanders has to do a lot of pivoting, though, because his campaign message in this campaign has pretty much been what he’s been saying for the past 30 years, with “…so vote for me” appended onto the end. If he loses and wants to back Clinton, he’d just have to drop that, add a line about voting for Hillary and against the Republicans, and then back to “…but that’s not enough” and talk about his issues some more.
Which is what I thought his plan was all along — and, viewed as a way of getting economic injustice onto the front burner, it’s worked a treat. Also, Bernie’s been nice. I mean that without condescension and as a compliment. It may have been strategic but I see no reason to think it was hard for him to do. Unfortunately, some of his more vocal supporters, especially on the net, are going to need calming down and refocusing. Should be possible, for most of them.
Yeah. I don’t think Donald Trump is the only dog who caught the car this year.
Yeah, but Trump is showing signs of self-delusion, which may be shared by his supporters; I dont think Bernie is, but some of his supporters are. So it goes.
Tad Devine’s sounding a little bit up his own ass the last couple days. He’s not Bernie proper, but he is Bernie-adjacent.
I’d feel better about Sanders if he made a strong commitment to party building after November. Somebody besides bloggers has to take up the cudgel for the midterms.
If he drops back into “not a Democrat” than to me his whole enterprise this year is a waste.
I wish more progressives would get it through their heads that there is politics beyond general election campaigns for federal office.
One of the reasons I’m going to speak at the City Council meeting tonight is because of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign and what it’s awakened in me. I’m pretty sure all the councillors are Democrats.
joe is making the right point here.
I initially thought that Sarandon was either employing some vintage hippie language with the “people are saying” hedge (“Like, here’s the word on the street, daddy-o”), or else just more generally copping out on committing to saying what she actually thinks.
And, while she does sound somewhat energized by the leftist-reaction-revolution talk regarding a Trump presidency, as I listen closely, I think she more considers herself to be delivering a message to the establishment: people out there really think this. I have seen it. Hillary Clinton can’t count on their votes. Act accordingly (whatever that may mean).
Now, I think she’s delivering a very selectively-culled message. I’m not sure the number of people willing to act on this kind of view is as great as maybe she does, or great enough to swing the election. But I think joe is right about the basic point she is making.
some people feel
Right up there with “I’m not a racist but” and “This may not be politically correct” as a cue to remember an urgent appointment in another part of town.
(The mrs. had a professor in law school who, when a student started with “Well, I feel . . . “, would say “I don’t want you to feel! I want you to think!”)
Ha. I say that all the time to my students.
Sadly, I now have to deal with “I kinda feel.” So, I say, “First, if you feel, you feel; own it. Second, we want to hear your thoughts, not your feels.”
This whole thing is remix of 2008. Remember how women were supposedly going to abandon the Dems because the party turned its back on Hillary?
Something else I remember about 2008 was that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ran on remarkably similar ideological and policy platforms. Obama’s general election message itself was highly-appealing to most Clintonites.
I feel like the title should’ve been Dammit Janet.
+1 jump to the left.
All she’s suggesting is that the step to the right comes first. And after all, it is the Time Warp, so who’s to say she’s wrong?
I toast this comment.
If only we were amongst friends… or sane persons!
Oh, R-A-L-P-H I love you so.
This is nearly every other post now. I could give a shit about electing Hillary, because you know it’s the primary season.
Once again she proved the dictum that it is far better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Funny….no references to “BernieBros” on this thread. It’s almost as if political stupidity is not entirely limited to men!
They go together like Brad and Janet!
***
Sarandon also said Sanders is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate for her.
“I want to be on the right of history. This is a shot we’re not going to have in my lifetime, to have a candidate who is so morally consistent. Who makes decisions whose judgment proves to be true, but does it at a time when it’s not popular, when it’s comfortable,” Sarandon said.
“To have a guy that’s that consistent, that clean, it’s not going to happen again,” she added.
***
Huh? We’re Nader and Dean just corrupted beyond salvation?
A lot of former Dean supporters were rather disillusioned by his becoming a lobbyist for the health care industry. Just another corrupt scumbag, as far as they’re concerned.
My facebook feed is largely filled with people on the left because I live in the Big Sort like almost everyone else. I generally see two kind of posts around each primary or caucus.
1. “The Media is lying to you. Sanders can win the nomination. Blah blah blah.” These posts come from men and women most of whom are white, well-educated, and in their 30s or 40s. They do include a lot of the Susan Sarandon type of posts.
2. Stuff on how Bernie Bros were influenced by Clinton hate during the 1990s. Most of my friends who support Clinton are white women in their 30s and 40s and/or my more centerist and corporate friendly friends.
There are ironies though. I know someone who represents landlords and supports Sanders. I suppose we all need to make a living and the law school crisis is tough but there is something odd here. Interestingly some of my most privileged associates are the most die-hard Sanders supporters including someone who is a nephew of a former Democratic governor and people whose entire educational lives were spent in exclusive private schools as non-scholarship students. I wonder if they support Sanders out of guilt or if they subconsciously see the Clintons are being too arriviste. Perhaps they appreciate Sanders rejection of upper-middle class comfort more but for some of the wrong reasons?
I don’t know why but private school radicals are rather off-putting.
Interestingly I really like Sanders and his views but am turned off by the Bernie bros and their memes. I disliked the sexism of the Bernie v. HRC meme where HRC is shown as a panderer and Bernie is totally cool on a topic. Likely these are topics where Sanders and Clinton have no strong opinion like on the merits of Black Flag.
I am perplexed about why Sanders speaks so much to the well-educated white liberals who are usually pretty well off financially. The only thing that my Sanders supporters seem to have in common is being well-educated but generally distrusting of finance in the economy.
Between the idiocy of some of his “supporters” and the pie-in-the-sky attitude his campaign had towards social change, I almost didn’t vote for Sanders in this primary, though it was mostly the latter. My rule is almost always “vote for the most liberal candidate possible in the primary”[*], but it was kind of hard. I’m not big on emotional appeals from candidates – I want to see plans that can be built on and used by other candidates whether my guy wins or loses, and Sanders has IMO been disappointing in that respect.
[*] The one violation of that rule was Edwards in ’08 – voted for him in ’04 but I didn’t like how he was running his campaign in ’08 so I didn’t vote for him.
That’s where I’m at, I’ve been warming up to the idea of voting for him but right now I’m at “well, at the end of The Music Man Howard Hill turned out to be a decent guy.” I’d be happier if he had proposals that were politically feasible, or if I were convinced he wouldn’t actually spend his time trying to remake the ACA from scratch. It’s a tough spot, I think it’s probable that he would get less done in office than Hillary would but her downside is worse. It’s pretty much heads or tails, I don’t know how people can be so invested in either of them.
My issue in this respect was that his actual nuts and bolts plans were just total make believe bullshit. Like, if he had put out an actual single payer plan that resembled reality I wouldn’t have been bothered by it, but instead it was just unicorns and ponies, which really annoyed me in the context. Above all else, I want to keep the Democrats the reality based party.
Two reasons I would offer as hypotheses, drawn from my observations as a Sanders-skeptical member of the same age/class/race/privilege cohort:
1. These people came of age politically during Clinton I, remember being disappointed by its conservative bent, and have been longing for a true liberal candidate ever since. These are the Dean ’04 and Obama ’08 people too. They don’t like The Clintons, triangulation, DLC, etc.
2. These are also the people who romanticize the working class and campus radicalism, and never really had to chance to be one or the other themselves. They’re also feeling older lately and like the invigorating aspect of siding with the youth/movement candidate they never had.
As a Sanders skeptic probably about the same age as you, or maybe a few years older, this seems right.
I’d add that a lot of Sanders’s policies seem to involve rolling back 1990s (and 1980s) de-regulation (edited to fix missing “de”), and seems to assume both that changing the president will accomplish this easily, and that this (which ten years ago would seem, with only a little exaggeration, essentially a center-right plan) is real socialism. I have trouble with those assumptions, but people with different experiences or a different focus may not.
I think reading a desire for “real socialism” into such a large population is pretty out there. Especially since we’re talking about people who largely supported Obama.
I’m thinking about people in my husband’s FB feed (I don’t use FB) who support Sanders. it’s not entirely impossible they don’t have socialist or at least social-democratic hankerings, I’ve known people in that group who did, though probably they don’t know a lot of people on the left. Those are the people probably most like who NL is thinking about, people who are not only voting for Sanders, but are promoting him on FB to people they know don’t all agree, to put it mildly.
But I’m also thinking about writers and political people who are speaking out in support of Sanders, like the Bruenigs and Jed Purdy, who are excited about the possibility of supporting “socialism” but seem not to explain well how that connects with getting the state of regulation back to what it was in 1994.
I’d say that a self-described socialist who views a return to the pre-Clinton regulatory framework for the finance industry and the rest of Sanders’ economic campaign platform as the way forward in the next presidential term is demonstrating an admirable practicality and understanding of politics, and assigning ignorance or confusion to them for that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I’d reserve that charge for people who would argue that President Sanders is going to nationalize all the banks and arrest all the bankers.
I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the explanation.
If I could tell Susan Sarandon one thing, it would be that I just loved her in the Witches of Eastwick, and did she remember my Uncle Jim, who played the doctor?
And if I could tell Susan Sarandon two things, first I’d ask her about my Uncle Jim, and second, I’d tell her that this is what Bernie Sanders supporters really think about Donald Trump.
I don’t agree with her argument because it is WAYYYYY too high risk (and especially it’s usually other’s asses on the line), but the problem is that it is convincing to some people because it worked in 2004.
I mean, we wouldn’t have that healthcare to lose if it wasn’t for George W Bush. And no, I’m not forgetting them millions who died to get us that healthcare. I’m simply pointing out that the people accepting this argument are.
we wouldn’t have that healthcare to lose if it wasn’t for George W Bush
Incoming, buddy. Look out.
(One never knows, but it’s fair to wonder. Without the ’06 gains, which were greatly Iraq-based, what would the final Congressional numbers have looked like after 2008? For that matter, how much of the 2008 landslide was itself Bush-foreign-policy-based?)
We wouldn’t have a black president or healthcare if it wasn’t for George W Bush. And virtually no one on earth would argue that.
I still don’t think its a good reason to throw
a bunch of people in a wood wood chipperan election, but I understand why some are making this argument right now.We wouldn’t have them now, probably. But counterfactuals like this are hard. We don’t know what we would have had had we not had George W. Bush, either. Maybe Gore loses in 2004 to someone really bad, and we get roughly what we have now four years later. Or even on schedule.
But I think your point is somewhat fair anyway. No one should have been happy to see the contradictions heightened as they were in 2000 (through 2008), or argued for it. But the contradictions were heightened, and the way actual history worked out, that was what in fact led to Obama and Obamacare – the latter of which now being part of what it is argued we stand to lose by accepting a strategy of heightening the contradictions.
It’s an interesting point that I admit I had never thought of until you made it here.
I’ve thought of it before, but I don’t know that it really gets us anywhere useful except maybe helping us feel better when our side loses (and tempering our enthusiasm when our side wins).
I dunno how well this hold up, though. If it wasn’t for Carter we wouldn’t have Reagan, and most of the shit that happened to America in the past 35 years was because of Reagan, but it’s still on balance better to have had Carter and not Ford, right?
Well, I don’t know. Carter was a 1-termer who got roughly jack shit from a Democratic congress.
I don’t know that there’s any reason to think a Ford win leads to a Dem win in 1980, but *if* it did and you got a good 2-term President (who?) out of that, maybe…
I don’t know. I was a toddler at the time.
I think it’s pretty hard to argue that four more years of Ford would spare us St. Ronaldo, or that having the presumably better than Bush President Gore would keep us from having President Obama. Whats the end point anyway? Eight years of President Obama leads to some terrible GOP president in 20xx?
It’s hard to imagine president Ford with particularly high approval ratings, and the economic circumstances in 1980 were definitely very bad for the incumbent. The conditions would have been there for electing a Democrat; it’s certainly at least plausible.
Could Reagan beat Ford for the nomination in 1980?
I mean, the ideal scenario would have been Ford loses to Reagan in 76, who loses to Carter. Then the GOP nominates someone else in 1980, maybe, and they aren’t as conservative? But that’s fundamentally taking a ‘great man’ rather than structural view of it anyway: Post-76, whatever the GOP put up was going to be closer to Reagan than Ford ideologically, and all those appointments would have gone to more conservative apparatchiks, just because that’s who was in the Republican party.
maybe, people might want to help Nader’s surrogate here:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=81312
Clown still doesn’t know the difference between necessary and sufficient