Yesterday, on Twitter, I got asked a simple question:
"Why the Bernie hate?"
Here's my answer. I really feel the need to codify, in language, why I think that any cooperation whatsoever with the "Our Revolution", The Nation, Sanders-led wing of American politics would set this country back just as far as what the New Crazies currently infesting the White House and Congress have done.
A pair of statements:
1. "What we are doing in this campaign -- and it just blows my mind every day, because I see it clearly, we're taking on not only Wall Street and the economic establishment, we're taking on the political establishment. And so I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund, in Planned Parenthood. But you know what, Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment." (By the way, there is no Human Rights Fund. It's the Human Rights
Campaign.)
2. "Planned Parenthood mostly helps low-income people. Four out of five of those who benefit are at or below 150 percent of the poverty line. Women in this country have a right to healthcare [and] a right to control their own bodies. No cuts to Planned Parenthood. We will fight back."
So. The first statement is from January 2016. The second is from January 2017.
Both statements brought to you by Bernie Sanders. I see a little dichotomy, there.
The first quote is about as clear as it gets: "I am the anti-Establishment candidate. ALL Establishment is bad. We will take down the bad Establishment. And Planned Parenthood (which, oddly enough, had just endorsed the woman who had been out there working for them, with them, supporting them, being visible for them at every turn, rather than her male opponent) is Establishment." If anyone wants to argue that's not what he said or what he was trying to say, it's going to be a one-sided argument. This is what he said, and this is what he meant.
A year later, suddenly, the tone has changed. In fact, the entire world has changed. I went back and looked up something I hadn't at the time: Planned Parenthood's full page explanation of why they endorsed Clinton over Sanders, despite both having a 100% positive record on women's reproductive care. That statement includes their side-by-side actual actions as legislators and public figures. And that side-by-side comparison makes it really clear that while he's been happy to vote yes on something, or add his name as a co-sponsor to someone else's bill on women's issues and women's rights, he has led, well, nothing. She's the one sponsoring global initiatives, introducing her own legislation, making those deals as needed, LEADING:
https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/blog/how-do-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-compare-womens-healthNow, three months after his tweet about fighting the defunding, Sanders is asked, in interview, whether he feels the Democratic party (of which he is not a member) is open to "Less rigidly pro-choice candidates."
And he replies, "yes, I think they are."
Because I'm trying to keep the tone of this piece as even as possible, I'll refrain from telling him to go fuck himself with a
#MAGA hat. I will remind him, and anyone okay with his attempt to backseat-drive the party he's sneered at for decades and which rejected his attempt to grab control by 3.7 million votes, that he has zero right - zero as in, none, nada, zip, zilch, bupkis - to speak for what the Democratic Party is "open" to.
He followed that piece of barefaced bullshit with an "Our Revolution" speech in which he said - remember, this is the current face of the "progressive" movement:
"Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) on Friday defended voters of President Trump, saying that the election was Democrats' to lose and that
the party needs to better represent the working-class voters who supported Trump and other GOP lawmakers "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks.
I don't agree, because I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with, it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election."
Sanders went on to say that a "fundamental restructuring of the Democratic party" was needed to win future elections and that problems with party's current setup is why many were quick to support Trump in the election, not because of some of the rhetoric on the campaign trail."
OK. Breathe deeply, Deb. You know very well that the thing that gets your rage on fastest is masculine arrogance. But really, this is a masterpiece of arrogance and hypocrisy from a man who has proven himself as one of the most tone-deaf human males on this side of the Atlantic.
As an alternative to me taking him apart, let's take his speech apart.
1. He actually believes, or else is cynically trying to peddle, the idea that Trump voters - who listened to Trump's entire line of bullshit, from his right to grab women by the pussy as his masculine prerogative to his Mexican wall to deporting Muslims to admiring Putin to calling black American neighborhoods drug-riddled crime-infested sewers - aren't racists, sexists, and homophobes. Really? Then what, in fact, WERE they actually supporting when they voted for Trump?
They were voting for the faux-populist loudmouth who offered them the right to hate with impunity. They voted for their mirror.
You know what that makes them, Bernie? It makes them racists, sexists, and homophobes. Oh, you left out "xenophobes". That, too. Or is that covered under their mistrust of anyone who isn't white and Christian and preferably male? Yes indeed, folks, let us reach out to these poor misunderstood salt of the earth Trump voters.
2. "They're not deplorable". My god, the man is STILL writhing because Clinton kicked his ass. On this one, his pettiness and outraged ego are so visible, you could see them from space. He can't resist the jab; he gets off on it. And again, anyone want to tell me how much he "supported" her, save your breath. He said this, not me, and he said it LAST WEEK.
3. "I don't agree, because I've been there." He's been there? He's been
where?
He's been a poor, oppressed, underrepresented, marginalised, brutalised white American male, is where he's been. Poorest Bernie, and poorest misunderstood white Trump voters. There's only one small problem:
There is no such creature.
This is the very echo of what the GOP has been selling for years: straight white males in America are the "real" oppressed constituency. It's bullshit, now and forever. It always has been, and it always will be. This is the worst kind of revisionism, a grotesque distortion of reality.
Fact, like it or not:
the only oppression of straight white males in American history has been done by other straight white males.People of colour have never oppressed you. Women have never oppressed you. Even if we wanted to, when has that been possible? You own everything. You control everything. Hell, the white male population of this country is so freaked out by the idea of a woman president, it invited in a foreign power to hack the election she was leading in. You aren't oppressed, except by each other. You're the ruling elite of this country, whether you have a dime or not. No matter how little you have, you always, always have more power than the woman, the person of colour, the gay, the immigrant, standing next to you or behind you. In fact, you're the Establishment.
And now, courtesy of the "country over party" argument (I prefer "people over talking points", but that's probably too radical), we're being told that we need, not to level the playing field so that all Americans get a fair share, but that we must protect the poor stereotypical oppressed unsexist unracist unhomophobic Trump voter at all costs, even if that means throwing everyone they feel threatened by overboard.
What, exactly, are we looking at here? The calls for "unity" boil down to what? We're looking at a concerted effort by the leader of the left to get us to cooperate with the leader of the right, by doing - what?
"Restructuring the Democratic Party". And the chosen way to do that, going by Sanders' speech, is take any power or freedom away from the needs of the actual base of the Democratic Party - women, POC, GLBT, immigrants - in favour of "empowering" all those poor oppressed straight white American males. To "appease" them.
Because if we don't, Trump and his friends will continue to win.
WTF? Not seeing the logic here. The Democratic party, the center, is plenty unified. It's the breakaway contingent yelling that we must woo more white guys, no matter what, that's doing the dividing.
Now try it this way: "We, the mainstream white male population, voted in high numbers (Trump won that category, what a shock) for a racist sexist xenophobic traitor because he will put those inferior people - women and blacks and queers - in their place, and exalt us again. See? Both the ultra-right AND Our Revolution are with us!"
There is no "war" on straight white American men. They are the most privileged, pampered demographic in this country, which is precisely why they're trying everything and anything, including treason, to resist any change to that status quo.
I was asked, why the Bernie hate. This is why. What he's advocating is creating an alt-left and alt-right straight white male voting bloc at everyone else's expense. I'm a card-carrying member of "everyone else."
I started out the primaries actually thinking I'd be equally happy with either one of them winning the nomination. Over the past 14 months, Bernie Sanders forfeited all my respect (and yes, I used to admire him, rather a lot). I can't speak for anyone but myself, and in fact this entire piece has been to answer a one on one question I was asked by someone else I respect and like very much. But speaking for myself, I consider his attempt to force his agenda on a party he doesn't belong to arrogant and unacceptable. I consider his whitewashing of Trump voters disgusting. I consider his sucking up to them out of one side of his mouth while telling the real base of the party he despises that he has our backs despicable and unforgivable. There are other reasons I've become disgusted with him - his willingness to take credit for ideas that aren't his is a big trust-killer, such as his "new" single payer for all bill, which is something the excellent Rep. John Conyers has introduced every year since 2003.
You know that phrase, woke? Been there for a very long time. Believe me when I say that I am not getting shoved off the side of the boat to make room for a white straight male vision of America, by Bernie Sanders or by anyone else.
