With #DemExit now once again being thrust about all over social media and certain sites, I think

[Celerity]

looking at its true history could prove to be somewhat fruitful. I was asked by The Magistrate to turn a reply to another thread into an OP, and well, here it is.....



I am NOT seeking to re-litigate 2016 at all. Hell, I was 18 years old when that campaign first started in 2015, and had never even heard of DU at that point. I am merely showing the origin of the meme because it is now, once again, coming to the fore and is VERY relevant for the 2020 campaign, especially in regards to the general election.

-------------------------------------------

#DemExit has been around as a true mass-traction meme since July 2016.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/demexit

About

#DemExit is a social media campaign and political movement encouraging Bernie Sanders supporters to leave the Democratic Party in protest of Hillary Clinton's nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election.

Origin

On July 12th, 2016, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders formally endorsed rival Hillary Clinton for president against Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming general election. That day, political news blogger Harlan Hill published an article titled "The Death of a Revolution and #DemExit," noting that millions of Democrats would be considering leaving the political party to protest Clinton's candidacy.

Spread

The same day, the /r/DemExit subreddit was launched for discussions about the political movement. On July 22nd, 2016, Wikileaks published a collection of nearly 20,000 e-mails exchanged among key staff members within the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the governing body of the United States Democratic Party, as well as unofficial correspondences with members of the press, between January 2015 and May 2016. In the emails, high ranking members of the DNC discuss various tactics to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders in order to secure Hillary Clinton’s victory in the primaries. On July 24th, Redditor staomeel submitted a post titled "If the DNC nominates Hillary Clinton for President. I can no longer support Democrats #DemExit," to /r/SandersForPresident. The following day, Sanders was booed by supporters after calling for them to support Hillary Clinton in the upcoming general election (shown below).

Also on July 25th, Fox News broadcast a news segment about the the DNC protests, featuring an interview with an anti-Hillary protester who announced that 13 million people would be leaving the Democratic Party on Thursday in light of the DNC email leak (shown below). Later that day, a post about the planned #DemExit event was submitted to the /rSandersForPresident subreddit, where it accumulated upwards of 4,600 votes (91% upvoted) and 620 comments over then next four days. On July 26th, Redditor LuddieStreak submitted a post encouraging viewers to leave the Democratic Party titled "#DemExit" to the /r/SandersForPresident subreddit, where it received more than 2,500 votes (93% upvoted) and 400 comments in 72 hours. The same day, 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein posted a tweet encouraging people to leave the "neoliberal Democratic Party" with the "#DemExit" hashtag (shown below). Meanwhile, hundreds of Sanders delegates staged a walkout en masse following the roll call vote to nominate Hillary Clinton for president at the Democratic National Convention (shown below). On July 29th, Salon published a listicle titled "10 Reasons Why #DemExit Is Serious," which subsequently reached the front page of /r/politics.

snip (referenced links can be found at the top link above)


my thoughts

It was all a VERY coordinated operation IMHO.

I think it was aided by Russian media, networks, and deeply embedded shills and trolls (and their associated bot farms) seeking to sow division within our Party. It was also amplified from its genesis by the Trump campaign and other Republican forces and agents. In fact as you will see below, they likely started the entire thing or at least came in on the ground floor.

Jill Stein and Wikileaks were huge players in both its spread and also as coordinated sources of extreme discontent, which was then amplified and turned into a truly divisive force.

Here is a smoking gun that I have not seen explored to any great degree before:

Harlan Hill, the erstwhile pro-Sanders blogger (and ex Democratic Party operative who also worked in the UK and the EU) who kicked it all off (see above, unfortunately the original article is gone and even the Internet Archive is scrubbed, if someone with greater IT skills that I posses could find it, that would so aid in this attempt to show the history in full) had a VERY curious turn in his career right before this all went down......

look who he went to work for in June/July 2016 or so:

https://harlanhill.com/



AND

much more recently:

Real News Insights with Harlan Hill and Lara Trump

Donald J Trump <<< on the official Trump YouTube channel
298K subscribers

Since the first day I took office, Democrats have been trying to impeach. This is a COUP!

snip


finally:

Here is a Fox News interview RIGHT BEFORE Hill started the #DemExit meme:

The entire thing faces up as a giant and highly coordinated psy-op, and I can guarantee many, if not all, of the same players are now actively (or soon will be) involved in starting it all up again in 2020.


It is classic non-linear warfare/reflexive control tactics.

Create a fog of war, destroy valid measurements and norms, zig when all else in a normal predictive system says you will ZAG. A specialty of reflexive control is to use TRUSTED sources and leaders to sheepdog the intended group through the paradigmatic change, especially when that change involves a drastic re-targeting.

Non-Linear Warfare and Reflexive Control - NATO Defense College

http://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=877


What is Hybrid Warfare?

https://globalsecurityreview.com/hybrid-and-non-linear-warfare-systematically-erases-the-divide-between-war-peace/


Redefining Hybrid Warfare: Russia’s Nonlinear War against the West

http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1538&context=jss


Putin’s Way of War
The ‘War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare’

https://www.academia.edu/24314231/Putins_Way_of_War


The Hidden Author of Putinism
How Vladislav Surkov invented the new Russia

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/hidden-author-putinism-russia-vladislav-surkov/382489/

“I am the author, or one of the authors, of the new Russian system,” Vladislav Surkov told us by way of introduction. On this spring day in 2013, he was wearing a white shirt and a leather jacket that was part Joy Division and part 1930s commissar. “My portfolio at the Kremlin and in government has included ideology, media, political parties, religion, modernization, innovation, foreign relations, and ...”—here he pauses and smiles—“modern art.” He offers to not make a speech, instead welcoming the Ph.D. students, professors, journalists, and politicians gathered in an auditorium at the London School of Economics to pose questions and have an open discussion. After the first question, he talks for almost 45 minutes, leaving hardly any time for questions after all. It’s his political system in miniature: democratic rhetoric and undemocratic intent.

[BlueTsunami2018]

1. Someone alerted this thread.

With such vitally important information contained within, I can’t imagine why someone would do this except to disrupt.

I voted accordingly.

People need to know about this.

[Celerity]

2. thank you for that, apparently some people don't like to see the origins of current events laid bare

[yankeepants]

3. Same here. We all need to read this.

[Cha]

7. Would you mind

Rec it please, yp?

Thank you!

[yankeepants]

8. Done!

[Cha]

9. Mahalo, yankeepants!

[Celerity]

10. thank you yankeepants

[Demsrule86]

23. K&R Cha! Sanders could end this...and defuse it somewhat if he chose...I knew if he ran again, we

would face this once again.

[Cha]

60. So did I, Dems.

[Cha]

6. Could you please

Rec it, BT?

Mahalo!

[Hortensis]

61. That's because it's valuable, true information.

Many of us remember the angry, destructive DemExit rabble in 2016. Some of those anti-progressivism hostiles pushed it here and were told to clean up their acts or leave, and some had to be kicked out and were.

[Cha]

4. KR! I'll read it later.. TY!

[Celerity]

5. yw Cha

[betsuni]

11. K&R!

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. K&R

[littlemissmartypants]

13. Kicked and recommended. nt

[BadgerMom]

14. K and R

[calimary]

15. Bookmarking this one.

And a K&R for good measure.

[Wounded Bear]

16. K & R...for visibility...nt

[Turin_C3PO]

17. K&R!

And you’re only 23? I’m so excited, I thought I was the only millennial on this website lol. (Although I’m at the other end of the generation, I’m 36).

Great material in your OP.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. KnR

[WheelWalker]

19. K&R for visibility. All hands on deck!

[brer cat]

20. K&R

[MFGsunny]

21. K & R for visibility n/t

[pazzyanne]

22. K & R,

… and well researched and laid out, Celerity. Thank you for sharing. Your OP sheds a lot of light in some very dark corners.

[BidenBacker]

24. A+ for your homework!

As a brief followup, there is a conservative website (apparently run by good cons and not bad ones!) called "The Russia Tweets" that attempts to track and identify accounts linked to certain hashtags that are either suspected or known to be connected to the Russian IRA (Internet Research Agency). Here is an example summary for just one Twitter account know to be Russian in origin..as you can see, your #demexit one has several hits associated with it but it pales in comparison with the number that glommed on to the granddaddy of them all...#feelthebern.

https://russiatweets.com/author/MISSOURINEWSUS/hashtags

Their page here shows the enormity of the IRA's operation...

https://russiatweets.com/author

This is a short FAQ summary by the same website...

https://russiatweets.com/page/faq

Basically, The Russia Tweets took all the data from a deep dive that 538 did back in 2018 and made them more easily accessible and searchable by users...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-million-russian-troll-tweets/

This link shows how conservative websites either knowingly or unwittingly collaborate with the Russian troll farm to broadcast their anti-Democratic propaganda. I don't intend to join Red State just to read the entire article and I suspect none of you fine folks will either...I am just including it to show how they typically work together as a sorta feedback loop echo chamber to amplify this bullshit...

https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/03/11/demexit/

Not all Russian propaganda operations are covert...often they do it right out in the open for all to see, as in this recent RT (formerly Russia Today) article...

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/483267-demexit-progressives-third-party/

It sure is tough being a Democrat...not only do we have to worry about foreign enemies like the Russians and foreign terrorists like al Qaeda, but we also have to fight against domestic threats known as Republicans.

[True Blue American]

27. The right word

Is Traitors! Saved.

[Celerity]

31. thank you so much for those links!

[denem]

25. K&R

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

26. KNR...bookmarked

[Aquaria]

28. More data needed

From your post:

Harlan Hill, the erstwhile pro-Sanders blogger (and ex Democratic Party operative who also worked in the UK and the EU) who kicked it all off (see above, unfortunately the original article is gone and even the Internet Archive is scrubbed, if someone with greater IT skills that I posses could find it, that would so aid in this attempt to show the history in full) had a VERY curious turn in his career right before this all went down......

To be able to dig up something like this, I'd need more details of the article you're referencing, because I'm confused about what in the "see above" you're wanting to find. You have a lot of "above" there, after all, covering a huge range of possible avenues to explore. It would take forever to sort out all of that sprawl to find one obscure article.

If you'll narrow down what you're looking for and be more specific about some of the details of the article you want to find, then it would give any sleuths and excavators a greater chance of getting their hands on it.

We just don't have enough to go on to find it based on what you've given us.

[Celerity]

30. 'shown below' makes sense if you click on the top first link. Here is the article URL that is wiped

That day, political news blogger Harlan Hill published an article titled "The Death of a Revolution and #DemExit"

http://harlanhill.com/opinion-the-death-of-a-revolution-and-demexit/ <<<<<<<< it is gone and I cannot find it archived aywhere



here is the top link and snapshots of a 'shown below' (they refer to videos or tweets, etc) same for 'see above'

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/demexit






cheers

[BidenBacker]

35. Are you SURE this Harlan Hill character was an "ex Democratic operative"?

An article he wrote in early 2019...

Democrats Pursue Yet Another Russia Investigation While Ignoring Another Real Crisis

https://townhall.com/columnists/harlanhill/2019/03/13/democrats-pursue-yet-another-russia-investigation-while-ignoring-another-real-crisis-n2543088

Sadly, this very real humanitarian and security crisis can’t compete with the salaciousness of the made-up claims Democrats are using to justify their Russia witch hunt, especially in a media environment dominated by liberal partisans who are just as desperate as Democrat politicians to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.

President Trump is struggling valiantly to do the job that the American people elected him to do. The Democrats, on the other hand, are obstinately obstructing his policy agenda at every turn while inflaming Cold War-era tensions and undermining U.S. foreign policy just because they think it might weaken the President’s political standing.

Relentless obstructionism is no substitute for a real agenda, but it’s all the Democrats have to offer.

Harlan Hill is a political advisor, media commentator, and an advisory board member of the Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

And then there's this interview of some Congressman that Maria Bartiromo did with Hill on the panel just a scant 2 months before the 2016 election where he's identified as a "Democratic strategist"...

https://www.manufacturing.net/home/news/13111130/president-obama-says-united-states-has-moral-obligation-to-help-people-of-laos-and-pledges-90-million-of-taxpayer-money-cyber-security

HARLAN HILL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Congressman West, Harlan Hill here. Do you think the Democrats have been successful in obfuscating what's the meat of this issue, which is that Hillary Clinton, you know, misused her email server and has had all kinds of scandals between the Clinton Foundation and others that are worth highlighting and made the topic of discussion about Trump's non-existent ties to Russia?

As Dagen so clearly laid out, you know, Hillary Clinton had the Russian reset. She abdicated her responsibility on Syria, and you know, she sold a quarter of our uranium reserves to Russia in a deal between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.

So you know, it seems like they have succeeded in distracting the media from the meat of this issue because here we are talking about it.

Sure sounds to me like this dude is in serious cahoots with Trump & Putin...if he's blogging for Sanders that's only because he's trying to get the guy who those two want to run against in November nominated. A "Democratic strategist" in Sep 2016...a "Trump political advisor" in Mar 2019...and now a "Bernie blogger" in 2020??? Gimme a break...not even a chameleon changes colors that fast.

If this doosh ain't on Putin's payroll I'll eat an old KGB hat. The plot thickens.

[Sloumeau]

29. We will not be blackmailed...

Any people pushing the "if people do not nominate my candidate, I'll vote 3rd party" or "if people don't nominate my candidate, I'll leave the party" should be summarily ignored. If Democrats fell for this, they would see it every 4 years, and the entire party would be built around not majority rule, but minority vote butthurt. If whiny sore losers want to take their balls and go home, or do whatever, I say let them. We are, and must, be a majority rule party. If a group of people cannot convince a majority of Democrats to vote for a nominee, how are they going to convince the General Electorate?

[onetexan]

33. exactly. Let them leave the party. They're not going to vote Democratic either way.

[Celerity]

36. in terms of concessions, yes, BUT we don't want outside manipulations acting as force multipliers

that will drive away voters who would have voted for Biden more than likely if they were not being so manipulated, manipulated via the same methodology and framework of reflexive control I showed in the OP. These disruptive, wilful interferences need to be stopped and countered. We cannot just capitulate and let an extra 500,000, 750,000, 1.25 million, or more voters (MANY is CRUCIAL swing states like the Midwest) who would have pulled the lever for Biden if not shit-stirred out, simply be driven off via artificial external manipulation.

[onetexan]

40. What are these "outside manipulations" you're referring to - foreign influence, Faux News,...?

[Celerity]

41. lol, you are the one who replied to my OP, did you not even read it?

[onetexan]

45. i did, but i thought u were referring to something else :)

Yea i'm aware of the Faux News-like disinformation. Alot of it also seems to be coming from Bernie camp as well, which is pathetic & disgusting to say the least.

[Celerity]

34. The whole #DemExit meme is not being aimed at any of us actual loyal Democratic Party members

and it is not designed to extract anything in terms of concessions from us. It is aimed at marginally attached Sanders supporters and is designed for pure increases in the amount of their defection rate (meaning they vote 3rd party, or vote Trump, or simply do not vote.)

The core of his support this time, 2020, versus 2016 is extremely problematic. It is far more radical, far less Democratic Party-friendly, and far more likely to bolt the barn this go-round.

Here is a good OP on DU from 11 months ago discussing this (and remember, this is from April 2019, so 11 of SMASHING other candidates by the rad left social media spheres and rad left websites and boards has since taken place, making them even more likely to not support Biden, who is now the clear winner):


Worrying trend with Senator Sanders' supporters

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128775007

Forbes.com released a new poll pitting Mayor Buttigieg and Senator Sanders, and found some interesting numbers in the results.


5 Weird Items In The New Bernie-Buttigieg Poll

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldurkheimer/2019/04/17/5-weird-items-in-the-new-bernie-buttigieg-poll/#337df7ec7ddd

......

No. 3. 26% of current Bernie Sanders supporters said that they would rather vote for President Donald Trump over Senator Elizabeth Warren, if that were the eventual 2020 matchup.

While many have assumed that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren appeal to a similar progressive voter, many apparent Bernie supporters would seem to disagree. More than one-in-four of them say they would rather vote for Donald Trump’s second term instead of voting for Elizabeth Warren. In the overall head-to-head between Warren and Trump, voters suggest that they would prefer Trump 52% to Warren 48%.

No. 2: While 100% of Buttigieg’s supporters said they would support Bernie against Trump (if that were the General Election matchup), only 79% of Bernie’s supporters said they would vote for Buttigieg over Trump in a General Election.

This is just another example of the trend where Bernie's supporters appear to be incredibly loyal to just Bernie. Here, 21% of Bernie's supporters say that they would rather vote for President Trump than Pete Buttigieg, if given the binary choice. Perhaps many Bernie supporters would legitimately prefer Trump over most other Democrats. Perhaps Trump and Bernie have a similar, singular appeal to a certain subset of voters. While most Democratic primary voters would support Bernie in the general election if he were the nominee, it appears that some significant subset of Bernie’s supporters do not intend to reciprocate.

What does this say about some of Senator Sanders' supporters? Not being an expert, to me it seems that a sizeable number of them have no trouble with burning the village in order to save it, and that they are willing to sacrifice any marginalized group if they do not get the economic policies they want delivered by the man they have chosen - the fact that Senator Warren have very similar stances, fleshed out with detailed policies, even, does not seem to matter.

And at this point in time it is only the willfully blind or the downright psychopathic who do not see that a second Trump term will mean deaths, many, many deaths. It will kill the weakest among us, the women who need abortions, African Americans all across the country, the disabled, the people on SNAP, the LBGTQ community, immigrants, Latin American children and adults at the border, and Americans of Latin American descent. All groups that can be scapegoated for the Trumpian deplorables will have its victims at the hands of the Trump regime. I never thought I would fear that Senator Sanders' supporters would help bring that into reality, but apparently I do.

snip




Again, the 2020 group (the main saving grace is that they are smaller in absolute numbers) is shaping up to be far less Democratic party-friendly, far more radical than his 2016 voting cohort was. I fear we may see an even larger defection rate (either to Trump, 3rd party, or no vote) than the 30% we saw in 2008 from Clinton Primary voters

For Clinton 2008 primary voters, around 24 or 25% voted for McCain, around 5% did not vote

https://isps.yale.edu/research/data/d130

https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/06/hendersonhillygustompsonPOQ.pdf



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/24/did-enough-bernie-sanders-supporters-vote-for-trump-to-cost-clinton-the-election/

Another useful comparison is to 2008, when the question was whether Clinton supporters would vote for Barack Obama or John McCain (R-Ariz.) Based on data from the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, a YouGov survey that also interviewed respondents multiple times during the campaign, 24 percent of people who supported Clinton in the primary as of March 2008 then reported voting for McCain in the general election.

An analysis of a different 2008 survey by the political scientists Michael Henderson, Sunshine Hillygus and Trevor Thompson produced a similar estimate: 25 percent. (Unsurprisingly, Clinton voters who supported McCain were more likely to have negative views of African Americans, relative to those who supported Obama.)

Thus, the 6 percent or 12 percent of Sanders supporters who may have supported Trump does not look especially large in comparison with these other examples.

snip


I also dealt with Operation Chaos here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128775007#post166

which was very tiny in both number and impact in 2008. It has been vastly overstated here dozens of times just that I have seen since mid 2018, when I joined DU.

[BidenBacker]

38. One thing's for sure

we can scratch this Harlan Hill traitor off the list of loyal Democrats. I seriously doubt he ever even was one to start with. No true-blue Democrat talks the way he does.

How Russia Is Trying To Boost Bernie Sanders' Campaign

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/812186614/how-russia-is-trying-to-boost-bernie-sanders-campaign

This Hill asshole must at this point surely realize that Bernie will not be the Dem nominee. But that won't stop him from trying to wound Biden enough so that Trump wins reelection, while doing it under the guise of being an ex-Sanders supporter.

If he wants those rubles to keep pouring in, that is.

[Celerity]

42. he went full Rethug Trumper almost 4 years ago,, hell he might have been a plant from the beginning

[BidenBacker]

43. My bad

I was under the impression he was still blogging for Sanders but after posting and then reading a little more I saw what you just said...once he went full-Trumpist he never looked back. But yes, he may very well have been a "plant". Who knows if he is still contributing to some of those hashtags in the hopes of disrupting Democrats and weakening our guy in favor of his?

Can't imagine how one goes from Sanders to Trump so fast...I would think the whiplash alone going from that far-left to that far-right would snap one's neck.

I don't follow that Twitter crap...I only see what some folks post here. Far too many legitimately informative sources to fill one's day.

[Celerity]

46. The main reason I posted about him is he appears to have been the origin source of #Demexit

and he did so whilst only weeks removed (how fully I do not know) from being a very influential blogger and active operative within the Sanderite sphere. The all the usual suspects glommed onto it, and combined with the Wikileaks drop and the Stein campaign going all out attack, it was a tripartite shitstorm that EASILY pulled enough Sanders voters out of the Party to cause the defeat of Sec Clinton in those 3 key MidWest states. The same thing is now replaying in 2020, unfortunately. Hell Stein is even up to her old Russian-led tricks, ffs.

look at her last Tweet, #DemExit2020 front and center, and spinning the 'rigged primary' shite all over again.

they work off the fool you once, we can fool you twice methodology

it is happening in plain sight, and so many will just say 'fuck 'em we don't need them'

even though I was not here on DU in 2016, I saw this all unfold in the same manner last time

and people had the same 'fuck 'em' attitude everywhere I looked back then

until we lost and there was a DIRECT tie to those lost votes and then losing to Trump via the EC

history doesn't repeat itself, but is sure does rhyme

Link to tweet

[BidenBacker]

49. Oh, yeah

there's definitely something that stinks about Stein to high heaven...

Here’s what a new trove of Russian Twitter accounts tell us about Moscow’s support for Jill Stein

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/newly-released-trove-reveals-russian-tweets-that-promoted-jill-stein-6318ee05adcb/

Not only did Stein appear at the 2015 gala in Moscow honoring the Russian propaganda outlet RT — memorably sitting near Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser — but she spent 2016 describing the outlet’s decision to host a Green Party debate as an “inspiration” for “millions of Americans.”

RT...that's the source of one of those links I provided in my very first post. Used to be "Russia Today" but they changed it to RT to throw us off...LOL. Sneaky bastards, those Russkies.

We need to find a coed prison somewhere so Stein can bunk with her good buddy and fellow traitor Flynn.

[Celerity]

50. Flynn will soon be pardoned by the bellend

[BidenBacker]

55. Now THAT is funny

Saved that sucker on the hard drive...named it "KGB Vlad & President Putinpuppet" so I can find it easy.

[onetexan]

32. K&R

[Just_Vote_Dem]

37. K&R

Thank you Celerity.

[oasis]

39. Excellent. thanks for posting.

[Celerity]

47. yw!

[Hav]

44. Just another douche

who pushed Bernie and then went on to work against Dems and for Trump. Just another coincidence like all the others.

[Celerity]

48. no, Hill was the origin source of the #DemExit meme, that was then amplified and turned into

a movement (as laid out in the OP) that caused us to haemorrhage a shit tonne of Sanders primary voters, quite likely enough to cost us WI, MI, and PA and thus hand the POTUS to Trump via the EC. He was already (maybe always was) working hand in glove with the Trump campaign when he helped kick it all off.


so no, not

Just another douche

and certainly not

Just another coincidence like all the others.

[The Magistrate]

51. Wonderful Work, Ma'am

We are all in your debt.

[Celerity]

52. many thanks Sir, it never would have seen the light of day if not for your initial solicitation

[NCProgressive]

54. Amazing and thorough research. Thank you.

[bronxiteforever]

56. Kick and recommend.

[Todd79]

57. Assuming Stein will run again

It would be nice if somebody ran a 3rd party on the right as well, with more success than McMullin in 2016. That’s the only thing I worry about. Stein’s votes were somewhat offset by McMullin last time, but I don’t know if that will happen again. Maybe Jesse Ventura on the Libertarian ticket? I don’t know...

Bernie Bros and Sisters (not the normal ones) on social media remind me more of Left wing Ron Paul supporters than the MAGA crowd, but even more extreme. I am beginning to think they are part of the Maoist Bob Avakian cult: full blown communists in need of a personality cult who insert themselves into every protest and fuck it up. I know Cornell West is tight with Avakian (which saddens me since I was at one time a supporter of Dr. West).

[Celerity]

59. Stein is not running, Howie Hawkins or Dario Hunter will be the Greens nominee

Stein’s votes were somewhat offset by McMullin last time, but I don’t know if that will happen again

You forgot the bigger one, Gary Johnson (who is not running unfortunately, as he is by FAR the biggest vote getter ever for the Libertarians)

The Libertarians draw mostly from the Rethugs, and in FAR greater numbers overall compared to what the Greens drew from us, especially in 2016. This is often overlooked (as it doesn't fit certain narratives), but if you add the 5.2 MILLION votes Gary Johnson and McMullin (a few state indie run) got to Trump, he then beats Clinton, not just in the EC, but also in the POPULAR vote as well, even if you give Clinton ALL 1.46 million Green votes.

[Blue_Tires]

58. bookmarking for later

[Scurrilous]

62. Excellent compilation. Kudos.

Harlan Hill's toothy rictus face replacing Martin Shkreli's smirk stricken countenance as 'most punchable' IMHO.

(Merely an observation, not advocating violence)