November 24, 2015

Actually it was Bernie Sanders who said single payer never had a chance

On March 10, 2010, Sanders insisted single payer was never a possibility. That was during a period when Democrats had a majority in both the House and Senate.

Now, when we have a Republican majority in both houses, we're supposed to believe that he can deliver something he insisted was not viable a few years ago. Do you actually think the GOP is more amenable to single payer? Or is he making promises he thinks will help his presidential campaign? Do you think the failure of single payer in VT actually makes it more possible nationally? I seriously doubt it. You can blame Clinton supporters for Sanders' double talk, but it doesn't change what he said. There is no logical basis to conclude it is more possible under a GOP majority than a Democratic one.

Nothing is.easier than promising the moon. Delivering on those promises is another story. What is sad is that some actually want to hear promises, even knowing the candidate making those promises said the opposite just a few years ago. All a candidate has to do is tell you what you want to hear, and he's golden.

We are told we are "conservative" for critically examining such promises. Actually it means we aren't gullible. We care about what can get done, not empty rhetoric. Blaming Clinton supporters for what your own candidate said about single payer is just sad.

November 15, 2015

Your post says a great deal about this election

And is emblematic of the fault lines running across gender, race, and class that are at the heart of this primary contest.

As offensive as I find your post, at least you've put it all on the table. It's not enough for you to say I support another candidate because of x, y, and z. You have to attack her very womanliness, make clear that you see her and other women who don't behave as you think acceptable as trangressing the gender norms that uphold your fragile sense of masculinity. You've demonstrated just how much your opposition to Clinton is based in no small degree on her gender. The irony is in that announcing what you think is acceptable womanliness, you've showed precisely what kind of a man you are.

Vote for whomever you want, Sanders, Trump, whoever meets your standards of acceptable gender norms. It doesn't really matter. No one expects you, or those who think like you, to support Clinton, least of all the candidate herself. She had doubtless encountered men like you her entire life, and she has risen in spite of their efforts to demean her for transgressing gender norms they think their right to impose on women. Make no mistake about it. That is a form social control, but it is an increasingly tenuous one. Your day has passed. The US is starting to catch up to the rest of the world in terms of women in political office, and you are not going to be able to stop it.

The Democratic party is majority women and people of color. White men are not only a minority within the party but in the nation as well. Their privilege, their uncontested grip on power, is slipping away, and it's about goddamn time.

I secretly hope (I guess it's not a secret anymore) that Fiorina wins the GOP nomination because then guys like you will be faced with two women who don't behave like you feel women are supposed to.

I'm so looking forward to election day 2016. It will be a thing of beauty.