"It was supposed to be the night the Democratic Party finally exorcised its demons. Instead, on a sultry, hot day in Philadelphia, the long-simmering disillusionment of Bernie Sanders supporters erupted into anger. And not even the Senator himself could calm them.
A day of protests, booing and open dissent on Monday at the Democratic convention threatened to derail the party’s moment in the spotlight, exposing the fault lines that have divided the Democrats throughout the contentious primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Inside the DNC convention hall, Sanders’ delegates shouted “Bernie! Bernie!” booed Clinton surrogates and even briefly broke into the “Lock Her Up!” chant favored by Donald Trump supporters.
One thing became clear: Sanders, who has spent the past 15 months condemning a “rigged system” and lambasting Clinton’s Establishment credentials, has conjured a spirit of resentment that he can’t dispel. He succeeded in creating a political revolution, but like many revolutionaries, he may have lost control of it." Time
————–
The Democratic party chairman was forced out yesterday. In the morning she went to a meeting of her home state's delegation and in Andrea Mitchell's words was "booed off the stage." The situation in the room became so bad that security people had to escort Wasserman-Schultz out.
"The Mornin' Joe" crew is busily at work for the purpose of boosting the idea that the Sanders revolution is over and that all will be well in the process of moving Hillary forward toward her coronation. Last night the "comedienne" Sarah Silverman told her former comrades in the Bernie crusade that they were being "ridiculous" in not accepting Hillary as national mother. Well, pilgrims, my enduring memory of Sara S. is not the cleaned up look of last night. No, it is the spectacle of her licking her little dog's butt on TV. She suffers from clinical depression and still wets the bed. It seems to me that many Berners will not take her exhortation seriously.
I am keen to learn if Time magazine is right in believing that the Sanders Revolution has outgrown him. The next few nights will tell us if that is so. pl
http://time.com/4423362/democratic-convention-bernie-sanders-revolution/
Bernie spent most of his speech decrying the economy we have today. He talked about how horrible and unfavorable to minorities it is. I guess two Obama terms wasn’t enough to correct this. At all. Bernie also blasted TPP. Both Hillary and Kaine, über globalists, were (are) supporters of it. Trump is the only one who has been dead set against it from the outset. Trump is an America-firster and has alwaysnbeen critical of the money-shifters to whom Clinton and Kaine are beholden.
Response to the (similar to the Time story) NY Times story this morning from retired Chicago Tribune national political reporter Charlie Madigan:
This is, of course, what is wrong with media. It can’t say enough bad things. I watched the convention on CBSN and concluded they pretty much pulled it off by days end after some dicey, bothersome events that defined the early part of the day. This is why I loved writing roundups on big stories. You didn’t get dragged into minutiae. Minutiae is what modern news reporting is all about now. I am happy to be old, given those circumstances.
Conclusions: Michelle Obama is every bit as good as the president at the podium. Brilliant speech that lacerated Donald Trump without mentioning him and called the nation to remember that it’s children were watching. Corey Booker went full preacher with an address that asked everyone to rise up, which they did. Elizabeth Warren was measured and specific and made it clear she was in Hillary Clinton’s corner and took her school teacher’s Exacto Knife to Trump’s achilles tendons. And then there was Bernie Sanders. What to say about that? He used his speech to pitch a continuation of the revolution. I loved that. I voted for him in Illinois and I would have voted for him again had he won the chance. He said strong nice things about Hillary and hard things about Trump. That is not what impressed me. What impressed me was whenever the camera panned the crowd, you could see the tears and disappointment in the faces of the loyalists who would have crawled across broken glass had he asked. It is a measure of his intelligence and kindness that he did not ask that.
The message of the day was pretty simple, come with us or there will be holy hell to pay. I can buy that. Here is something it did not need, celebrities. I know, I know, the Democrats have their Hollywood contacts and music connections. I hope Paul Simon had a cold because his voice was weak on “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” and it was a waste of my time, your time, everyone’s time, to have Al Franken and Sarah Silverman vamping until Simon got ready. Al, I would argue, wasn’t ever very funny even on Satuday Night Live in the olden days. I suspect, it being the Democrats, there will be more of this as the convention progresses. Distraction at best, I think.
The FBI announced it is investigating who cracked into Democratic National Comittee’s email server and scooped up thousands of emails that ended up released by the Wiki folks. The Russians were somehow involved, so you know there is nothing good going to come of it. Trump apparently will just keep on tweeting through the Democratic event. That’s fine. He looks like an idiot and an asshole in most cases. Out. Night!
(((((((((((Sarah Silverman)))))))))))) looked pretty helpless up there without someone to write her some real ‘zingers’ before hand. Gamma Male-let Al Franken (I cannot call him a man) attempted to ride to the rescue of Maiden Faire, and they both looked shell shocked with their echo chamber penetrated.
For all you Bernie supporters out there (TTG, looking at you my friend), his 12 pieces of silver to not contest the convention was an airplane provided by the HRC campaign so he could fly around the country. Yet another “do as I say, not as I do” socialist who wants to ride around in imported capitalist goods while railing against the “imperialist pig dogs”.
The entire vibe of the DNC felt like it was 2012 and they thought they were running against Romney. Nothing turns off Americans more than being lectured by mystery meat “activists” about how evil the country they live in is. Also, bringing out someone with Down’s Syndrome for sympathy is screaming to the sky that you don’t have a strong hand.
Sad!
Glenn,
It was a very odd night for the amount of projection that was going on over there.
When the first Wikileaks scandal broke out Sect. Clinton was one of the most outspoken critics of Assange. And then there was the business about the sexual assault charges in Sweden and whether or not that was a way for the Swedes to turn him over to the U.S. I am not qualified to make a judgement on those particulars. Even though the Ecuadoran embassy is better than a U.S. prison, Assange has had years to feel this particular burn. So, if he really has something very damaging, like proof the Russians were tapping her computer and/or Blackberry, does he drop the release the leak before she gets the nomination — and do the Democrats a favor. Or does he wait until after. Maybe he has worked out a deal with Trump, I’ll drop the bomb before the first debate and if elected you call off the dogs. It will be very interesting to watch this one layout. I am appalled by the two major party choices, but this may provide the election tale of all time.
At the rate that terrorists are striking in Europe, coupled with the likelihood that there will be a few more attacks in the USA between now and November, Trump is going to moonwalk into the white house.
Col. Lang,
So glad you mentioned Sarah. When I travel I seek out omedy clubs and this is one person I wouldn’t cross the street to see.
I’m livid today that some people have the nerve to tell me that I should change my mind based on HER comment. People are lost. I didn’t know how damaged she was until until reading your post. I do know she’s quite vulgar and I feel embarrassed for her parents.
I cried watching Sanders last night, still never will support neocon backed Hillary. I’ll rest well with my decision.
Bernie peddled warmed-over pastrami last night.
CNN to Fox + PBS/NPR can’t get their noses far enough up Hillary’s ass ..and can’t resist playing their Russian-Putin ‘get out of jail’ media share card again. (Apologies for the 1950s language.)
Email hacking is MSM bozo talk. Ie like the FBI, Bill Gates, South Park gang at Facebook and Google are clueless.
As for Michelle fawning that “friend” Hillary walks on water without getting her feet wet/been doing it for 40 years and counting .. that’s Bill’s rolodex talking to M & BO.
Amazing even that Paul Simon believes that he could sing Art Garfunkle’s greatest song. Perhaps if Art had been there singing it, those troubled waters at the Democratic Convention might have been less roiled 😉
Democratic Convention has problems on opening night… big Bernie problems… Chaos as Democratic National Convention opens: Sanders supporters shout ‘Bernie, Bernie’ then boo every mention of Hillary’s name, arena is surrounded by anti-Clinton mob – and even the gavelling goes wrong http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3707609/Communists-environmentalists-Trump-haters-Bernie-backers-thousands-protest-DNC-Philadelphia-just-one-group-missing-Hillary-Clinton-supporters.html
4 brutal poll numbers that greet Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/25/4-brutal-poll-numbers-that-greet-hillary-clinton-at-the-democratic-national-convention/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na
It’s common for presidential candidates to get a bump from their conventions, and two new polls Monday suggest Donald Trump did indeed get that. But the new polls don’t just show Trump’s stock rising (however temporarily that may be); they also have some very bad news for Hillary Clinton and her already-declining personal image. Indeed, politically, she’s doing as bad as she ever has — if not worse. …
1) 68 percent say Clinton isn’t honest and trustworthy …
2) Her image has never been worse. CBS showed just 31 percent have favorable views of Clinton and 56 percent have unfavorable ones. …
3) Just 38 percent would be “proud” to have her as president. That’s down from 55 percent in March 2015. Sixty percent say they would not be proud. On this measure, she’s basically on the same footing as Trump, whom 39 percent would be proud of and 59 percent wouldn’t be.
4) Nearly half of Democratic primary voters still want Bernie Sanders … The CNN poll, in fact, shows 45 percent of those who voted in Democratic primaries still say they wish it was Sanders. Just 49 percent say they prefer Clinton — down from 55 percent a month ago.
WP’s Chris Cillizza summarizes… Winners and losers from the first night of the Democratic convention https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/25/winners-and-losers-from-the-1st-night-of-the-democratic-convention/
His list of losers includes: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Al Franken
Other than Schultz, they are labeled losers due to poor or uninspiring speeches. As she is one of my state senators I am aware of what a poor politician Warren is. She may be smart and attractive, but she’s terrible on the stump, always sounds wooden or forced or school-marmy. They really should have given her the job that best suited her qualifications… heading the Consumer Protection Bureau.
How can Sanders or Elizabeth Warren join, what they were disavowing yesterday. They loose credibility. In the meanwhile “The People” have discovered that they are not alone in their resentment of the system. It is like crystallization. A core started it but then the rest goes on whether the core stays or not.
Larry,
Calling your November 8th post now.
“No one I know voted for Trump. How could this happen?!”
Michelle was the same tired passive aggressive Blackety Black all the time nonsense. Booker is the same preacher rhetoric that we have been getting from the OTHER Gay Urkel politician for the last 8 years. Warren and Bernie attacked a straw man while supporting the same woman they railed against as little as a month ago.
The debates will be amazing.
I thought 30 pieces of silver was the going rate. I guess Bernie got short changed.
After many years as an ‘anti establishment’ figure, he’s rolled over for the hag and shown that he’s all bark and no bite. He’s now thoroughly debased and prostituted himself and I can’t see how he can have any credibility remaining.
There’s enough evidence now to prove that the fix was in, but he got out-maneuvered by the old pro and was persuaded to take a dive.
All,
Sanders is forgetting that he does not own the people. He Mearely represented the people.
His policies were the results of problams that american citizens are facing.
Just becuse Sanders gave up those does not mean people will do the same.
Tyler — Believe it or not, I know plenty of people who will vote for Trump, including plenty of people who live within walking distance. If he’s elected, I certainly won’t be saying “How could this happen?”
I was regarded as something of an expert on comedy during my years as an entertainment critic for the Chicago Tribune — profiled and reviewed just about everyone of note in the field — and I have never found Sarah Silverman funny. Her big mistake, among the many she makes, is that she thinks that the mere act of being “transgressive” in some sense makes what results funny. She has done some decent voice-over work, though.
The fact that he rolled over even after being shown how they screwed him just makes him look even more pathetic.
Between Larry Kart and Tyler, America stands divided. Much is at stake: the country’s political culture – and SST
I’d been puzzled more by the way the convention was covered (and the way Clintonistas have been reacting) than by the alleged disruptions at the convention itself.
As far as I could find out, the disruptions were minimal and most Berners were fairly well behaved. The way the media was talking, it was as if it was Chicago 1968 all over again.
This speaks more of the Clintonists’ mindset than anything else: they are so smug and overconfident in their self-given righteousness (b/c no mere God or people gave them this rightness) that they cannot brook any show of discontent or disagreement. If they keep this up, this former Sanders-sympathizer might actually go vote Trump after all.
Col. Lang,
Big Bernie guy here as are my family and friends in our corner of New England — we are all working class and have had it with the oligarchy. While we are only 50 miles from Cambridge, we are a veritable world away from that den of self-regarding iniquity. Lots of people work with their hands here and heat by wood stove. There’s no “app” to chop firewood yet, as far as I know. Nor to go fishing.
And we cheered and raised our fists in triumph when the boos began yesterday. As for Silverman: you know what’s ridiculous? Claiming to believe in something then dropping it at the slightest social pressure or in the face of bogeyman threats (the Russians are coming!) And having millionaires who’ve never worked with their hands condescend to us and order us around — why, that’s sure to clinch that elusive working class vote!
And Putin? Seriously? That our oh-so-tolerant liberals are unable to understand the world from the Russian point of view suggests they aren’t so tolerant after all, that it’s just been a transparent fig leaf for their class interests all along.
Our Vichy Liberals don’t realize that being called uncool by a mediocre entertainer doesn’t matter to people with actual convictions. I wonder if they remember what those are.
As the satirical Twitter handle Hillary PR Team posted about Michelle Obama’s speech:
‘It’s simple, guys: America is a racist oligarchic police state unless you need to contradict Trump in which case it’s the best country ever.”
The majority of Bernie Bros like The Bern himself will vote for Hillary in the Fall. The Clintons have always screwed over the Left “Progressives”, since they know that they will always come home to Mommy, no matter the abuse. Picking Kaine was another example of giving them a good kick in the teeth.
This DNC rigging was perfect as there can be no denying the “progressives” are mostly all hat and no cattle.
Whatever one says about the rednecks, at least this time they gave a big middle finger and nominated Trump.
So I guess I’m the only one who remembers 8 years ago? When literally the same thing played out at the Democratic convention, only that time it was HRC supporters who called themselves PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass)? Who swore up and down that they’d never vote for Obama? And in the end, almost all of them voted for Obama.
This is a tempest in a teacup compared to delegations walking out and the runner-up refusing to endorse the winner, as happened less than a week ago. And even that probably won’t make any difference when it comes to November.
Swamp Yankee
out west of Boston? Somewhere around the Leominster state Forest? pl
Michael Brenner
Are you going to assign grades? pl
Larry,
You’re on the path to wisdom whether or not you realize it.
Come home, white man.
Swampy, irf520,
You could honestly say Bernie looked like a cuck up there.
or NH??? due west arc has been colonized.
Sir,
Personally I want Professor Brenner to opine on whether or not the three Muslims who beheaded an 86 year old French priest in a church while shouting Allah Ackbar had any connection to Islam or if they were just mentally disturbed young men.
I can see Tyler and myself strolling off together like Bogart and Claude Rains at the end of “Casablanca.”
Gotta disagree. The Dems need to make a very strong case to the BBs in order for their loyalty. Despite what pollsters and pundits declare, Bernie supporters will not support Hillary. They consider her worse than Trump. With that fact and #NeverTrump going for HRC, this election is one for the books.
86 year old priest martyred while three Muslim men scream Allah Ackbar.
Reality continues to confirm the Trump worldview.
Both candidates are despised by the majority. Look at the unfavorability numbers on both. Yet, the majority of those that will vote in November will vote for one of the candidates that no one likes. What does that say about voters?
The question is which side hates the other more? The answer to that will determine the winner.
That’s for each of us to do – and then to act accordingly
Michel brenner
I do that all the time. That is why some people are no longer here. pl
Valissa,
Heading the Consumer Protection Bureau was the job Warren wanted. It was also the job that Obama and all the Wall Street oriented Obamazoids conspired their hardest to keep her from getting.
Aka,
I think Sanders knows that and always did. I remember reading several occasions where Sanders said basically that he can’t control who his primary supporters will vote for and that it is up to Hillary to win them over because he can’t send them over.
That Ames article was excellent, thanks. He’s a helluva productive journo.
Whatever Sarah’s considerable flaws her observation wasn’t entirely without merit. Saying it on stage? Unwise. Sander’s supporters do not believe they are going to get him nominated at the convention. Advocating for policy has to be more than heckling people on stage.
Our media loves the sports team mentality. Great for ratings. Great fun too. It is doing a lot of damage nevertheless. Damn the cheerleaders to hell but…a variation on the art/life conundrum… Who is imitating whom? The enemy is probably us.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
I think the fellow who is commits a murder for money is also deranged since – per the Supreme Rationalist, Baruch Spinoza – “the most useful thing to a human being is another human being.”
“An App. for Chopping Wood” – that is pretty good.
Soon, no doubt, to be followed by an App. for whipping one’s nose.
I’m SHOCKED that a left winger posed as a “journalist”, shocked.
Economically, six of Obama’s eight years have been undermined by his GOP opponents.
Trump says he is against the rigged economy, yet his tax cuts are heavily slanted to favor those same plutocratic riggers. Please explain why he wants to feather the riggers’ beds!
Trump, actually, has made the astonishing claim that it is precisely because he was a money-shifter, that he knows how to unwind the rigged system.
My own opinion reduces to: Mr. Trump has one main aim in life and that is to satisfy his appetites and take care of anything with his name attached to it. Trump is also, a globalist’s globalist–judging from who he does business with.
Stevedore,
I doubt Wikigeeks has cut a deal with someone who advocates suing journalists for saying things he disagrees with. They publish everything as a matter of policy, near as I can tell.
The rumor is that Russian hackers did this and the Russian government’s control of all Russian hackers is iffy, to put it mildly, and could even be a deliberate red-herring. The Geeks have learned some hard lessons in security, such as in the all but permanent treeing of Snowden in Russia. I expect they will indulge in some disinformation about their sources at some point anyway.
“America is a racist oligarchic police state”. Gee, is that HRC’s message, or even Michelle Obama’s? If so, I missed it.
The situation was different in 2008. HRC drew support mainly from the Democratic Party insiders and the regular Democratic voters. Obama brought in many voters who were not habitual Democrats. In 2016, many of Sanders voters are not habitual Democrats at all–about 1/3, at least, aren’t even Democrats. These voters might actually vote Trump, or, much more likely, not vote at all.
The Democrats do have a general demographic advantage and many regular Republicans don’t like Trump–but like the regular Democrats back in 2008, there is good chance that, given the alternatives on hand, many of the latter will stick with Trump in the end. Losing the potential new voters (that Sanders could have brought to the Democrats) while having the regular Republicans stick with Trump, a quite distinctly likely outcome, does not bode well for Clinton–even if I still don’t think her defeat is very likely.
Time magazine’s contention that Sanders “conjured a spirit of resentment that he can’t dispel. He succeeded in creating a political revolution, but like many revolutionaries, he may have lost control of it” is MSM bunk, to put it politely. Bernie is not, never was a charismatic leader. He seems too civil, not that hungry for himself.
Instead, he forcefully articulated a series of largely valid issues and discontents that had been unspoken in the country’s political discourse (not totally different from Trump in that regard). In doing so, he caught people’s attention; the media’s attention not so much. A surprising number of folks identified with the message: “Hey, I’d like to see that happen” or “He understands why we’re hurting; sounds like he might do something about it” or “Yeah, Wall Street needs a comeuppance”. Bernie didn’t lose control of this movement. He never had control and likely didn’t want that.
Throughout his career. Bernie has delivered the message because he believes it, I think. He certainly might have had a more spectacular political career with a different message.
Absent the nomination, Bernie’s path is narrow. Last night, he took what was available, two planks from the platform: “No TPP” and “get Wall Street under control”, and (tongue perhaps in cheek) tried to tie Hillary to them.
Because Bernie is likely more about substance than personal glory, his path now seems to be Hillary’s election followed by holding her feet to the fire on issues. Narrow path indeed!
Sanders has consistently said throughout the campaign that he would support Clinton if she were the nominee. Why are people now surprised that he has done exactly what he said?
Whether or not that endorsement ends up being more than pro-forma, time will tell. I suspect we will see none of the Elizabeth Warren type of Hillary cheerleading that was evident the past couple of weeks. I doubt if he will play much of a role at all as Hillary goes for the disaffected-with-Trump repub voters.
Sam and Swampy,
I feel you miss the point. In recent US history, a major part of winning elections is getting out the vote, which takes dedicated energized (usually young) people. I have been noting a lack of energy and enthusiasm even in Hillary Surrogates. Without the energy that Hillary middle fingered, no one will be busing democrats to the polling place.
Perhaps Han Solo’s name applies – Your Worshipfulness – expecting the faithful to bow and run to vote.
Meanwhile, I see a lot of energy on the Trump side.
kao_hsien_chih –
The situation is always different, but it’s not that different. My guess is that HRC will get the vast majority of the Sanders vote, just as Trump will get the vast majority of the Cruz/Rubio/Kasich/ etc. etc. vote. The polls I’ve seen shows that she’s doing even better than Obama did in getting her runner-up’s votes – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/26/donald-trumps-bad-month-just-got-worse-because-bernie-backers-just-rallied-to-clinton/
I too was (am?) a Bernie supporter, so Trump supporters, take the following with that in mind.
* I never had too many illusions about his chances, but was confident that he was a far better candidate than Clinton. Obviously a lot of other Dem. primary voters thoughts so. As did polling.
* Did Bern sell out by endorsing? Who knows. He did a heck of a lot better than expected, and helped show how hollow the D. party is (similar to Trump with R’s). That’s a valuable accomplishment, since I think the 2-party system itself is an impediment to a real exchange of opinion and negotiation between various sides.
* Booing Clinton was perfectly appropriate given the leaks. Even though, or because of, what the leaks revealed was so obvious, yet intentionally ignored as one of those un-spoken subjects that it’s better to just leave alone. So good. Let’em resign someone.
* Now that Hillary’s numbers are slipping, Hill and the DNC are adopting most of Bern’s issues (in the face of everything we know about Hill’s cash relationship with big donors, but at least that’s some nominal progress.).
* As far as I’m concerned, if the D. party loses it’s not because they couldn’t have won by putting up a better candidate. This is so obvious now that it must be really unpleasant for the D. party / Clinton loyalists. They should look for sympathy from somewhere else.
* I think Silverman has a charm to her, but I also think her comedy act is too much about profanity and shock. I don’t find her endorsement especially relevant though.
Amazon is no doubt working on it!
First, the numbers in the polls cited are somewhat out of date and the trends covered have not continued since then. I’d be hesitant about making too much out of those numbers just yet.
Now, once you look under the hood at the details of the ABC-WaPo poll, to the degree that WaPo would let you (I tend not to trust polls that don’t give you detailed cross-tabs), there is absolutely nothing that suggests that Sanders voters are actually rallying to Clinton: no question that disaggregates the respondents by whom they had supported in the primaries, and within those subsets, what their demographics and partisan affiliations are. The article is drawing their conclusion that Sanders voters are flocking, allegedly, to Clinton on the basis of the Pew polling results that claim that the average Sanders voter is more afraid of the Republicans than the average Clinton voter. Thus, it must mean that they are more likely to vote for Clinton than Clinton voters. In practice, all that the Pew numbers that it cites show is that the AVERAGE Sanders voter is more fearful of the Republicans than the AVERAGE Clinton voter. That’s sophistry, cherrypicking convenient numbers and drawing lazy conclusions from them, and how one lies, even unintentionally, with misleading statistics.
The Sanders coalition has been a pretty diverse one, something that the MSM has been conveniently ignoring: about 1/3-2/5 of the Sanders voters aren’t even Democrats. Between 1/4 and 1/3 of Sanders voters think that Obama has been too liberal. Yes, the average Sanders voter is more liberal than even the average Democrat. A large minority of the Sanders voters are not. It’s not so much that they are “conservative,” but rather that they don’t fit the liberal-conservative continuum. They don’t care much about politics, usually. Sanders has offered the Democrats the chance to gain these voters. HRC is seemingly set on kicking these voters out, out of sheer hubris that their support can be counted on.
It is not very likely that Trump will gain all the voters in this minority of Sanders voters who are NOT liberals: the best he can do, based on the premise that he does gain most of them, is to eek out a narrow victory. It’s not very probable. But thinking that all the Sanders voters will fall behind HRC just because the average Sanders voter will is a dangerous delusion.
PS. Yet another reason to not trust the WaPo piece: the Pew Survey does not even address the non-partisans in the electorate. 1/3 to 40% of the Sanders voters were not even Democrats. The poll offers nothing to say about those people and where they might wind up. Trump will have trouble courting them, but if HRC keeps up her high and mighty act, they might wind up in Trump camp unwillingly.
Not bad guesses, Col. Lang and rjj! I like both the Worcester Hills and New Hampshire, but the direction is South-Southeast. The Plymouth Woods, as it has been called historically, also known as cranberry country. A few hundred square miles of pine barrens, kettle ponds (i.e., glacial lakes), cedar swamps, and cranberry bogs situated between Cape Cod Bay, Buzzards Bay, and Narragansett Bay. The Pretty People usually and thankfully pass right by on their way to their Cape Cod McMansions. Still, even though we’re not as hard hit as the Cape or parts of coastal Maine, there’s lots of colonization going on by the affluent metros who think we’re “quaint.” We’re at the front lines of the metropolitan-countryside conflict here.
FWIW, I went to high school and middle school almost on top of where your Alden kin, Col. Lang, had their first little cottage in the 1630s. The foundation was still out there when I was a kid a few decades ago. We used to play baseball next to it.
And yes, rjj, Metro-West, as the Globe calls it, has been thoroughly colonized. Since we here in the Old Plymouth Colony are some of the last extant woods and fields within 60 miles of Boston, the realtors and yuppies are trying to do the same thing here. We will resist the colonizers, come what may. My Father and I swam in one of our favorite ponds today, with flowers found only here blooming on its shore (the Plymouth Gentian), an endemic species of turtle (Plymouth red-bellied slider), trout and bass and white pines. We love it and aim to keep it, the people of this little corner of the republic.
Swamp Yankee
John Alden is my 9th great grandfather. I am descended from his daughter, Elizabeth. When I was a kid lieutenant platoon leader in 2/2 Infantry Regiment we were at Ft. Devens. The place was too small to train in adequately so we trained a lot at Camp Edwards in the shank of Cape Cod and in Leominster forest. for bigger things we went to the White Mountains National Forest, Alaska, Yakima in Washington State, northern Norway, tidewater Virginia for amphib training. It was a great thing for a 22-24 year old with 45 men. pl
“What impressed me was whenever the camera panned the crowd, you could see the tears and disappointment in the faces of the loyalists who would have crawled across broken glass had he asked. It is a measure of his intelligence and kindness that he did not ask that.”
In telling them to vote for Hellary, Sanders WAS asking them to crawl across broken glass! Hence the tears …
What Sanders has discovered is that a little known senator from one of the smallest states in the country should never have been able to as well as he did. His “revolution” was not about him, but what he purportedly stood for. And his supporters are not sociopathic politicians who can change positions 180 degrees on a dime, but real human beings who still care about the issues he raised even though he personally chose to capitulate.
That sounds pretty great, Colonel — have a friend who was a doctor in the naval reserves who always spoke of northern Norway with great fondness. And my father also talks about doing his training in the White Mountains and a rendezvous with a submarine in the Chesapeake when he was in the Army a few decades past. Evidently they’re big!
Read somewhere that there are something like 6 million living descendants of the Aldens. Pretty incredible.
Camp Edwards is still going strong. It saw a lot of use these last 15 years for Mass. Nat’l Guard training for Afghanistan and Iraq. There was actually a forest fire there last week that burnt about 20 acres, but pitch pines propagate after fires, so it should be alright.
Many of Bernies supporters cringe when even he say’s her name.
Since she became the presumptive nominee, Sander’s has focused his effort on:
– attacking Trump and the Republicans,
– pointing out what’s wrong economically and how the Democratic Party Platform will help address that.
That’s tactically and strategically the best use of Bernie’s time.
Some of the HillaryBot’s however, are continuing to attack Bernie and his supporters for their not making every tweet, speech and press release “all about Hillary”.
Sadly, there is a large element of peoples involvement politics that is all about personality cults and winning at all costs, policy be damned.
Steve Calhoun,
LMBO no. Yeah its those evil Republicans who have gone along with 95% of what he said while gay cocoa messiah was helpless. Get out of here.
Trump’s tax plan means that the ultra rich pay more, while the middle class is spared trying to run the loophole gamut to maximize deductions.
Trump a globalist? How’s the HRC campaign office right now? Melting down at the BernieBros wrecking your coronation?
Sam,
No one gives a damn about “favorability” until this year. Get out of here with this nonsense metric.
Brenner,
Breaking picture of myself and other SST stalwarts after the heretics around here have been purged.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fe/88/fa/fe88fa3511767b515d65b1784d62a4c3.jpg
See who you can identify.
steve,
I know when you are getting paid to not understand a thing it is very hard to make you understand it, but I will lay it out for you:
The DNC emails showing the active screwing of Bernie in favor of Hilldog should have thrown any pledges out the window. Instead, he demanded a private plane as his price for not contesting the convention.
HankP,
Try linking to a story that isn’t a month old next time, you hack.
Hillary is losing or tied in all polls taken this week. Cry more.
Babak,
I’m mocking his tendency to state “everything is fine! no one panic!” in the face of horror after horror.
Dabbler,
Seems Bernie’s next move is to start the “My Revolution” political movement. We’ll see if this goes beyond the November election. He’s mentioned before that his revolution should start supporting like minded candidates at the local and state level. Smart move if they can pull it off. Also looks like Tulsi Gabbard is being groomed as Bernie’s protege. Another good move.
Colonel,I have two connections to your post.On my mother’s side of the family ,Miles Standish was my 17th Great grandfather per Ancestry .com and family history.On my father’s side a distant cousin of mine, Col Richard J Kattar ,was the commander of Ft Devins at one time. I corresponded with him many years ago when he was in Europe.His family was from Zahle Lebanon.He was pulled out of retirement to face an Article 15 for taking kickbacks from some company doing business on post.But he was not convicted.He was a graduate of the Naval War College in June 1973.Someone of the web commented e was the last graduate of it who was a high school dropout.
Phil Cattar
17th? The Mayflower generation is 9 generations back in my family. I was at Ft Devens in 1962-64. He must have been a WW2 veteran. There were a very few of those who had limited educations. BTW, my unit was a tenant on the post and would not have been under the post commander who was basically a housekeeper for the facility. pl
Phil Cattar and pl,
Colonel Kattar was Post Commander when I was at Devens in 1981-85. We in Group generally considered him as a meddling dickhead. (Sorry Phil.)
I understand that it still gets Simon’s goat that his most famous tune is so closely identified with Garfunkel. He should have swallowed his pride and invited Artie to come sing it. Would have been a fine moment, as you say.
Almost half of Sanders’ supporters had already gone over to Clinton, even while Sanders was dragging his heels and refusing to concede. Had he dropped out earlier, after New York, HRC might still be running scared of his populist hordes. He lost a lot of potential leverage. He once said he’d consider being her veep but by the end there was no hope of even a token vetting.
kao_hsien_chih –
Here’s a summary from yesterday – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/25/the-democratic-convention-is-chaotic-the-democratic-base-isnt/
and the poll the data was taken from – http://www.people-press.org/2016/07/25/in-clintons-march-to-nomination-many-democrats-changed-their-minds/
Of course anything can happen, but it looks like there’s not a huge change from recent elections. In 2012 most Republicans reconciled themselves to Romney, and in 2008 most of the Republicans reconciled themselves to McCain and Clinton supporters reconciled themselves to Obama. So I’d have to see some pretty strong evidence to indicate that it’s different this time. I’m an older guy, I’ve seen the young true believers at conventions for decades. Most of them wind up supporting the party that aligns with their views, period. Ideological purity and the candidates personality is over-weighted in media coverage but not in the final result.
You seem to have a rather virginal view of politics.
Of course the DNC would try to rig the primaries and caucuses against Sen. Sanders and his “Revolution”.
In the process of falling almost a thousand delegates short of a contested nomination, ( almost 30% short), Sen. Sanders got many of his policy proposals onto the Democratic Party Platform, and many of “his” people onto the Commitee’s and sub-Commitee’s.
And has announced that after the election, he will go back to being the elected Independent Senator he was elected as.
Politics is not about all or nothing, desperate last stands.
The same journalist has the following story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/25/4-brutal-poll-numbers-that-greet-hillary-clinton-at-the-democratic-national-convention/. Basically, polls say that Clinton’s support is tanking and half the Sanders supporters still don’t like her. Personally, I trust this story no more than I do the one HankP linked to: journalists usually have no idea how polls work and draw the most sensationalistic interpretations they can from them, whether they make much sense or not. The bottom line is that, at this stage, no one has enough charge in their crystal balls to see what lies ahead with much clarity, especially since we never had a set of poll numbers like these (yes, we probably had elections like these–but reasonably good poll numbers are fairly new.)
HankP.
The Pew poll should actually worry the Clinton folks shitless, not reassure them that they will get Sanders supporters.
The lack of informative cross-tabs is making it a bit harder to see what the numbers are actually saying, but there are some serious problems in the way MSM has been portraying the Sanders voters.
First, Sanders voters are not all young idealists. In fact, you are correct that it won’t be the young idealists that would break the Democrats, if any significant number of Sanders voters break ranks with the Democrats. A significant chunk of Sanders voters come from age 30-49 block, and most in this cohort are working class and white. Looking at the cross-tabs in the polls that do provide them (Quinnipiac polls have been good at breaking down the respondents by sociodemographic cohorts) since the Democratic primaries wound up, these voters are especially likely to break ranks with the Democrats. The almost 10% of the “Democrats” in the Pew polls who would break to Trump among the Sanders supporters and the uncertain may be a statistical blip, or a sign of trouble, if they should happen to fall disproportionately among a particular sociodegramographic cohort. Given what I’ve seen from other polls, I suspect that the latter might be dangerously likely for the Democrats. Without the raw data or at least good cross-tabs, I would not think the Pew numbers should make one complacent.
2. One critique of panel-based surveys like the Pew ATP is that they tend to be dangerously biased in favor of the politically active (and underestimates the “independents”). This is one reason why polls of this type tended to underestimate support for Sanders and Trump even more than other polls so far. The relative absence of “neither” between Clinton and Trump (compared to those who actually said they’d jump to Trump outright among the Sanders supporters and the switchers) suggests that the sample is indeed skewed oddly. This does get a bit more complicated: as the primary process went on and Sanders seemed certain to lose (and Trump became the Republican nominee), panel-based polls began to be more accurate, as the more apolitical voters began to drop out of the primary process. So what these polls are telling us, rather than saying that 90% of the all Sanders voters would support Clinton, it is saying that 90% of the political active Sanders voters would–a significantly less gain than the former–and of the politically active Sanders voters, almost 10% would bolt outright (which sounds awfully high given their likely characteristics). As we do not have comparable polling methods in the past (ATP was inaugurated only in 2015, for the 2016 campaign), we don’t know how big a “blip” this 10% is, of course, but given what we know, this strikes me as an awfully big number.
To repeat, there is every reason to suspect that the “loyalty” of the Sanders voters is overreported, and this is not thought about twice because of the preconceptions about the Sanders voters–that they are young and liberal, while many of them are neither. The MSM is focusing on how the young liberals are the “bitter enders.” They are not. Do remember that, in 1980, Kennedy did very well in the primary contests in places like MI, and (given the limited data available), Kennedy votes were pretty good predictor of the Reagan Democrats. Surely, it was the young twinkle liberals who supported Kennedy that decided to go over to Reagan over Carter.
KHC,
‘It’s not so much that they are “conservative,” but rather that they don’t fit the liberal-conservative continuum.’
Exactly. What precisely is the ‘liberal-conservative continuum’ supposed to mean?
Polls have always been hard to interpret. But the breakdown in the meaning of traditional classifications may be making interpretation much harder.
In both the last British general election, and the EU referendum, people who believed them ended up with egg all over their faces.
The difference in generations can probably be explained by the fact by the mid 1700s that branch of my family tree was living in South Carolina .There were farmers having many children and staring young.Sometimes the girls marrying at 14.My mother was the 19th of 21 children,6 full siblings ,14 half.
Yes,I kinda picked up he was considered somewhat of an oddball.
ISL,
Where Trump should really do well this fall is in the traditional campaigning of going out and meeting people at State Fairs, etc.
What is open to Bernie is finding an effective platform to press on with the issues and, as you say, to support candidates at the local and state levels.
I would rather be on Kauai then 30 miles from Hanford, so I regard Tulsi as my Congress critter. :~)
Walker,
This is what they say between the lines. Stop with the sophistry you schmuck.
Brunswick,
Stop with the lying and the pathetic attempt at handwaving.
The big issue around the DNC emails in this context (The fact that most of the media is the propaganda arm of the DNC is much bigger IMHO) is how DWS and the rest of the DNC swore up and down there was no collusion, when there was collusion night and day.
Guess what? TPP is still going through. All the globalist Borg agenda is still going through. Bernie accomplished nothing other than getting a cool plane for himself.
Hillary needs a better grade of intern.
Kao,
Oh, I agree with you to a point. For example I was pointing out not too long ago how the pollster were oversampling Dems by a factor of +12 and then crowing about how Trump had no chance.
Well the worm has turned.
Hillary is a thoroughly unappealing candidate, and her and the Democrats vision of America as nothing more than a 3rd World bazaar/grievance mongering industry is unappealing to the majority of Americans.
Larry,
Who is who?
Anyone else watching the media purposefully attempt to deceive about what Trump said about Russia handing over Hillary’s emails and absolutely melting down?
I’m amazed at how well he’s playing the media, even after taking down 16 challengers and the Bush Dynasty.