Wednesday, March 2, 2016

So this is pretty obnoxious--

People getting pissed at Senator Warren because she hasn't endorsed Sanders or Clinton yet is just nonsense. Take this piece at Salon:

Elizabeth Warren could have been the biggest political story of 2016. Well, at least, the biggest story other than Donald Trump. Right now, she could have been coasting toward a Super Tuesday landslide and locking up the Democratic nomination. It doesn’t take a wild imagination to picture it.

Instead, Warren is nowhere to be found, unless you’re a Democratic donor on the receiving end of DNC email blasts signed by the Massachusetts senator. Raising money like this — or lending her name to these emails — might be her biggest contribution to the Democrats in the 2016 cycle. And unfortunately, that’s why Super Tuesday is likely to seal the nomination for Hillary Clinton tonight.
Wow. Why wasn't she told earlier she was throwing away her chance to shape the 2016 race by making an endorsement in February since clearly the author doesn't think she can figure out when and who to endorse--if she means to endorse at all--for her own damn self?

But there's something so casually entitled about this from The Hill piece that it sets my teeth on edge:
A glance at Warren’s social media shows that she is inundated by Sanders backers, who are offering a combination of pleas and recriminations over her choice not to endorse so far.

One recent post on her Facebook page about paid family leave had more than 1,000 comments, and nearly all were about her not endorsing Sanders.

“Coward,” said one critic with a Sanders logo for an avatar.
Even if I kind of suspect that there might be trolls representing themselves as Sanders supporters to just start shit, I'm just going to make an educated guess from what I'm seeing on Twitter that there really are people who feel like Sen. Warren owes the progressive movement her endorsement. Didn't progressives work hard to get her elected senator?

Well, she wasn't plucked fresh from a pumpkin patch with dew in her hair, but actually had valuable credentials that earned her the support of progressives, so maybe she doesn't owe anyone anything but the work she is actually doing. And if she's helping raise money that will affect down-ticket competitions, she's already making an impact on the 2016 race, because while the presidency is big--it isn't everything. We could use more than a few good Democrats in Congress.

This struck me at about the same nerve Madeline Albright's weird "special place in hell for women who don't help each other" comment did. You know, I'm not sure what circle of hell a person goes to for not supporting, say, Carly Fiorina, but I think I'd risk it.

Really--Elizabeth Warren's endorsement is hers to make for who and when she decides to. Chill out.

1 comment:

mikey said...

Sanders supporters have been largely ignorant blowhards who have nothing positive to say about him - primarily because he's run such a poor, ineffectual campaign - since the PUMAs of the 2008 election cycle.

Demonizing, smearing and shouting accusations at Clinton, her supporters and anyone who has the temerity to ask the Sanders campaign serious questions about its vague and fantastic promises seems to be their singular level of argumentation.

Vance Walked into This So Hard

  KAITLAN COLLINS: So you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted? JD VANCE: Yes COLLINS: Ok, I'm...