Here She Goes, Again!

 

I suppose I could have used a more flattering picture of Jill Stein, who has decided to enter the 2024 presidential race as the Green party candidate, but if you know me by now, you know why I'm not going to. She knows her candidacy in 2016 was used by Russia to leach votes away from Hillary Clinton helping set up a Donald Trump win. She raised money for a recount campaign that got used for other things. 

But here she goes! Whither the Cornel West campaign, though? Terrible story, that. First, he abandoned the lush, deep infrastructure provided by the Green party (yes, I'm being snarky), and then he got caught getting a maximum donation from his good friend, Brother Harlan Crow and had to return it. 

Sometimes, if you want good "progressive" third party fuckery, you just have to see to it yourself. So, she's seeing to it. But why? (Could it be because the other supposed "progressive" lane, RFK, Jr., is more likely to take votes away from Trump? One may well wonder.) 

If someone actually wanted a progressive movement, they could build on the progressive wing of the existing Democratic party and mount a serious opposition. Or we could have Marianne Williamson.

Heck, if you wanted an "exactly the same but younger and awkward" movement you could have Dean Phillips, who demonstrates that one of the things you learn when you are older and wiser is, don't fuck with Jim Clyburn. Anyway, his campaign just picked up Jeff Weaver and Zach Graumann, which is exactly what a campaign would do if the Democratic establishment machine was like BRRRRR against it--probably according to their respecting hiring pitches.  

Or if you wanted to go more conservative, I guess there could be Joe Manchin? I'm not saying he's likely to run, but I'm sure conservative billionaire-funded "No Labels" is ringing him up.

All I know is, I'm having some 2015-2016 flashbacks, and I am not liking them. History people--let's be learning from it!

Cornel West is "At Least" Not Pro-Putin, Everybody

 

Cornel West on CNN says NATO "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calls for "concessions of territory" to stop the war, and says the US "bears significant responsibility." But he adds that he's not "pro Putin," so there's that. pic.twitter.com/SqIEwdiE9j

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 14, 2023

Does Cornel West not know what is happening in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine? Probably not. He's too busy being for something supposedly to the left of whatever Democrats (Joe Biden, who's done a fuckton for the unions, employment, and supports diversity and human rights), are for reasons I think are known only to himself.  But the Russians are performing appalling war crimes on Ukrainian people in the areas they occupy. Why in the hell would territorial concessions be okay? There are PEOPLE on this land. They will not be people for long if Russia is allowed to take this land. That is the reality.

The stupid (yes, stupid) construct that this is a proxy war only makes sense in the disturbed mind of someone who thinks the US has some motivation to arm Ukraine greater than Ukraine's own will to defend themselves from the horror of what Russia is doing to them--and this is manifestly not so. You do not have 4 out of five people know intimately someone who has been  murdered from this war and not want to defend your life and the life of your people. To baldly assume this is a US op is disgraceful and denies what is actually happening to the Ukraine people. It's like some form of demented conspiracy theory where Ukrainian people aren't even real, but like NPC's. 

The abhorrence of this, to deny Ukrainian people their resistance to evil and oppression, is the pinnacle of head-up-assness. 

How Not to Lose

 

A lot of digital ink has been spilled this week over Nina Turner's loss to Shontel Brown and what it means regarding progressive and "establishment" Democrats, but I'm going to just say that this primary had a lot to do with some critical errors on the part of the candidate with all the name recognition and quite a lot of money and doesn't really say anything about the direction of the party. It says something about how to campaign and be part of a team. 

Nina Turner is unquestionably part of a team. The Squad and many "name" progressives supported her. But politics is local and parties are national. And somehow, Turner failed to sort out how to manage either the local politics or the national politics. She got told to stop running a negative campaign against her rival by local clergy. She left tv money on the table despite her fundraising from small-dollar donors. And she had already pissed off Hillary Clinton voters by supporting Jill Stein in 2016 and Joe Biden supporters by scatologically deriding his candidacy in 2020. She also ran afoul of the CBC by calling Rep. James Clyburn "stupid".  

Which made her opponent look pleasant and trustable in comparison. It isn't deep. People saw her grievances, and lost sight of what she could do for them, and her campaign didn't turn that impression around. 

But keeping in mind that tomorrow....exists, how Turner has chosen to lose is also very puzzling, because the faults that lost her the race are how she's going to stick her impression. Like, just what were her comments about "evil money" supposed to mean when she also had some really good fundraising? And if she wants to talk about corporate money, well, okay then, let's do that. And why is she saying that her loss is about how the establishment does progressive candidates specifically dirty when she earned her retaliation by specifically pissing on the establishment in the first place? It feels to me like she could have gotten backing with her name recognition if she didn't start off on the entirely wrong foot. 

Also, now that we are are well past the 2020 Democratic primary, I'm just going to say it--Bernie Sanders has questionable taste.  Regardless of whether any fundraising has fossil fuel money behind it, Brown's priorities per her website generally support the Green New Deal, and she says she would be a vote for Medicare for All if it ever came to the floor.  That's not a candidate who is not progressive, that's a candidate who is, but just doesn't have Turner's progressive connections. Which reminds me that Sanders  also had David Sirota, who was a great communicator that blocked a shit-ton of liberals on Twitter and also seems to hate the MSM, as one of his press folks and had Shaun King as a surrogate. It isn't necessary or helpful to defend Turner's primary loss as having a damn thing to do with corporate money when there is a general election to be won, no matter how much of a guaranteed D district it is. 

Sometimes a personality just isn't a fit for a job. And taking a loss without any grace, and by deriding the process as being at fault instead of showing any introspection, basically pulling a Trump, isn't a great look or demonstrating that any lessons were learned. This is how not to lose. It isn't winning, because it precludes the possibility of figuring out how to win. It doesn't help anybody, 

I'm not saying Turner is a very bad candidate, just that she wasn't the best candidate for right there and then, and needs to see a direction away from that loss that is positive and meaningful. Her initial response was anything but. 

We Want an Accurate Appraisal

I've kept off of Green candidate Jill Stein's case because for a lot of reasons, but primarily, I don't begrudge her her thing. The Green Party to my mind isn't as likely to tilt the political conversation leftwards so much as it leeches votes from the actual, functional left-leaning party, but she believes in a more diverse, honest political system that is less ruled by corporate money and more geared towards addressing real issues--climate change among them. Her goals are admirable.

And now she has done a pretty admirable thing--the Green Party has raised $2.5 million to request a recount in Wisconsin, and will also try to raise money for recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

There's reason to be skeptical that this will make a difference,  but this election year has been so absurd and weird that I honestly think that if serious questions about the accuracy of our vote totals are raised, why not have a recount? (Note that, re: the McCrory story below, I still consider a recount a fine thing--I just question his claims against the backdrop of voter suppression he'd already been involved with.)

I believe that, after Mr. Trump so vehemently argued that the voting was rigged against him, he would understand that many liberals have come around to seeing at least one thing his way. Maybe there is a little uncertainty. Maybe we should find out what the heck is going on. After all, if he truly has won, a recount could hardly hurt him, right?

Ron Paul Either Did Or Didn't Endorse Jill Stein

I don't actually care, because the number of people who would either vote for Ron Paul or Jill Stein would be able to hold a convention in an elementary school auditorium and still have room for a choir. But it's amazing to me that Ron Paul shouts out Jill Stein. I really did not know they had any significant ideological overlap. Actually, I'm pretty sure they don't. This is basically like taking protest voting to the nth, right?