Progressives (Liberals)

The goal has to be progress forward, not ideal achieved.

Increments is as much a bullshit excuse for failure as you could possibly invent.

Increments are all we're going to get — if we're lucky — because there's no way a radical top-to-bottom reorganization of our health care and health insurance system is going to be put into place. Won't make it through Congress, won't make it past the courts. (...) How long are you folks willing to give Sanders as he works to take on the largest capitalist economy in the world with the most conservative electorate and transform it into a democratic socialist state? That'd be quite an undertaking — assuming he could make it past the 2022 midterms. Hell, assuming he could even get elected in the first place.

Under pressure, Elizabeth Warren has retreated from the idea of immediate implementation of Medicare for All, but she remains committed to the progressive core of her candidacy.

As she put it in a speech to Iowa Democrats on Nov. 1:

If we’re going to meet the challenges of our time, we need big ideas. Big ideas to inspire people and get them out to caucus and get them out to vote. Big ideas to be the lifeblood of our party and show the world who and what Democrats will fight for.

In rhetoric that drew enthusiastic applause from her supporters at the Liberty and Justice Dinner in Des Moines, Warren declared that the nation is at

a time of crisis, and media pundits, Washington insiders, even some people in our own party don’t want to admit it. They think that running some vague campaign that nibbles around the edges is somehow safe.

Democrats will win, she continued,

when we offer solutions big enough to touch the problems that are in people’s lives. Fear and complacency does not win elections; hope and courage wins elections.

There is evidence, however, that Warren’s strategy could generate a backlash leading to the re-election of Donald Trump.

Andrew Hall and Daniel Thompson, political scientists at Stanford, examined “the link between the ideology of congressional candidates and the turnout of their parties’ bases in US House races, 2006—2014” in their 2018 paper “Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning Out the Base in US Elections.”

In contrast to moderate candidates, Hall and Thompson found:

Extremist candidates do worse, because, contrary to rhetoric, they fail to galvanize their own base and instead encourage the opposing party’s base to turn out more, on average.

In other words, polarizing candidates diminish turnout in their own party while boosting turnout among opposing partisans.

Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, analyzed the pattern of Democratic victories in 2018 House races and found that “those who supported Medicare for All performed worse than those who did not, even when controlling for other factors.”

In an article he published last week, “Medicare for All a Vote Loser in 2018 U.S. House Elections,” Abramowitz concluded:

These findings are not encouraging to supporters of Medicare for All. They indicate that candidates in competitive races who take positions to the left of the median voter could get punished at the polls. Democratic presidential candidates would do well to take heed of these results.

The analyses by Hall, Thompson and Abramowitz do not preclude the possibility that Warren could beat Trump in 2020. Whoever the Democratic nominee is will be able to capitalize on widespread hostility to Trump, a motivated Democratic electorate and the party’s continuing gains in formerly Republican suburbs across the nation.

(...)

there's much more on the link; worth reading

Putin pleased election interference accusations have shifted to Ukraine
At an economic forum in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed pleasure that talk of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has shifted away from Russia and to Ukraine during these impeachment hearings.

“Thank God,” he said, speaking to an audience at the “Russia Calling!” investment event. “No one is accusing us of interfering in the United States elections anymore. Now they’re accusing Ukraine. We’ll let them deal with that themselves.”

If they don't grill Pete re SC black endorsements stunt

The photo of a black woman smiling at a young black boy had been splashed for weeks across a web page detailing South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg's plan to combat racial inequality, which he billed as a "comprehensive investment in the empowerment of black America."

But when the woman in the photo learned that her likeness was displayed on the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign website, she was confused, the Intercept's Ryan Grim reported Sunday. The woman isn't African American and she's never heard of the Douglass Plan - she is from Kenya, where the picture was originally taken.

"[W]hat's the meaning of the message accompanied by the photo?" the woman asked Grim. "Have no idea of what's happening..."

The photo mix-up is just the latest controversy to erupt around the Douglass Plan since it was rolled out in July as part of Buttigieg's effort to make inroads with black voters. While recent polling has shown Buttigieg surging toward the front of the crowded Democratic presidential field in Iowa, the candidate has struggled to draw support from African Americans.


Some critics pointed to the photo as further proof of that disconnect.

"This is not ok or necessary," tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a Somali-born refugee.

By late Sunday, Buttigieg's campaign confirmed to The Washington Post that the photo of the Kenyan woman was no longer on the website. A contracting firm had chosen the stock image while building the site without knowing that it was taken in Africa, according to the campaign.

The photo was one of several featuring people of color that ran on the page touting the Douglass Plan. Named after abolitionist and activist Frederick Douglass, the plan aims to "dismantle racist structures and systems" in the United States by proposing changes to the country's health, education and criminal justice systems, The Post reported in July.

Last month, the campaign announced that more than 400 people in South Carolina, where the latest Monmouth Poll had Buttigieg at 1 percent among black voters, endorsed the plan. The news was promoted in an Oct. 24 op-ed signed by the plan's supporters and three black South Carolina Democrats: Columbia City Council member Tameika Isaac Devine, state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, and the state party's Black Caucus chair Johnnie Cordero.

"There is one presidential candidate who has proven to have intentional policies designed to make a difference in the Black experience, and that's Pete Buttigieg," according to the op-ed, which ran in HBCU Times, a publication dedicated to news about historically black colleges and universities. "We are over 400 South Carolinians, including business owners, pastors, community leaders, and students. Together, we endorse his Douglass Plan for Black America, the most comprehensive roadmap for tackling systemic racism offered by a 2020 presidential candidate."

But questions soon emerged about the nature of support Buttigieg had found for the plan. The Washington Post reported on Nov. 11 that "Buttigieg persuaded hundreds of prominent black South Carolinians to sign onto the plan even if they are not supporting his candidacy."

"His campaign then trumpeted these signatures in a way that forced figures such as Devine, for one, to clarify that she was not endorsing Buttigieg," The Post's Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Amy B Wang wrote.

On Friday, Devine told the Intercept that the campaign had been "intentionally vague" about the way it had presented her endorsement, which led some to believe that she was endorsing Buttigieg as a candidate and not just the Douglass Plan. The council member reiterated her support for the plan in a tweet over the weekend,

Cordero and Thigpen, however, told the Intercept they did not expect their names to appear on the op-ed.

"I never endorsed that plan," Cordero said. "I don't know how my name got on there."

Thigpen, who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for president, said the way the campaign rolled out its October announcement "was not an accurate representation of where I stand."

Cordero's name was taken off the op-ed before the Intercept's story published, according to Buttigieg's campaign. Thigpen remains as one of the named supporters.

People who expressed interest in backing the plan had the option to opt out of having their names attached to the op-ed if they responded in time to an email sent by the campaign, the Intercept reported. After reviewing the names, the publication found that at least 42 percent of the list was made up of white voters.

In a statement to The Post on Sunday, a spokesman for the campaign said, "We've been clear that not every supporter of the plan is Black, and have never claimed otherwise in any public communication." The statement also pushed back against allegations that the campaign "gave the impression publicly that these people were endorsing Pete."

"We asked a number of Black South Carolinians, as well as South Carolinians from many backgrounds, to support the Douglass Plan, and we are proud and grateful that hundreds agreed to do so," the statement said, noting that people were given multiple chances to review the op-ed and those who asked had their names taken off.

This weekend, conversation shifted to the photo, which Grim pointed out Friday had been taken in Kenya. In a Sunday tweet, he explained that the Kenyan woman contaced him, "very confused" about why her picture was suddenly linked to an American presidential candidate. Grim added that the woman did agree to be photographed, but "didn't intend to pose for a stock photo."

By early Monday, Grim's tweet had garnered hundreds of responses.
One person accused Buttigieg's campaign of "pure laziness."

"Sounds like a man with his finger on the pulse of the black community," another tweeted.

In a nauseating interview on Pod Save America, Elizabeth Warren endorsed suffocating US sanctions on Venezuela, backing Trump's strategy to stop its "ability to have an economy" while parroting neocon regime-change myths.

She then whitewashed the far-right military coup in Bolivia.