"I am told at the end of the movie they say nothing changed, which is nonsense," Quick Post On A Great Interview With Barney Frank

There is a paranoid streak in the Bernie Sanders supporters that is reminiscent of the paranoid streak in the Trump-Cruz supporters.   In reading the comments at one of this weeks several Hillary hatin' posts at Salon, I'm reading the same non-specific, general, dark assertions about the DNC rigging things that I heard at our caucus.  Considering that the people casting those paranoid aspersions believed that it was the person who was running our town caucus who was in on it - he was a Sanders supporter who, as convener of the caucus didn't stand up for either candidate - that shows you how stupid these guys can be. 

As I said before, I hate caucuses because they are inherently anti-democratic, don't have a secret voting process and are open to the most open and blatant of coercive tactics.  They never have the participation that a primary does so they are inherently the same kind of anti-democratic mechanism that, if they were being proposed for the first time, Democrats and, most of all, liberal Democrats would vote against on just that basis.  Yet it is what Bernie Sanders' much touted, though falling short, nomination effort largely depends on.

Barney Frank, in an interview at Slate said pretty much the same things I have.

Isaac Chotiner: What do you make of Bernie Sanders’ success thus far, even if he is likely to come up short in terms of delegates?

Barney Frank: Remember he’s way behind not just in delegates but in votes.

Yeah I know, but still—

It’s ironic that we complain about voter suppression and shortened voting times and then we have so many caucuses. The caucuses are the least democratic political operation in America. They cater to the people who have a lot of time on their hands, and what’s interesting is Sanders is the nominee of the caucuses and Hillary is the nominee of the primaries.

I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about.

So it seems like you’re saying Bernie’s voters have a slightly unrealistic sense about the political process. And that this is driven—

I didn’t say slightly.

Those are all excellent points and they are, in fact, best addressed to the very people who equate paranoid gossip mongering with participation.  I wouldn't put much or perhaps even most of Bernie Sanders' support in that category but a large number of those I've known and whose comments I've read, Frank's comments hit the bulls eye.   Look, I know these guys, I know the type.  Anything that looks like a little bit of work, especially outside of the glamorous context of a presidential election year, and they are no-shows.  They not only don't know how politics really function, they would rather have movie narratives inform them of that than reality.   Frank also addressed that in the interview.

What did you make of The Big Short, by the way?

I didn’t see the movie. I read the book. Why?

It’s good.

Well, I know the situation, I read the book. I am told at the end of the movie they say nothing changed, which is nonsense.

The movie does say something like that. The politics of the movie are actually interesting because it’s more cynical than I think people like you are.

Right, so why would I want to see it?

Well, it’s got good acting and things like that.

I’m not a drama critic. Part of the problem is there is a tendency in the media to demonize politics to the extent that it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whether with Jon Stewart or House of Cards or The Big Short. It basically tells people, “Everybody stinks, they’re all no good,” and that’s one of the reasons people don’t participate.

I think that part of the argument that people like Sanders would make is that, the financial system is corrupt fundamentally and that we don’t want to merely make it slightly more stable—

Well if that’s the case it’s even dumber than I thought. The financial system is people lending money to other people so they can do things. I do think that he overstates it when he says, “they’re all corrupt.” It’s simply not true. And by the way, when it comes to specifics, the only specific I have heard is Glass-Steagall, which makes very little change in the finance system.

I think he gets a pass from the media. Other than Glass-Steagall, what did he propose in 2009 and 2010 when he was a senator when we were dealing with this? The answer is nothing. Why haven’t you looked at his record?

Well if I ever interview him I’ll ask him that.

The media collectively.


I'd include that "new media" that we were all sold as being such an exciting opportunity to push things to the left, about a dozen years ago.  Frankly, I think the net effect of the new media, in which everyone reads what they want to read and hear what they want to hear, has made things far worse.  The few instances where someone has tried to mount a real news and information operation online it has been everything from "ho-hum" to "that's boorrrrirrng" to "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.....".  It's so much easier to be lazily cynical about it and to snark about it online. 

Read the interview, as always with Barney Frank, you might not agree with everything he says but he's not going to lie to you and he's more likely to know what's real than someone pandering to the audience they want to attract.

As so often, my thanks to RMJ for the link.