I should start by saying that I have no inclination to have any confidence in anyone who works with Glenn Greenwald, nevermind for him or sort of for him at The Intercept, so I'm not inclined well toward Briahna Gray, their Senior Politics Editor. I am also wary of alleged lefties based in New York City - DC Axis when they interpret other places in the country. That's where I start from. I despised Glenn Greenwald when despising Glenn Greenwald wasn't groovy.
This exchange on Chris Hayes' show, All In, contains some of what was said by Ms. Gray that I agree with but it contains a glaring examples of some of the worst habits of the would-be real left in the United States(which I'd never mistake Greenwald and his outfit of even being part of), especially those from leftish enclaves being friggin' clueless about other places in the country. I'll break in to point that out as we go.
HAYES: You were –
you were in that did you – am I right that you were
out there? You went
and covered that rally.
BRIAHNA GRAY, SENIOR
POLITICS EDITOR, THE INTERCEPT: I did. I was inKansas, and, you
know, keeping in mind that everyone said it wasn`t goingto work in the
Midwest and this was a complete waste of time and adisaster, you know,
the venue had to bechanged the night
before because it sold out within 10 hours and something like 4,000 people
showed up at this bigger venue at 1:00 in the afternoon on a friday in
triple digit degree heat.
You know, that`s not
nothing.
HAYES: That`s not
nothing.
GRAY: And I think
that…
HAYES: That doesn`t
mean that candidate is going to win, by the way.
GRAY: No, it
doesn`t. Of course, none of this can be, you know, reduced in that way,
Let me break in right now to ask "reduced in that way?" REDUCED? Winning the friggin' general election is the whole point of the whole thing, getting hold of the key to doing anything worth doing in electoral politics SO YOU CAN MAKE LAWS AND CHANGE LIVES FOR THE BETTER! That's not "reducing" things, it's facing the hard reality of it. Though, being a media figure, maybe like Jonathan Chait she figures that's the real purpose of everything.
but I
think what it shows is that there is a message that is beyond partisanship.
And when she talks about wanting to implement programs that speak
to human dignity, that speak to basic material needs, people hear that and
people understand that who might not otherwise associate themselves
with one party or the other.
Which the loser in a general election most certainly DOESN'T GET TO DO NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY WANT TO IMPLEMENT PROGRAMS. If Democrats WIN A MAJORITY IN THE CONGRESS in the general election, Republican-fascists DON'T get to implement programs, if Republican-fascists win, and have a majority, THE BEST DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIIST IN THE WORLD WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO A SINGLE THING, NOT EVEN A CAUCUS COMPRISING THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS IN THE CONGRESS WITH ONE VOTE FEWER THAN A MAJORITY WILL BE ABLE TO DO IT.
HAYES: That is a
good point.
No, it isn't a good point, as the entire history of what is current the Bernie Sanders left proves. The only time Sanders was ever able to do things was when he was caucusing with a Democratic majority, the same is true for all of the rest of the Democratic Socialists in the House who might join her, someday. To pretend that this one candidate who has a good chance of becoming the first DSA member to become a member elected to Congress, and who is just great and wonderful and I hope she wins her election and has a long and successful career in office, is a sign that her politics works everywhere is ridiculous. Of course she can Bernie can get out the true-believers to a rally or a caucus, though Bernie's record in the entirely more representative primary states was not impressive. That doesn't produce the whole point of the matter, getting Republican-fascists out of offices and Democrats in them.
And it sort of goes
to what the Daily Caller person was saying, right,because she was
saying, like, none of the signals were there to tell methat this is a bad
thing that I shouldn`t like. And I can see peoplebeing, you know,
seduced by it.
GRAY: Exactly.
That said, I have to say I think Michelle Goldberg, from the frickin' New York Times, makes a lot more sense.
GOLDBERG: I mean, I
actually disagree that that goes beyond partisanship,right. I mean, I
think you have one whole political party that genuinely does find this kind
of language threatening and quasi-utilitarian andbelieves that, you
know, first, you are talking about children deservinghealth care the next
second you`re being reindoctrinated in FEMA camps.
But I think that
inasmuch as there are swing voters, and there are not very many swing voters
anymore, you know, in an electorate that`s polarized every election is a
base election. But inasmuch as there are swing voters they`re not the kind
of people that Beltway types like to pretend they arethese kind of
judicious centrists carefully considering.
HAYES:
Cross-pressured on the issues.
GOLDBERG: Those are
the people I think – who kind of are most motivatedby appeals to their
basic material needs.
Yes, and let's not forget how an effective margin of them were successfully played by the fascists, billionaires, domestic and foreign, who knew just what strings to pull to get them to vote against those interests for the biggest and most absurd conman who has run for the office in modern history, likely in all of history.
HAYES: Let me just
also say one thing here, just to be clear, she also hasa tremendous amount
of distinct political talent. I mean, like, just to be clear, like these
people are not created out of thin air. Like she is verygood at doing this
that doesn`t just like, it is a little beyond the
message.
SEDER: Without a
doubt.
Yes, Sam Seder, (of my current favorite Youtube channel), without a doubt, she is great within the context of a district in which she stands a very good chance of winning. A district very different from the large majority of districts in which a Democratic Socialist probably stands no chance of winning in a general election. If that were not the case, why haven't they won before?
But I don`t mean to
repeat myself, but I think the policy prescriptions are almost secondary.
there`s nothing offensive in what she is saying in terms of like people
wanting their kids to have health care.
But I think the idea
that it is being straightforward, that is completely laid out there,
speaks to the whole broader issue that politicos don`t necessarily
contemplate,
The ones who don't understand that winning a primary or caucus and then losing the general election OR CAUSING SO MUCH DAMAGE TO THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE THAT THEY THEN LOSE THE ELECTION don't seem to have learned a thing in the disastrous history of the lefty politicos and lefty magazine scribblers babbling the same kind of stuff that Brianna Gray is in this exchange. I've come to the conclusion that that has been going on at least since the idiots destroyed the Socialist Party in 1919 on orders from Lenin and Trotsky and went on to do things like endorse the racial bantustanization of the United States under order from the same in the early 1920s.
Face that sad fact, the left in the United States is full to the top with play-boy and gal idiotic fuck-ups. Among the biggest ones today are some, maybe not all, but some who write for The Nation, In These Times, The Intercept (if we can pretend that anything like a leftist instead of a preening libertarian entity) and, after looking at their website, the Democratic Socialists of America.
but it`s just like basically like do I think that person is
authentic? Are they telling me what they believe, they are. And they
seem to be pretty confident about it. And I think that a lot goes further
than we imagine.
I'd rather not have to imagine it in the context of a race in Kansas that could make the difference between having Republican-fascists destroy the last vestiges of democracy and narrowly losing the chance to stop them. I don't care how many preening New Yorkers get to feel all good about themselves for having "fought the good fight" I FUCKING CARE ABOUT WINNING ANY FIGHT.
GRAY: I there is
something to the delivery of course. But you can`t also ignore that
something like 70 percent of all congressional candidates who are in swing
districts, Democrats who have won, ran health care as acentral policy. When
I was in Kansas, I got a ride home from the airport with a 75-year-old
Trump voter and her daughter. And when I asked her, youknow, what she was
doing, because she talked to me about how sheappreciated that her
grandkids could be on Health Care longer, because of Obamacare.
She appreciated that
she was on Medicare and wanted – it was all aboutMedicare expansion.
She was concerned that both of her adult children wereliving at home,
couldn`t get a working – a living wage, and didn`t havehealth care.
And when I explained
to her that I was going to a Bernie rally, and these are things that
Bernie cared about, it didn`t take but a 10-minute car rideto get her on board.
How many people in Kansas does she think she's going to get to ride with for 10 minutes in a car because if that's what it takes, why isn't she out there on the side of the road with her thumb out? And does she know that she remained on board and will through the election? If she came "on board" from having voted for Trump, I'd like to know how you figure her conversion is secure.
And I think that you
can`t undervalue the fact that people don`t have to be policy wonks to
understand that basic policies that enable them to live a life in a wealthy
and moral America matter, as Ocasio-Cortez says, matter.And it would have
been a disservice to not have had them all these years.
HAYES: This is the
Joe Lieberman column who is a sort of like perfect kind of…
GOLDBERG: Health
care hero.
HAYES: I mean, Joe
Liberman who said people should vote for Joe Crowley who is still on the
ballot for the working families card, because AlexandriaOcasio-Cortez hurts
the party, congress, and even America.
I think one of the
things that she does here, which get this, right, which is like there is
always the like but how are you going to pay for it, right? Oh, yeah, it
sounds great to like do all of this stuff but like
let`s be real.
And I think part of
the path that has been plowed by the Republicans it`s like why are you
even going to talk about that? Why play that game? The president just
pulled $12 billion out of thin air to like basically make some cash payments
to some farmers. He is screwing on his trade policy.Like why even play
the game?
GOLDBERG: And I
think also she has kind of parried that kind of question really well which is
we are laying out a marker for the kind of society that we want to
create, right. I`m not coming to you with white paper about legislation
that I am going to introduce next year.
SEDER: The problem
is is that the faux concern about the deficit, and we can argue as to
whether or not there is money – I mean, they came up with $70 billion a year
for the military. We didn`t need that. But the notion of the deficit is no
longer one of those sort of signifiers, one of those
cultural IDs that
like guns, god – was. it used to be the deficit
HAYES: That got cast
aside.
SEDER: And that got
cast aside quickly.
HAYES: The last
thing, though, I will say here, right, like – so, you know, obviously this
is someone who is running – who is probably going to win, I think, in her
district. It`s Bronx/Queens, a very liberal district, majority people of
color. You know, you have got like Conor Lamb. You got people running in
very different ways.
Like, I`m not quite
sold on the idea, right. Like, the sort of – the thesis here, right,
that the Bernie like thesis is like this is universal stuff. You can go to
Kansas and do it. And I am not sold yet that that is true.
GRAY: Well, what if
we look at the fact that Bernie Sanders won every district in the
primary in West Virginia.
GOLDBERG: And
Hillary won Mississippi, like that doesn`t mean that her brand of politics is
viable there.
GRAY: Well, what if we look at the fact that Bernie Sanders won every district in the primary in West Virginia.
Let me underline that because it's the idiocy of Gray's position in a brief exchange.
GOLDBERG: And Hillary won Mississippi, like that doesn`t mean that her brand of politics is viable there.
GRAY: Well, no,
because a general election and a primary election are very different.
Yeah, winning a primary means you get to be on the ballot, winning an election means you get to be in office.
People are choosing
based on pure partisanship in a general election. And I think that being
overly dismissive of people on the ground whoarticulated a choice
for a more progressive vision of the world, who articulated a choice
for policies that spoke to their genuine material concerns is a fool`s
errand.
HAYES: Whether it`s
a fool`s errand or not, I am just saying it is an unanswered question,
right, about like the – like I am going to go run as a Socialist in
Kansas and that`s going to work.
GOLDBERG: I think
these tensions are somewhat overplayed, right. I mean,every district sort
of choose somebody who is appropriate. I don`t necessarily. I have
no opinion about this primary in Kansas. I do know that when I was in
Pennsylvania I met people who worked for both Conor Lamb
an also for some of
the socialist candidates who won in the state house,and they didn`t see
them as being on opposite sides of some kind of greatdivide.
HAYES: Michelle
Goldberg, Sam Seder, and Brianna Gray, thank you both –
all for being with me tonight.
The idea that because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an impressive upset in one of the most liberal areas of a relatively liberal city in a relatively liberal state that Bernie Sanders can build an empire with her across the country is ludicrous. It doesn't surprise me that someone who works for the scumbag traitor, Glenn Greenwald, former idol of the play-left blog set and all round sleaze would be pushing that line.
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