What type of democrat are you?

[parkerdivine]

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/12/bernie-sanders-nailed-it-on-identity-politics-and.html

He expands:

"One of the struggles that we're going to have right now, we lay on the table of the Democratic Party, is it's not good enough to me to say, "Okay, well we've got X number of African Americans over here, we've got Y number of Latinos, we have Z number of women. We are a diverse party, a diverse nation...."

And then come more "buts" as he delves deeper into the conflicts of between policies for the people and policies for the financial elites.

"But, but here is my point, and this is where there is going to be division within the Democratic Party. It is not good enough for someone to say, "I'm a woman! Vote for me!" No, that's not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry."

And here's where Sanders brings up identity politics. Ready? Brace yourselves!

"In other words, one of the struggles that you're going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics."

Identity politics is a term used for the addressing of the issues and injustices of particular groups in the political process. This is the only time Sanders ever mentions identity politics. "Go beyond identity politics. " For the mainstream media, that was the gotcha moment, and the focus of attention. Yes, "go beyond" can mean different things. It can mean to go "farther" or "go further" as when directions tell us to "go beyond" a certain intersection, or a counselor advises us to "go beyond" our comfort zone. At worst, "to go beyond" can have a dismissive and discounting connotation—though "get beyond" or "get over" would be a better choice if the idea was to dismiss.

At any rate, the fact that Sanders emphasized how important identity politics are shows he was clearly not eschewing them. In addition to what was already quoted, Sanders followed his sentence on identity politics by saying, "I think it's a step forward in America if you have an African-American head or CEO of some major corporation." And in case you missed the message, he finished his speech with, "We need candidates — black and white and Latino and gay and male — we need all of those candidates and public officials to have the guts to stand up to the oligarchy."

He couldn't have been clearer in presenting economic policies and representational diversity as being complementary, and not mutually exclusive.

How the Media Responded

It looks like the first major publication to pick up the story was Talking Points Memo, (TPM) which had written the following headline by Monday Morning: "Sanders Urges Supporters: Ditch Identity Politics And Embrace The Working Class."


The headline and opening sentence, which use the words "ditch" and "move away from" clearly distort what Sanders was saying. They also miss that he was talking to people running for office and the Democrats, not his supporters, though what did I expect after the headline? The headline also reads like a translation from 1930s Pravda. You can almost hear the Internationale crescendo in the background as a caricature of an old and archaic Sanders spouts dated disproven ideas about the working class, forsaking the progress of women and people of color.

Are you an honest democrat who wants the party for the people, or a corporate democrat that wants to be like the republicans?

[parkerdivine]

There are, I think, 6 corporations which control about 80 or 90% of our media. They are in it to make profits.  PART of the reason they supported Clinton was to return to Bill the favor he gave them to MAKE the monopolies they have today with the Communications Act of 1996. 

Bernie was NOT for corporate monopolies...STILL is not...that does not mean he's not for capitalism...regulated and open market okay....

But the fact that the media distorted everything he said was an attempt by the media to stop his running.  It didn't work....he spoke too well and too consistently his message he had been given which could be seen on youtube since he was Mayor.