Party leaders worry the Bernie Sanders wing will apply ideological purity tests in the South in 2018.
Far from defeated, Sanders-aligned progressives are nationalizing their fight, showing less patience than ever for Democrats who don’t agree with them. And that’s generating fear and nervousness in the South — in places like Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee — where some promising Democratic candidates who are looking at running statewide in 2018 could face resistance from the left.
.. “It is critical to recognize that there is a different set of policy issues in the Deep South that are not in play in the coastal areas or the West,”
.. “The party needs to not see the progressive, Bernie wing of the party as a problem, but rather see it as an asset,” said Mark Longabaugh, a senior Sanders advisor. “The fact that, broadly speaking, candidates and operatives in the establishment wing see the Bernie wing — the activist part of the party — as a problem? That’s a problem in and of itself.”
Morning Jolt: Fry Dylann Roof
This is because a lot of self-identified death penalty opponents aren’t really full-spectrum death penalty opponents.
.. John Ekdahl set off an amusing storm on Twitter by noting that the three best-selling vehicles in the United States are pick-up trucks and asking journalists the seemingly anodyne question of whether they personally know anybody who owns one.
The responses were predictable: The sort of smug progressives who are proud of their smugness scoffed that pick-ups, pollution-belching penis-supplements for toothless red-state Bubbas, are found mainly in the sort of communities where they’d never deign to set foot
.. We’ve established that the world is immensely dangerous to Americans at the close of Obama’s presidency.
So now the Trump administration wants to… shrink the intelligence community?
.. Hey, it’s not like something bad happened when we cut the intelligence budget in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, right?
This is the sort of move that doesn’t just inspire cheering at the headquarters of the Russian intelligence apparatus, or ISIS’s headquarters in Raqqa. This will have those guys doing the wave.
Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda
At the Town Hall
1. Get there early, meet up, and get organized. Meet outside or in the parking lot for a quick huddle before the event. Distribute the handout of questions, and encourage members to ask the questions on the sheet or something similar.
2. Get seated and spread out. Head into the venue a bit early to grab seats at the front half of the room, but do not sit all together. Sit by yourself or in groups of 2, and spread out throughout the room. This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.
3. Make your voices heard by asking good questions. When the MoC opens the floor or questions, everyone in the group should put your hands up and keep them there. Look friendly or neutral so that staffers will call on you. When you’re asking a question, remember the following guidelines:
Stick with the prepared list of questions. Don’t be afraid to read it straight from the printout if you need to.Be polite but persistent, and demand real answers. MoCs are very good at deflecting or dodging question they don’t want to answer. If the MoC dodges, ask a follow up. If they aren’t giving you real answers, then call them out for it. Other group members around the room should amplify by either booing the Congressman or applauding you.
Don’t give up the mic until you’re satisfied with the answer. If you’ve asked a hostile question, a staffer will often try to limit your ability to follow up by taking the microphone back immediately after you finish speaking. They can’t do that if you keep a firm hold on the mike. No staffer in their right mind wants to look like they’re physically intimidating a constituent, so they will back off. If they object, then say, politely but loudly: “I’m not finished. The Congressman/woman is dodging my question. Why are you trying to stop me from following up?”
Keep the pressure on. After one member of the group finishes, everyone should raise their hands again. The next member of the group to be called on should move down the list of questions and ask the next one.
4. Support the group and reinforce the message. After one member of your group asks a question, everyone should applaud to show that the feeling is shared throughout the audience. Whenever someone from your group gets the mike, they should note that they’re building on the previous questions – amplifying the fact that you’re part of a broad group.
5. Record everything! Assign someone in the group to use their smart phones or video camera to record other advocates asking questions and the MoC’s response. While written transcripts are nice, unfavorable exchanges caught on video can be devastating for MoCs. These clips can be shared through social media and picked up by local and national media.
Hillary Clinton’s Celebrity Feminism Was a Failure
Her reliance on Hollywood endorsements reflected a deeper problem in the Democratic Party: superficial progressivism packaged as real social justice.
Trump is now set to preside over a unified Republican government deeply antagonistic to abortion rights, marriage equality, and healthcare access. This will almost certainly be disastrous for women, but according to exit polls, 53 percent of white women voted for him anyway.