Sessions was confirmed with the help of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia... a Dem.

If Manchin is not successfully primaried it shall be the certain and inerrant sign of corporate Dem dominance even in the face of 2016's total electoral disaster.

And so the elites will be allowed to keep on attempting to will their own version of reality into existence... until they get us all killed.

The Senate GOP's fascist like silencing of its opposition is intolerable. It is vital that its majority control of the Senate end after the 2018 midterm.

I also wholeheartedly concur with Zapkitty that genuine Democrats should target Manchin in the 2018 primary. That should occur in California as well. Diane Feinstein correctly opposed Sessions's nomination but on a host of other issues she's been a Democrat in name only.

Question for both Zap & Ernie (and anyone else who wishes to ring in):

I join your frustration with Manchin and have no particular prob with those who wish to primary him doing so. That said, I'm curious your responses to the (legit) argument that a progressive primary challenger (if he/she were successful) would result in a far greater likelihood of a Republican being elected to the seat. This is WV we are talking about here after all.

While a far more progressive Democratic caucus would be welcome, there is already an uphill fight to gain seats in 2018 for the Dems (they've got to defend a lot more seats than the Rs). As is, Dems would need to PICK UP 3 seats, as well as defending ALL current seats up for re-election, in order to retake a majority in the Senate to serve as a check to Trump and the GOP. Losing the WV seat might result in a more progressive caucus, but one still in the minority and unable to block Trump.

So...what's more important? A Dem majority in the Senate or a more progressive one still in the minority?

Well, Brad. As I see it, Donald Trump would not be POTUS if Democrats had the good sense to select a genuine progressive (Bernie Sanders). Time and again issue polls show that genuine progressive policies are immensely popular. Assuming Trump did not electronically steal the election --- and it's impossible now to know whether or not he did --- I think it fair to say that Trump prevailed because a wide swath of working class Americans looked at such issues as the TPP and knew that Hillary sided with the multinational corporations. Many were also troubled by her cozy ties to Wall Street.

I suspect that a genuine progressive would have a far greater prospect of retaining WV seat in the Senate --- assuming it's not electronically stolen. One thing appears certain from the losses in 2014 & 2016. The establishment tactic of running ethically compromised Democrats who are beholden to Wall Street and other corporate interests is a losing strategy.

I think you've presented a faux Hobson's choice --- between a Senate majority and a more progressive Senate minority. The nomination of genuine progressives is the only way to achieve a Democratic majority.

It's all about the message, isn't it? And a lot of the message is how you portray yourself and your opponent, and how you can bypass the cognitive part of the voter's brain and evoke the desired emotional response. Then repeat, 24/7, over and over again.

So IMO, PR is going to rule the election. I think it matters less whether a candidate is progressive or corporate, than whether their campaign can overwhelm the opposition with well-orchestrated attack ads and skillfully connect with voters on a gut level. What do WV's want? Give it to them all out in the campaign and show that the Repub candidate not only doesn't have it, but would do irreparable damage if elected. Anything less, and the Dem candidate will lose, because the Repubs are absolute masters at this.

... Brad Friedman said...

... the (legit) argument that a progressive primary challenger (if he/she were successful) would result in a far greater likelihood of a Republican being elected to the seat. This is WV we are talking about here after all.

I agree with what Ernest wrote above.

This is not a rational argument... this instead is the framing that the pro-corporate Dems have been screaming from the rooftops ever since they lost almost everything in the 2016 election.

And that needs to be repeated because they seem to still be running on autopilot: their archaic post-Reagan tactics and modes of operation led to a constant Dem decline in offices and influence over decades and eventually cost them everything.

The maelstrom circling the abyss is a slippery slope indeed but the corporate Dems insist that we all have to dance on the edge because reasons.

... said reasons being that they are an entrenched corporate-sponsored power structure embedded within the Democratic party and as such naturally feel that they can't possibly let go after so many years of brown-nosing corporate ass.

And yet we can save West Virginia... we'll have to.

How? It's going to be a supreme instance of irony for states like WV because being a redder state just means being metaphorically slammed across the head all that much harder by the collateral damage from the ongoing attempts to manifest the GOP fantasy world.

Most West Virginians will vote Dem just to stop the ongoing hemorrhaging (both financial and literal.)

West Virginia might even go (barely) blue... but not if the effort is seen as being led by corporate Dems.

... assuming the GOP allows them to vote all... and assuming there's something Dem they'll feel is worth voting for.

"The GOP tanked the economy, allowed the bankers to run wild, screwed up our healthcare, ruined our food and water, and ripped off our Social Security fund to fuel monstrous tax breaks for billionaires... (insert a much longer list by the time 2018 rolls around) ... will you help us?"

The entrenched corporate Dem structure (which sadly comprises much of the Democratic operational management now) will say that only they can reassure the West Virginians... and they will be (again) full of shit. Too much time with their noses stuffed up corporate ass.

Obama was an exception because he ran as a populist and carried the corporate Dems on his coattails.

And then Obama governed from a bit right of center... or what used to be the center before the GOPs descent into madness became so pronounced... leading to the 2010 Dem massacre.

Essentially repeat for 2012-2014...

And so the corporate Dems thought it'd be alright to field a 2016 strategy a bit to the right of Obama and allowed the candidates a few bits of populist trimmings to lull the marks... and got their collective heads handed to them.

They are living in the past, Brad, and trying to fight tomorrows' battles with the same "weapons"... essentially corporate subservience via adherence to GOP frames and memes... that has lost them so many of their previous battles.

We need crowbars to pry their noses out of that corporate ass cracks.

And primaries are the tool we have.

I won't guess how many primaries it will take before the corporate Dems suddenly become progressives, but I suspect it will not take all that many.

... Brad Friedman said...

So...what's more important? A Dem majority in the Senate or a more progressive one still in the minority?

What was that definition of insanity again?...

The Dems tried that... for decades... and the red states always drifted further and further into the red as the conservative fantasy worldview was reinforced again and again by unceasing corporate Dem capitulations... by Dems who could not pry their nose from the oligarch ass buffet.

Let me add one point to both my comment @4 and Zap's @6.

By the time the 2018 midterms roll around, it should be abundantly clear to even the low information voters who had been taken in by Trump's faux populism in 2016 that they had been duped by an elaborate deception that was analogous to the prevarications that led to fraud allegations against Trump University.

Trump's economics --- e.g., elimination of the investment banking fiduciary, massive tax cuts for the billionaire class, repeal of the ACA sans consumer protection, opening up oil and gas while restraining the fastest growing energy sustainable energy sectors --- will all lead to a society in which the very people he proclaimed to champion will suffer the most.

In that environment, the Democratic candidates who would have the greatest chance of success would be genuine progressives who are not tainted by their ties to corporate wealth and power.

I respectfully disagree with Lora @5. Messaging is important, but it can become a liability where it clashes with reality.

There were two economic issues that Trump was able to exploit, especially in the Mid-West Rust Belt states. One entailed Hillary Clinton's past descriptions of the TPP as the gold standard for trade agreements. Most working class Americans understand that so-called "free trade" embodied in agreements like NAFTA spelled the beginning of the end for middle class wage jobs in manufacturing.

Hillary's disingenuous assaults on Bernie Sanders's call for a single-payer system and defense of a deeply flawed and ethically compromised system (see ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription) placed her in a precarious position when news of health insurance industry price gauging struck in the month leading up to the election.

All of this, combined with what many saw as her unseemly ties to Wall Street, such as her exorbitant speaking fees and a son-in-law employed by Goldman Sachs --- not to mention growing wealth disparity throughout the middle-of-the-road Obama years --- severely undercut the Clinton campaign's "message" that tried to portray her as a champion of ordinary Americans.

So no, Lora. While messaging is important, it can backfire the moment an electorate comes to understand that the message is nothing more than smoke and mirrors offered up by an ethically challenged "Democrat" who all too often accepts policies that only benefit the one percent.

Ernie,

Trump's smoke and mirrors far, far outweighed Clinton's smoke and mirrors. Just because there were nuggets of truth doesn't discount all the lies and vicious attacks Trump's campaign waged on Hillary and the Dems.

Trump's message constantly clashed with reality. Didn't matter. It worked.

There is no comparison between ethically challenged Hillary and ethically challenged Donald. Yet he prevailed because her faults and flaws were exaggerated to the point of making her into the Antichrist, and Donald's faults and flaws were cleverly turned into assets.

Remember the ad where Hillary will take away your guns, leaving that poor mother defenseless against her midnight attacker, except for a too-late 911 call? Gut level. No thinking required.

Just to clarify, I don't mean that the Dems need to flat-out lie (any more than they already do, anyway), but if they don't take some pages from the Repub campaign play book, and/or write a better one, they will keep losing.

Their interview style is different. Ever notice? Dems will tend to attempt to answer questions put to them whereas Repubs will ignore questions they don't want to answer and instead get their message out.

I recommend taking a few minutes a day to listen to talk radio and you will hear more clearly the challenges that the Dems face with regard to public perception and message. It is frightening.

Just tuned in now to Conservative Talk Radio at tunein.com, and within a few moments:

"more liberalism equals more drugs" Savage Nation

[talking to a transgendered individual]
"it's your typical liberal who is pushing this agenda about the bathrooms." Mark Levin

"Mississippi is thinking about bring back the firing squad. ...Response to a lawsuit filed by liberal left wing radicals" Chad Benson

This is 24/7. This is what we have to combat.

The issue, Lora, is not whether Trump's deceptions vastly exceeded Hillary's but whether they would have fallen flat if he'd been matched against a genuine progressive with unimpeachable integrity like Bernie Sanders.

Every pre-convention poll, as well as issue specific polls, had Bernie faring better than Hillary against Trump by double digits. Sanders was the only candidate in either party who was rated on the plus side in favorability polls. And he was overwhelmingly favored by Millennials whose numbers will increase over the next two years.

The problem with Hillary and with all corporate Democrats lies not only in the perception that they are ethically compromised but in the fact that they are, indeed, ethically compromised. That cannot be said with respect to genuine progressives who are not dependent upon corporate wealth and false advertising.

Well you have a point, Ernie, but I think the GOP/Trump/wealth machine would have branded Bernie a commie faster than you can spit, and ramped up the fear / hate factor to an enormous level. Whether he could still have beaten Trump --- I don't know. The polls had it wrong anyway. Whether they would have been right with Bernie as the candidate is anybody's guess.

I think the entire left wing --- progressives and corporate Dems --- far far underestimate the sophistication and success of the right wing propaganda / brainwashing machine, to their huge detriment. They better get with the program, fast.

BTW, I wish very much it had been Bernie.

I suggest Lora that you overestimate the power of propaganda and underestimate the effect of speaking truth to power.

Ernie,

I respectfully suggest that simply speaking truth to power is not enough. Not nearly enough.

Trump didn't become president by speaking truth to power. Do you think Bernie spoke truth to power? I did. It wasn't enough.

It is a catchy phrase and a wonderful sentiment and the right thing to do. And it is important.

But by itself, it is not working.

Look and listen to the propaganda out there.

Just now,

"I bet if you ask every Indian...should we be a little bit strict about who we let into our country? They'd say, 'Hell, Yeah!'"

99.5 WRNO

Lora @13 wrote:

I respectfully suggest that simply speaking truth to power is not enough. Not nearly enough.

Trump didn't become president by speaking truth to power. Do you think Bernie spoke truth to power? I did. It wasn't enough.

With all due respect, Lora, I think you've missed the central point of the dialogue. No one ever suggested that speaking truth to power, of itself, guarantees success. But fact-based truth (that includes exposing the constant stream of Trump/GOP lies) was a critical component of a Sanders-led political revolution that was designed to impart knowledge to the American electorate.

As James Madison so aptly observed:

The answer to Trump's deceptions lies not in the ability of an ethically compromised corporate incumbent Democrat to spin better yarns via better corporate media access, but in a principled progressive like a Bernie Sanders or a Keith Ellison, to educate the electorate so as to arm them with the power that only knowledge can provide.

For a multitude of reasons, including a DNC Chair who rigged the debate process, Sanders did not secure the nomination. But, as a vehicle for imparting knowledge, his campaign was immensely successful. Americans in record numbers began discussing the core issue of income and wealth inequality, and Sanders was modestly successful in revealing to the public why democratic socialism is not a bad word, but, in fact, a vital component to a vibrant democracy.

Without those who speak truth to power, genuine democracy has no chance whatsoever.

Finally, it is important to note that Sanders himself did not see the restoration of genuine democracy as something that could be achieved in a single election cycle. The GOP process of transforming a far more egalitarian political economy that began with the New Deal into a neoliberal oligarchy with record inequality likewise did not occur in a single election cycle. To the contrary, it was a process that dates back at least to the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan and was accelerated when Bill Clinton, with the support of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, rammed NAFTA through on the fast track.

I see the 2016 election of Donald Trump as marking the descent of oligarchy into full-fledged fascism. It is a process that can and must be stopped in its tracks by an aroused and better informed electorate who must be afforded a real choice via genuinely progressive candidates.

Ernie wrote:

It is a process that can and must be stopped in its tracks by an aroused and better informed electorate who must be afforded a real choice via genuinely progressive candidates.

I agree with you, Ernie. I really do.

It's how we get an aroused and better informed electorate that has me losing sleep at night.

It's how we combat the 24/7 hate that has poisoned the brains of millions of Americans who actually thought Trump would make America great again.

All the progressive candidates in the world will not make headway unless we find a way to get their message to those millions who have been poisoned against any and all progressive agendas by the wealth cabal who is using these good citizens shamelessly and successfully.

They had a field day with Obama. They made him out to be a horrible president whose socialist policies derailed America and destroyed the lives of honest working class folk.

I'm not putting Obama on any pedestal but at least he was not ethically compromised the way Clinton was. He was relatively honest, for a president. He was chewed up and spit out. I don't see any democratic candidate, progressive or otherwise, going up against the vitriol without a whole new media playbook, and a solid plan to deprogram millions of Americans who are listening to the constant lies and vitriol of the right wing.

In my humble opinion, this IS the point.

Right after commercials, it takes only a few moments to get the disinformation and vitriol against anything democratic:

Rush Limbaugh:

Betsy De Vos... this is big... the democrat leader... called Betsey the worst cabinet nominee ever. This is the nominee the democrats were going to destroy...

Betsy de Vos wants to turn public education upside down and fix it...

The [democratic] hypocrisy is serious stuff...

[the poor and dowtrodden] the democrat party was their champion...

look what the democrat party has done to the schools...war zone

The things that they are being taught is worthless, it's a liberal indoctrination...they are not being taught about the greatness of our country...

etc, etc

This is 24/7, constant brainwashing. It's everywhere, it is listened to, it is believed by millions and millions.

Anyway, I've said all I can say for now on the subject. I see you have continued your plea for progressive candidates in another thread, which I am wholeheartedly in favor of. I just hope they will not somehow think their truth and righteousness is enough to sway those millions of hard working voters who think it's them against the evil liberal hordes.

I understand and appreciate the concerns you expressed @15, Lora. Perhaps the most apt reply was offered by Howard Zinn, in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress:

There can be no doubt that much of what passes for "news" is nothing more than right wing propaganda. There can also be little doubt that the level of deception emerging from the White House is unprecedented.

But progressives should be encouraged precisely because the lies are so outrageous, so detached from the increasingly harsh reality of those working class stiffs who'd been taken in by Trump's faux populism.

Once the electorate comes to understand that it has been deceived, the barrage of lies becomes a source of right-wing vulnerability rather than a sign of its strength.

Now, if we could only get a handle on the symbiotic problems of e-voting and voter suppression.