Some recent comments by the Senate Democratic Leader has prompted Clintonite Hillary Schwartz to write "An Angry Letter To Chuck Schumer,"
in which she asserts that the New York Senator has thrown Hillary
Clinton under the bus. Her subject line: "When You Throw Hillary Clinton
Under the Bus, You Throw Millions of Her Supporters Under It Too,
Especially Women." A brief response:
Get
over yourself. When you assert, "I speak for millions of women," you’re
not going to get--or earn--anything but ridicule from anyone worthy
of being taken seriously. To clear the air on the subject under
discussion, this is the allegedly terrible thing Chuck Schumer said:
"'When
you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame
other things — Comey, Russia--you blame yourself,' Schumer (D-N.Y.) told The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe and David Weigel. 'So what did we do wrong? People didn't know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that.'"
That’s
not riding some wave of "Hillary hate"; it’s what's known as taking
responsibility. For Clintonites who have never learned about that, it's
what adults do when they screw up, as Democrats have so royally screwed
up in recent years.
Now, if
it's any consolation, Schumer is probably just putting on a show when it comes
to reform. For the moment, he can tell which way the wind's blowing but
if he were serious, he would have offered a much more forthright
acknowledgement of the colossal mistake that was Clinton and, more
broadly, Clintonism, as embraced by Obama.
You write:
"Unfortunately, you are following the lead of Bernie Sanders whose outreach on behalf of the Party is 'Democrats suck.' That is not a winning pitch, other than for him."
Unfortunately for you, we have numbers on this and they tell a very different story. From the big Harvard/Harris survey:
This
is a couple months out of date at this point but I have the graphic
handy and the numbers haven't changed that much since. On the other
hand, the numbers have changed a great deal since your talking-points
were minted around 2 years ago. Bernie Sanders enjoys massive support
among Democrats. You play the usual game of pretending as if Sanders was
just the candidate of middle-class white guys; these numbers correct
that. In the same poll, he's not only more popular with women than with
men, he's significantly more popular with women than Hillary Clinton
(Sanders has 58% support among women, Clinton only 45%). He's even more
popular among those who voted for Clinton than Clinton herself
(81% of Clinton voters say they have a favorable view of Sanders vs.
76% with a similar view of Clinton). So you're not actually speaking for
anyone when it comes to this
pointless hypersensitivity about Democrats taking any responsibility for
their mistakes. You talk about having been "thrilled to vote for HRC" but HRC
was hated by most people--on election week, she was polling at 55%
unfavorable. You're complaining about Schumer allegedly rolling over the
Democratic base but this is the Democratic base, and you’re not representative of it.
Democrats
have been brought to one of their lowest levels in the very long
history of the party. Doing nothing isn't an option. Sanders' message
isn't "Democrats suck." It's that Democrats need to proactively embrace a
progressive agenda. That's not only entirely sensible, it's essential for Democrats if they ever want to dig themselves out of the very deep hole in
which they find themselves at the moment.[1]
Like
so many Clintonites, you freely assign nefarious motives to Sanders
with absolutely nothing to support your claims--the ludicrous notion
that he's "not interested" in helping the party and is merely "playing
both sides of the fence… to boost himself." Sanders has a progressive
agenda he's pursued significantly longer than most people reading these
words today have even lived. If, after all that time, he hasn't proven
that agenda is the thing to which he’s committed, no one has ever proven
such a thing of themselves. Sanders wants the Democratic party to
reform so it can win and enact that agenda. Said agenda is incredibly popular,
enjoying not only overwhelming support within the Democratic party but
widespread support from the general public. Some good news for those who
want it: Sanders is also the most popular politician in the U.S. at the
moment. No positive purpose is served in smearing him with this garbage
and no end is served except to harm the progress of that agenda. Donald
Trump and his Trumpanzees will certainly appreciate that. No one of good
conscience should offer it a moment's kind thought.
Here are the facts of life: Clinton was not only a bad candidate, she was an historically
bad one who launched her campaign when polls were already showing more
people disliked than liked her, ran one of the all-time awful campaigns
and lost to the most unpopular major-party presidential candidate in the history of polling. She and those who supported her--and Schumer himself was a
key member of Team Clinton--have saddled us with Trump. Democrats are
now looking to pick up the pieces and try to rebuild. You can be a part
of that process or write things like your "open letter," which is basically a declaration that you're part of the problem instead. Choose wisely. This
time.
--j.
---
[1] You write:
"I understand the urgency of having a more cohesive and strong economic message, as well as boosting support, but how about surrounding it with an overall positive message by going straight to the plans that the Democrats have and what the Democrats have and are fighting for? Must you do an anti-sell with the sell?"
Despite your implication, Schumer and the congressional Democrats are already rolling out
the broad outlines of that positivist economic message. It's still
early days, so somewhat sketchy and experience has dictated one should
be fairly cynical about the commitment of these Democratic leaders to
any genuine reform but at least on paper, they’re making steps in the
right direction. Your suggestion that they simply not address what got
them to their present sorry state is a non-starter.
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