Liberal Hatred for Susan Sarandon is a Symptom of People Who Refuse to Acknowledge Their Own Failure

[rainbows_]

Oscar-winning actor and progressive activist Susan Sarandon sparked a good deal of controversy during the primary stage of the presidential election when she expressed doubt to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about whether she could bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton in a “lesser-of-two-evils” situation. It was a common question at that time among

Comments

[amw]

I love that this comm is full of the leftiest lefties America can provide, but I have to say it's getting a bit tiring to keep on reading more and more dumping on Hillary and her supporters. She lost the electoral college months ago. Instead of submitting columns whining about moderates, how about comrades start posting articles that celebrate the up-and-coming icons of the new Democratic socialist wing? That might be more inspiring to former Hillary supporters than attacking them for all being wrong, stupid, misguided, not progressive enough, whatever.

That said, I am totally with you that that mothership post the other day was a total mess. Coming for third party voters is weak as hell. I would like to see lefties from both the center and the socialist wing talk resistance strategy and evangelize the next generation heroes instead of endlessly rehashing whose fault it was for losing. My view from outside America: it was not Hillary supporters or Bernie supporters or Stein supporters or Russians or Democrats or anyone on the left - it was a bunch of ignorant middle-class white people who do not realize just how privileged they really are.

[rainbows_]

I don't blame Hillary supporters! They did the best they could. I blame the democratic party, Hillary's campaign staff and Hillary herself. The Tim Black segment in my post explains this well @ the 7:15 mark. He said: "You can't blame the people in the stands when your team loses. Cause their not in the field, their not playing. Blaming voters for Hillary's loss is like blaming all those people who had tickets."

However, a portion of Hillary supporters are not being passive participants. Continuing to punch left I feel is misguided and unproductive. Hillary supporters like Kevin Allred who call Susandon a "delusional bitch" and threaten violence against her should be called out! Alot of Hillary supporters were threatening violence against both Susandon and third-party voters on the mothership post. Not all third party voters (or people who didn't vote) were privileged pos! There was the example I mentioned in the post, a POC who can't vote for Hillary because of Hillary's foreign policy decisions that have directly affected her family. There were POC who couldn't afford to take time off work to go and vote. There are POC that felt that Hillary thought their votes were disposable (another example is in the essay The Great Ambivalence by Tressie McMillan Cottom). There were POC who couldn't vote because of voter suppression.

I agree with posting more about the Democratic socialist wing, I posted an article about it here which I encourage everyone to check out! In terms of democratic reform and change,I think that it needs to happen severely, however there is some hope in that regard! Talking about the DNC chair, here are two people I thought were really insightful:

Information about the above video: Talking about how large amounts of money are being funnelled into consulting companies rather than the state parties: "The democratic party does not exist so people can buy second homes on the beach. The democratic party exists to elect democrats."

Question she wanted to ask the DNC chair candidates: "What are you going to do with this major issue within the democratic party? You have people on the streets with issues that the democratic party is silent on. Dakota access, the TPP. You can't elect democrats without voters. And these voters are in the streets, so where are you?"

[amw]

I agree that the left trying to eat each other is not working out for either wing. The bitter folks on the mothership who jump at every opportunity to slam Stein voters and ideologically hard left peeps ain't shit. But, tbh, I don't think they are the majority of Democratic voters. It might seem that way because internetz, but I think in the real world most Democratic voters and - indeed - most human beings are not sociopathic hate-canoes. Though, it has to be said, the vast majority of Democratic voters are not very left-wing either.

So, imo, it's a two-way street. Although the centrists need to try figure out why the progressives are so angry, the progressives also need to understand why the centrists have decided to compromise and/or play the game. Because despite what absolutist agitprop would have you believe, most of the "centrists" - including Hillary - do believe in an authentically progressive agenda; the difference is how they choose to try to get it implemented. And fer real, America is full of ugly Beltway sausage making regardless of who gets in.

[moonshaz]

"Because despite what absolutist agitprop would have you believe, most of the "centrists" - including Hillary - do believe in an authentically progressive agenda; the difference is how they choose to try to get it implemented. And fer real, America is full of ugly Beltway sausage making regardless of who gets in."

I agree SO much. I got really sick of all the infighting among the different factions (centrist, hard left, etc) during the election, and when it got even worse for a while afterthe election, I literally wanted to scream on a daily basis. I'm still sick of that stuff, and even sicker of feeling like I'm being passive aggressively attacked every time I turn around, just because I'm  evidently not quiteas far left as some people think I should be.

It's a lot better than it used to be, but every time an article is posted about how horrible Democrats are, or how shitty Hillary and her campaign supposedly were, or how neocons (whatever the hell that word even means, although I gather it includes me, since I voted for Hill twice without holding my nose) are the worst things ever, I can't help but feel those feels all over again.

I've got news: you don't win people over by dropping hints about how about how shitty their political choices are, or how shitty theyare for not supporting who you think they should support. That is how you alienatepeople. The best way to dig ourselves out of this GOP dominated shithole we're in right now is for all of us to work togetheras a team, and it's hard to do that while treating each other as the enemy. I'm just saying.

[shanrina]

I think a major reason these articles keep being written is because the DNC and Hillary's campaign haven't acknowledged that their own actions have alienated people, though. I don't know if they don't understand that or if they do and just don't care or what, but I think many progressives would probably accept (at least in the short term) a real attempt to acknowledge what was done wrong and mend fences. Which would also probably stop most of the articles from being written, since it would be a sign that the DNC is ready to move on and at least try to understand what progressives want and believe, instead of progressives feeling the need to rehash their points all the time.

And this isn't the fault of the average Hillary supporter, either. This needs to come from the top (which admittedly is difficult because the DNC is still recovering from DWS and Brazile, but other top Democrats haven't been speaking out either).

[amw]

The problem is you (general) are in the minority, tho. Even amongst the left - and definitely in the Democratic party - socialists are a minority. Hillary and the DNC don't need to acknowledge that they "alienated" a couple million people when they did exactly what 65 million other people wanted. Welcome to democracy. If you aren't throwing in with a major party or candidate, you don't really matter. Lashing out against the mainstream Democratic party because they aren't acknowledging a fringe group is not a way to win supporters.

I am not an American, so I can't really speak for all you guys (plus I am very drunk right now), but I do think the more progressive left in America would have a lot more luck pulling the centrists over to their cause if they quit complaining about how the DNC machine is against them and started making a solid case why their minority group matters. It worked for immigrants and gays and trannies and plenty of other minority groups. It's not enough to say "we're not a minority group because tens of millions of Americans support us but didn't vote". Tens of millions of Americans never voted, period. They won't suddenly start because socialism. If the socialist wing want recognition in the Democratic mainstream they are going to have to do it like everyone else did. Yeah, it may take decades.

Or, you know, fuck the whole thing. But then there is a whole nother wealth of media who don't have some kind of partisan chip on their shoulder. Check out CrimethInc, IGD, UnicornRiot etc.

[shanrina]

I didn't say socialists. I said progressives.

[amw]

You say tomato...

[ericadawn16]

I totally agreed with you. The way the election was handled was awful. Instead of letting democracy prevail, the DNC picked their candidates and sabotaged others especially if they had aligned themselves with Bernie.

How can they say we need to work together when we're not sure we can trust them again?

[spyral_out]

Excuse me, but please don't say "trannies." That's an unbelievably offensive thing to have said and I don't care how drunk you were.

[amw]

Speaking as someone who is a post-op transsexual of over 15 years with plenty of friends who identify as trans, genderqueer and non-binary, I do not find the term "trannie" the slightest bit offensive. I have owned it proudly for a long time. Perhaps it is offensive where you are from, but it most assuredly is not to a great many members of the LGBTQ community.

[spyral_out]

I'm not sure why you think you speak for all of us, but "Please don't casually use slurs for oppressed minorities" is not a big ask and as a trans person I'd like you to not do that. And "where I come from"? It's considered offensive and dehumanizing almost everywhere. So please stop.

[amw]

I understand that to some people the word "trannie" is considered offensive, but please be mindful not to retroactively assign a blanket status of "slur" to a term that has been used for years - probably decades - as a term of endearment, solidarity and identity amongst transsexuals, transvestites, drag performers and transgendered people. There are lots of users of the English language outside of the largely America-centric internet activist community, and it can come across as cultural imperialism when words are unilaterally deemed slurs (or not) just because in certain parts of the world they tend to be used that way. A good counter-example is "queer", which continues to be used a slur in some parts of the world, but nevertheless got elevated to top-level representation in "LGBTQ" and is considered okay to use in polite language online.

My personal experience of oppression and "dehumanizing" language as a transsexual in Australia, Canada and continental Europe has never involved the term "trannie". I have been called "man", "he... she... it", "thing", "faggot", "man-woman" and a whole bevy of other inaccurate terms that were far more offensive to me than the actual term I and many people in my circle have used for years to describe ourselves.

In the interests of being sensitive to your experience, i will try to remember to use your preferred term (is it "transperson"?) on this community in the future. Some feedback for you, though - i would suggest that if you do not want to scare people away from contributing to this community, you should not attack them for the language they are using to express themselves in not-bigoted-at-all and unrelated political discussion.