Placing Blame For The Health Care Bill Disaster: Trump, Ryan, The Freedom Caucus, Moderate Republicans, Democrats?

The favorite game this past weekend was who should take the blame for the Trump Care disaster.

Is it Donald Trump and his White House staff, which has no clue as to how the political system works?

Is it Paul Ryan and top House of Representatives leadership, which was so cocky and arrogant and uncaring about the millions who would be thrown off the health care system?

Is it the Freedom Caucus extreme right wingers, who make Paul Ryan seem moderate by comparison?

is it moderate Republicans, the Tuesday Group as they are known, who did not want their constituents thrown off Medicaid?

Is it the Democrats, because they refuse to see Obama Care, with all the good it has done for 20 million Americans, totally eviscerated?

The answer is that it is the first three groups, with the only groups escaping blame being the moderate Republicans and the Democrats.

Only when Donald Trump and the House leadership realize that ending Obama Care without any protection for 20 million Americans is not going to work, then maybe the moderate Republicans and some Democrats can work to fix the system, not destroy it.

Do not expect that will happen, however, and meanwhile, it adds to the image that the Trump Presidency’s first hundred days will go down as a total disaster, only good at promoting hate, division, and incompetence.

40 comments on “Placing Blame For The Health Care Bill Disaster: Trump, Ryan, The Freedom Caucus, Moderate Republicans, Democrats?

  1. Rustbelt Democrat March 27, 2017 7:38 pm

    Another crisis is coming up soon. Last December, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. The trouble is, it runs out on April 28th. That means that Congress has exactly one month to figure out a budget, pass another continuing resolution, or face a government shutdown. The timing is interesting. Trump’s 100th day in office hits the very next day – April 29th.

    http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/03/27/quick-takes-will-trump-face-a-government-shutdown-on-his-100th-day/#.WNmNoRSq0Bo.facebook

  2. Rational Lefty March 28, 2017 9:21 am

    Speaking of MSNBC, a weird commercial came on last night. It felt more like a joke than a real ad, which made me wonder if the station had been hacked.

  3. Pragmatic Progressive March 28, 2017 5:36 pm

    Re: the web browsing vote

    says in sarcastic tone: Oh, great. Just what I need. More spammers bombarding my email.

  4. D March 31, 2017 10:17 am

    Pragmatic Progressive writes, “Grassroots activism and a unified Democratic caucus in the House defeated Trumpcare and it’s important to repeat that winning strategy on all of the future legislative and policy battles that are coming.”

    No. The congressional Republicans didn’t have the numbers. Add to that that the Koch brothers wanted Trumpcare to not pass.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/koch-brothers-trumpcare-conservative-gop-donors-races-2017-3

    “The Koch brothers are trying to sweeten the deal for House Republicans to go against the president and the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. The Koch network’s leading organizations, Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners, announced late Wednesday [March 22, 2017] the creation of a special fund to support House members who vote against the health care bill.”

    “The Young Turks’s” Cenk Uygur has this video commentary on it (published Thursday, March 23, 2017).

    http://youtu.be/37eXtN2LfhM

  5. Pragmatic Progressive March 31, 2017 12:48 pm

    D – Winning Progressive’s blog is correct. As they said in another post, the victory was because of people organizing, calling their Congresspeople, showing up to rallies, and otherwise making it clear to Democrats and “moderate” Republicans that the #ACA should be protected and improved, not repealed.

    https://www.facebook.com/WinningProgressive/posts/1603517149658785

  6. Southern Liberal March 31, 2017 4:48 pm

    Cenk Uygur’s Young Turks show was never a favorite of ours when it was on MSNBC.

  7. Rational Lefty April 3, 2017 12:55 pm

    Like Winning Progressive, we believe that any fair analysis of a Democrat must address not only the shortcomings, but also the successes.

  8. Former Republican April 3, 2017 7:27 pm

    As this explains, the blogs that we read, advocate talking about accomplishments and not just screaming.

    The blogs we read also stress the importance of activism – doing things such as voter outreach and registration, community education efforts, and candidate recruitment and training - instead of whining constantly. 

    http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2011/07/building-pragmatic-progressive-voice-on.html

  9. D April 4, 2017 11:49 am

    Pragmatic Professor writes, “Winning Progressive’s blog is correct. As they said in another post, the victory was because of people organizing, calling their Congresspeople, showing up to rallies, and otherwise making it clear to Democrats and “moderate” Republicans that the #ACA should be protected and improved, not repealed.”

    I did not say that these factions and factors did not play a role in defeating Trumpcare.

    I am referring to numbers.

    Right now, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate want federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch, from United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to be the next justice on the United States Supreme Court.

    They Republicans will keep their numbers mathematically intact to help make that happen.

    The Republicans did not have their numbers mathematically intact to get Trumpcare to pass. That is what I am saying was most critical to why President Donald Trump failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

    If you can’t get your party numbers, right there your effort is dead.

  10. Rustbelt Democrat April 4, 2017 12:45 pm

    D – All Pragmatic is doing is explaining the reason why they didn’t have the numbers.

  11. Pragmatic Progressive April 4, 2017 1:30 pm

    Precisely, Rustbelt. All I am doing is pointing out that activism played a role into why they did not have the numbers. It was not just the Koch Bros.

  12. D April 4, 2017 2:00 pm

    Rational Lefty writes, “Like Winning Progressive, we believe that any fair analysis of a Democrat must address not only the shortcomings, but also the successes.”

    Former Republican writes, “… The blogs we read also stress the importance of activism – doing things such as voter outreach and registration, community education efforts, and candidate recruitment and training – instead of whining constantly.”

    From Ronald’s March 24, 2016 blog entry, “War on the Working Class, Which Helped to Elect Donald Trump: A Major Turning Point Against the Republican Future” [ https://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=30108 ], I posted the following response:

    At a recent CPAC, President Donald Trump told fellow Republicans he wants to transform the party into one for the working people. “The GOP will be from now on the party also of the American worker,” Trump declared. (See https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/24/donald-trump-claims-remake-gop-party-american-worker/PeF6IjybU9C77idKYgIshK/story.html .)

    That makes it sound like the reputation the Democrats used to have.
    In order to do that, realignments are necessary. A realignment for the Republican Party for working people. A realignment for the Democratic Party for people with money. (At least those with six-figure incomes.)
    The inverse of how they have long been recognized.

    It doesn’t sound too unreal, because Thomas Frank’s book, “Listen Liberal,” took plenty of notes on the meritocracy very prevalent in Democratic Party politics and philosophies from the leadership of those empowered (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama), and that they moved away from New Deal in the 1980s. (After Ronald Reagan was re-elected, in 1984, with 49 states, there was at least one Democratic politician who said that he figures the New Deal coalition is pretty much dead.) Then came the New Democrats, in the late-1980s and early-1990s (with Bill Clinton unseating George Bush and, on Election Night, then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards telling “ABC News” what “New Democrat” is in leadership).

    Now we have the middle class gutted. We have young people (the 18-29 voting-age demographic) with exorbitant student-loan debt that puts them in an incredible hole before they graduate and get work and maybe (but often not) get a job with good enough pay to reduce their debt. And then we have about half the people with employment making $30,000 or less per year. So, “New Democrat” appeared okay in the 1990s but not here in the late-2010s. Our needs have changed.

    So, can Donald Trump transform with a realignment the Republican Party into a party of the working people? If the Democrats don’t disavow Clintonism-type New Democrats, I think it’s possible. It takes years to feel it. But, it is possible.

    I want to take this time to talk electoral politics.

    I notice that, in the past four decades of presidential elections in which the White House flipped parties, a party-pickup winner flipped some select states which have since not flipped back to the party which lost them. Here is a list:
    • 1980: Republican pickup winner Ronald Reagan flipped Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.
    • 1992: Democratic pickup winner Bill Clinton flipped California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine [statewide], Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont.
    • 2000: Republican pickup winner George W. Bush flipped Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia. (He also flipped Arizona. But between the 1950s and 2010s, Arizona colored blue only for Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996. It is not really in the same boat as those six states.)
    • 2008: Democratic pickup winner Barack Obama flipped Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia.
    With 2016 the most recent presidential election, Republican pickup winner Donald Trump flipped Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. (He also won a pickup of the 2nd Congressional District of Maine.)

    It is something, when you look at Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr., at those particular states. Some of them went through bellwether periods. Texas voted for every winner from 1928 to 1988 except for Richard Nixon’s first election of 1968. California went for 22 of the 25 winning presidential tickets of the 20th century (getting it “wrong” in 1912, 1960, and 1976; the first two were California carried for a home-state candidate who did not win the election). Missouri was on a roll from 1904 to 2004 (getting it “wrong” with saying no to Dwight Eisenhower’s re-election in 1956). Now, these three states, as a few examples, are very much preferring one party over the other.

    So, it is remarkable that Nevada, in the winners’ columns in all since 1912 (except 1976 and 2016), has joined New Mexico (a companion state which first voted in 1912; they disagreed with each other only in 2000) to identify with the Democrats. And it looks that way with Virginia (which was Hillary Clinton’s No. 15 best-performed state in margins; it was Barack Obama’s No. 24 in both his elections) and Colorado (Hillary’s No. 16; Obama’s No. 23 from both 2008 and 2012). Ordinarily, I would have expected these 2008-established bellwether states (in 2016, Virginia was only +3.23 above the popular-vote margin; Colorado was +2.82 above) to have flipped to a Republican pickup-winning Donald Trump.

    So, this lead me to look at the states Trump flipped and ask myself, “Which one[s] do I think the Democrats have lost long term?” In other words, the next time the presidency flips from Republican to Democratic, which of Trump’s Republican pickup states will not return to flipping for a pickup winning Democrat?

    The average percentage-points margin of all six of Trump’s pickup states was +3.39. Iowa was R+9.41. Ohio was R+8.07. Florida was R+1.19. Wisconsin was R+0.76. Pennsylvania was R+0.72. Michigan was R+0.22.

    Looking at that, I think Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have become purple states. They may be new bellwethers, beginning in 2016, and going forward. Florida, in the column of all winners since 1928 (except 1960 and 1992), remains a bellwether state.
    The two in question are Ohio and Iowa.

    I suspect Ohio, with an unbroken bellwether streak since 1964 (and in the column for all winners since 1896 except for 1944 and 1960), will scale back support for Donald Trump in 2020 should he get re-elected. In theory: He may gain +3 to +5 percentage points to win over the U.S. Popular Vote while Ohio draws back by the same level. That would bring it back to being within +5 point from the margin in the U.S. Popular Vote. (That is where Ohio performed from 1964 to 2012.)

    I think Iowa is the one that is gone. That the Democrats have lost it long term. The pattern in Iowa, to determine the winning party, was Democrats in the east and Republicans in the west. But, Trump flipped it with a better margin than Texas (which he carried by +9.00), and there were only six counties which were in the column for Hillary Clinton. There is the fact that Trump won a Republican pickup of the heavily industrial Dubuque County (Dubuque). It last carried Republican in 1956 for re-electing Dwight Eisenhower.

    It is a result like Dubuque County, and the state of Iowa, that should have Democrats concerned about whether Trump could realign a coalition away from the Democrats that they should not lose.

    ________________________________________

    I went to WinningProgressive at http://winningprogressive.com.

    His timeline of blog entries, which are sometime far apart, include a huge gap between one on September 15, 2016 and not another one not until December 21, 2016. (This was a good six weeks after the November 8, 2016 presidential and down-ballot elections.)

    Winning Progressive is Eric Schmeltzer.

    Eric Schmeltzer is in public relations. Schmeltzer PR.

    He says he is a progressive. But, why would a progressive, with a blog, have no post-Election 2016 analysis on his own blog which may have presented a “fair analysis of a Democrat,” Hillary Clinton, who had every perceivable advantage but lost the presidency to a reality-competition television host?

    On Eric’s Schmeltzer PR page “Services” ( http://winningprogressive.com/services/ ), he lists: Message development; Communications strategy; Outreach to reporters, editors, and opinion writers; Scripting for advertisements; Drafting of opinion pieces.

    When it comes to recognizing and focusing on why there is divide in the Democratic Party—on its agenda for the nation, on philosophical differences from at least two factions (Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders supporters and primaries voters), on how the party’s most powerful operates (holding that power), and on direction (and other matters)—I don’t look feel that a PR, Winning Progressive’s Eric Schmeltzer has anything of value to offer right now.

  13. Rational Lefty April 4, 2017 3:44 pm

    D – Pragmatic is right. Winningprogressive.org is no longer. It’s a Facebook site now and is very up to date. That winningprogressive.com is not the same.

  14. Princess Leia April 4, 2017 4:00 pm

    They are correct. That is not the same Winning Progressive. The Winning Progressive that we read is a husband and wife duo from Pennsylvania. When their website was online, they mentioned that he is a non- profit lawyer and she is an author. They use their free time and skills to give a strong voice to sensible progressive values.

  15. Rustbelt Democrat April 4, 2017 4:49 pm

    The husband’s love of history books (I remember he was especially fond of FDR) is what led us to the Professor’s blog. It was amongst the progressive blog links on their now defunct website.

    Their most recent posting on the new blog (the Facebook website) is a posting shared from the Philadelphia Indivisible group, stressing that we progressives must call our Democratic Senators and remind them how important it is that they stand united in filibustering the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination. https://www.facebook.com/WinningProgressive/posts/1605802872763546

  16. Rustbelt Democrat April 4, 2017 5:02 pm

    This is another blogger we read: https://www.facebook.com/SmartypantsBlog

    She writes for the WashingtonMonthly.com website. She cross-posts her articles to her BlogSpot.com page. The link for that is on her Facebook page.

  17. D April 4, 2017 5:26 pm

    Pragmatic Progressive writes, “That website is no longer Winning Progressive’s. This is the new website: http://www.facebook.com/winningprogressive

    Here are some of entries that tell me more about how perceptive is progressive Eric Schmeltzer:

    From the weekend of July 23 and 24, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention began on July 25, 2016: No Facebook entry specifically about the WikiLeaks of the DNC e-mails. Not an opinion from Eric Schmeltzer. Not a link to some article he wanted his Facebook followers to read.
    ________________________________________
    From November 9, 2016, the day after the elections: “We must avoid engaging in a circular firing squad attacking fellow Democrats and progressives. Clinton had to fight against not only Trump and the GOP, but also voter suppression tactics, a media obsessed with creating a horse race, rogue elements of the FBI, the Russian government, and Wikileaks. Despite all that, she appears to have won the popular vote There is more than enough blame to go around for our not winning, but we are now in the fight of our lives to save our democracy and all of the progressive change we’ve achieved over the past decades. Fight politically against the clear and present danger facing our nation, not against each other.”

    Translation: Do not hold accountable Hillary Clinton. Do not hold accountable the campaign of Hillary Clinton, which included the “Correct the Record,” Anita Hill-smear merchant David Brock, and other hacks like Bobby Mook, Huma Abedin, Karen Finney, Jennifer Palmieri, Peter Daou, and anyone else who should be named. Do not hold accountable the DNC, headed by Debbie Wasserman Schultz for rigging the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries for Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. Do not hold accountable Donna Brazile for giving Hillary Clinton answers to debate questions and, months later, pretending to be a victim, that Hillary Clinton is a victim, and that we must give cover for Hillary Clinton’s election failures by blaming Russia. Do not pay attention to anything in the content of those e-mails, be it the DNC collusion or the thinktank Center for American Progress’s John Podesta or Neera Tanden, from those WikiLeaks. Do not hold accountable President Barack Obama, who knew the TPP was deeply unpopular, and pushed it anyway during the general election. Do not absorb information from all this. Just place your trust in the party, as it operates, and help corrupt party hacks to fight against Donald Trump while the party’s most powerful are not anti-fracking or anti-TPP; that the mayor of Baltimore Maryland, Catherine Pugh, would go on in March 2015 to veto $15 minimum wage; and that, in January 2015, a total of 12 Republicans voted for while 13 Democrats voted against drug importation in the U.S. Senate. And never mind that the HR 676 legislation still has around 100 Democrats in the U.S. House not yet on board for single payer/Medicare for All. Just be good, Loyal Democrats and demand nothing more from this party’s most powerful. Be an automatic vote. Don’t awaken. Go to sleep. Stay asleep.
    ________________________________________
    From November 9, 2016: “One of the main reasons that an absurdly unqualified authoritarian white nationalist is about to seize power in the US is that the media utterly failed to provide any useful coverage, information, or context during the campaign. Instead, they obsessively covered every non-scandla cooked up in the rightwing fever swamps while giving Trump and his all-night message billions of dollars worth of free air time.” (He provided a link to “New Republic.”)
    ________________________________________
    From November 13, 2016: “Can any media exec explain why #Clinton’s legal email handling was covered incessantly, while the #GOP’s ongoing voting suppression was virtually ignored?” (He posts a link to “The Nation.” An answer to Eric’s question may be found in this video below.)
    ________________________________________
    From November 13, 2016: “Thank you, Hillary Clinton. Your campaign was not, of course, without mistakes. But you bravely and skillfully fought for the values of equality, opportunity, intelligence, and pluralism against a know-nothing con man. And you won the popular vote despite being undermined by the media, and attacked by the Russian government, Wikileaks, and rogue elements in the FBI. Know that we will learn from this election, defend the values that make this nation great, and redouble our efforts to make our country a land that welcomes immigrants, treats everyone with equal respect, and provides economic opportunity for all who seek it.” (He links to a “Washington Post” article; this publication, during the Democratic primaries, launched over a dozen attacks against Bernie Sanders. After the presidential election, “Washington Post” promoted “PropOrNot,” supposed anti-propaganda targeted at independent news which “Washington Post” wanted to deem as Russian propaganda. Never mind that “Washington Post” was, and still is, neoliberal/Clinton propaganda. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PropOrNot .)
    ________________________________________
    From November 16, 2016: “Contrary to the faulty exit poll cited by the media, #Clinton did far better among Latino voters than #Obama did in 2012.” (He provides a link to LatinoDecisions.com. What that report does not say is that there were 137-plus million votes cast for president of the United States in 2016 versus 128-million from 2012. Raw votes going up is partly because participating numbers of presidential voters did just that. This is why percentages and percentage-points margins are important. The size of the national vote for president was 11 percent, up for the 10 percent from 2012. Barack Obama carried Hispanics by +44 points. Hillary Clinton carried them by +36. That means she underperformed them by -8 points.)
    ________________________________________
    From November 26, 2016: “Democrats won the most votes for President and Senate in 2016. We have a mandate and duty to fight the right wing extremism of #Trump and the #GOP every step of the way.” (He links to a Vox.com article by Ezra Klein who wrote a couple years back that he is opposed to single payer. The accompanying picture is of Democrats’ congressional leaders, the House’s Nancy Pelosi, whose party has had control only four of her near-15 years in that position, and the Senate’s Chuck Schumer who, a couple years back, spoke of moderate Republicans in suburbs such as Philadelphia being the target for Democratic Party victories.)
    ________________________________________
    From December 11, 2016: “Clinton’s popular vote margin just keeps growing, and is now more than 2.7 million votes. Never forget that we are the majority.” (He provides a link to Independent.CO.UK. Never mind the fact that I pointed here, on December 1, 2016, how the outcome of Election 2016 really broke down: “79,829–NUMBER THAT PREVENTED HILLARY CLINTON FROM WINNING PRESIDENCY!” @ https://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=29196 .)
    ________________________________________
    From December 18, 2016: “Yes, Senator Patty Murray, we have your back and the back of any other elected official who will resist the anti-worker, anti-democracy, anti-economic security, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, anti-environment, anti-woman, and anti-peace nightmare that #Trump the the rest of the #GOP are trying to unleash on our nation.” (He provides a link to Vox.com. One month later, on the legislation proposal for drugs importation, Democrat Patty Murray, first elected as the senior U.S. Senator in 1992 with re-elections in 1998, 2004, 2010, and 2016, was one of 13 Democrats who voted against. Meanwhile, there were 12 Republicans, including Texas’s Ted Cruz, who voted in support. New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, because of being touted as a star of the Democratic Party, took the most heat. But, Washington’s Patty Murray also voted against this back in 2009. Clearly, she does not have our backs.)

    http://youtu.be/ZH_LKD7feYI

  18. D April 4, 2017 5:33 pm

    More from Winning Progressive PR Eric Schmeltzer:

    ________________________________________
    From December 19, 2016: “Paul Krugman on how Republican destruction of the norms that enable our democratic system to function is pushing our democracy towards the precipice of collapse.” (He provides a link to “New York Times.” The high-profile Krugman spent 2016 on his knees for Hillary Clinton, writing smear entries in his column about Bernie Sanders, trying to discredit other excellent economists for supporting Sanders, and then writing Post-Election 2016 that perhaps, with election of Donald Trump, we should do even more trades of U.S. jobs. I no longer trust Paul Krugman. Video below.)
    ________________________________________
    From December 22, 2016: “The email and Benghazi attacks that the right wing and the media used to destroy Hillary Clinton are textbook examples of how the conservative movement fabricates and disseminates phony “scandals” as a way to destroy its opponents, and of how problematic it is that progressives and liberals are far too willing to try to see both sides of an issue rather than to firmly and resolutely stand up to defend people on our side of the aisle who are being targeted by the right-wing smear machine.” (He provides a link to “Mother Jones.” This publication’s editor in chief, Clara Jeffery, smeared millennial voters, while the general-election period was still in progress, because polls weren’t looking good for Hillary Clinton. Never mind the fact that 18 to 29 voters are the first voting-age group carried by Democrats. When John Kerry failed to unseat George W. Bush, in 2004, the only age group he carried nationally was people 18 to 29. “Mother Jones” should know this. They do know it. And anyone who is truly a progressive knows what has become of “Mother Jones.”)

    ________________________________________

    http://youtu.be/Rle8-KI6V2U

  19. D April 4, 2017 5:36 pm

    Pragmatic Progressive,

    In one of my earlier posting responses, I accidentally called you “Pragmatic Professor.” (I apologize for not seeing that before having submitted it. I don’t feel okay with making that kind of mistake.)

  20. Southern Liberal April 4, 2017 6:15 pm

    D – You still don’t understand. That Eric guy is not the Winning Progressive that we are talking about.

  21. Pragmatic Progressive April 4, 2017 6:50 pm

    That’s ok D. And Southern Liberal is correct. That Eric guy is a different Winning Progressive than the Winning Progressive we are talking about. The Winning Progressive we are talking about is the one with the dot Org website, that is now defunct, the one that is a husband and wife team.

  22. Pragmatic Progressive April 4, 2017 7:25 pm

    October 2014 is when the Winning Progressive that we are talking about (www.winningprogressive.org) ceased to exist.

  23. Pragmatic Progressive April 4, 2017 7:35 pm

    The Winning Progressive that we are talking about hasn’t posted anywhere except for Facebook and Twitter since then.

  24. Former Republican April 4, 2017 9:36 pm

    First of all, as everyone else has pointed out, Winningprogressive.com (the PR guy) is a different Winning Progressive than the Winningprogressive.org/Facebook Winning Progressive (the husband and wife team). It’s the husband and wife team that we’ve been following since 2008.

    Second, the news that Russia influenced the election is not fake. In fact, one of the things the Russians were doing was trying to influence Bernie supporters. http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/04/04/did-russia-attempt-to-influence-sanders-supporters/#.WOPB5kgL_Fw.facebook

  25. Rational Lefty April 4, 2017 9:57 pm

    Full posting of that. As Ms. Letourneau says at the end, the Steele dossier is increasingly being validated.

    http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/04/04/did-russia-attempt-to-influence-sanders-supporters/#.WOPB5kgL_Fw.facebook

    Did Russia Attempt to Influence Sanders’ Supporters?
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    April 4, 2017 11:50 AM

    During the House Intelligence Committee hearing with FBI Director Comey and NSA Director Rogers, Republican legislators went to great lengths to distract from the central question Comey said was at the heart of the investigation: that it was directed at Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 election and the question of whether or not members of the Trump campaign cooperated with them.

    Along with Republicans, there are some liberals who are skeptical about how this investigation is unfolding. One of them is Matt Taibbi, as Martin just noted. In response to some of the inquiries that came up during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, he provides a distraction from that central question.

    Under questioning by Sen. Mark Warner, Retired Gen. Keith Alexander — former director of the National Security Agency — said, “Senator, I think what they were trying to do was drive a wedge within the Democratic Party between the Clinton group and the Sanders group. And then in our nation between Republicans and Democrats.” Taibbi responded with this:

    To describe Sanders followers as unwitting dupes who departed the true DNC faith because of evil Russian propaganda is both insulting and ridiculous. It’s also a testimony to the remarkable capacity for self-deception within the leadership of the Democratic Party.

    Did you catch the distraction? The questions on the table are not whether Russia’s attempts to influence the election were successful. They are: what did the Russians do to influence the election? And was the Trump campaign involved?

    To address the first question, Ryan Grimm and Jason Cherkis wrote an extensive piece about the fake news tsunami directed at Sanders groups during the campaign. This was widely acknowledged — even by Sanders’ staff.

    Keegan Goudiss, who ran digital advertising for Sanders’ presidential bid, had a different perspective on the trolling. He launched paid campaigns on social media and around the internet, so he was very familiar with the way that money can drive a meme…

    Goudiss recalled one telling example of how this worked: A Clinton ad appeared in the middle of a row of links, clearly paid for by a pro-Clinton group targeting potential donors and voters. To its left was a story making bogus claims about an illegitimate Clinton child. To its right was a piece on presidential mistresses. “There seems to have been a concerted effort to tarnish Hillary and people in her campaign’s reputation using paid placement,” he said.

    He can’t prove who was doing that, Goudiss said, but it’s probably worth trying to figure out.

    “Was there a Russian entity supporting those websites that popped up?” he said. “That’s important and people deserve to know who influences our democracy.”

    Goudiss is right to say that the question about Russia’s involvement in this fake news tsunami is important. Whether or not it worked to diminish support for Clinton is irrelevant.

    While the Steele dossier is increasingly being validated, there is still work to be done there. But it states clearly that the Wikileaks release of DNC emails just prior to the Democratic Convention had been an attempt to “swing supporters of Bernie Sanders away from Hillary Clinton and across to Trump.” Further, a memo dated August 10, 2016 points to these kinds of tactics as part of the Russian operation.

    The tactics would be to spread rumors and misinformation about the content of what had already been leaked (DNC/Clinton emails) and make up new content…the audience to be targeted by such operations was the educated youth in America as the PA assessed that there was still a chance that they could be persuaded to vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump as a protest against the Washington establishment.

    None of that is an indictment of Bernie Sanders or his supporters. But if we are going to investigate the various ways that Russia tried to influence the 2016 election, this is a legitimate line of inquiry.

  26. Princess Leia April 4, 2017 10:09 pm

    As far as WikiLeaks is concerned, we don’t trust it.

  27. Rustbelt Democrat April 4, 2017 10:24 pm

    Our families are part of what shaped our politics. Our parents and grandparents were mainstream in their viewpoints and we gravitate towards that as far as blogs and news are concerned.

  28. Princess Leia April 5, 2017 8:37 am

    One of our Democratic senators voted No to drug imports as well, citing safety concerns. I side with him on that. I want to be sure that drugs coming from other countries are safe to take.

  29. Rational Lefty April 5, 2017 12:12 pm

    D wrote: 
    Pragmatic Progressive writes, “That website is no longer Winning Progressive’s. This is the new website: http://www.facebook.com/winningprogressive”

    Here are some of entries that tell me more about how perceptive is progressive Eric Schmeltzer
    ————————————
    D is incorrect about that. That’s not Eric Schmeltzer’s perceptive. That is the perceptive of the Pennsylvania husband and wife duo. Of the blogs listed here, their perceptive is similar to ThinkProgress.org on most issues.

    The Facebook Winning Progressive (husband and wife duo) is WinningProgressive.ORG. That’s the website we’ve been following since 2008. It became defunct in 2014, as Pragmatic explained, and as Rustbelt explained, it’s still defunct.

    Eric Schmeltzer is WinningProgressive.COM. He has absolutely no connection with that Facebook page.

    If Facebook Winning Progressive’s website was still up and running, the way you could tell the difference between the two is the blue WP logo on their Facebook page. That logo was on their defunct website.

    Another way you can tell the difference between the two is their Twitter pages.

    Facebook Winning Progressive: https://twitter.com/WinProgressive

    Schmeltzer: https://twitter.com/JustSchmeltzer

  30. Pragmatic Progressive April 13, 2017 5:16 pm

    Blogs we read consider WikiLeaks to be traitors.

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