Supreme
Court experts join Chris Hayes to discuss what happens if the Court
does not get a tie-breaking ninth justice for a year or more.
The Clinton campaign is collapsing. Built for an outdated
presidential race from the past two decades, it underestimated the
changing times, a unique opponent, and increasingly savvy voters.
The campaign's first mistake was to take the traditional approach of sitting on a lead. Certainly, it would have seemed a
safe bet. The party's elected politicians would rally to her as the
presumptive nominee—and they did. Donors were lined up for a big
haul—and they gave. The media would willingly marginalize Sanders—and
they tried. And the voters could be quickly frightened with specters of
Republicans into sticking with the establishment candidate—but they weren't.
Despite every institutional advantage and a made-to-order GOP horror
show, voters could not be scared away from Sanders. The more intently
the machine insisted upon Clinton, the more suspect Clinton became. And
now her campaign is out of options.
There are no more endorsements left to get. She's squandered her
financial advantage by outspending Sanders by many times in Iowa, only
to tie. Her big donors must be maxing out in direct contributions,
leaving Super PAC's as the only vehicle through which she can make up the
losses (less than ideal optics). And the media has already stooped so
low in its dismissal of Sanders that there is no credible room left to
expand that endeavor. At this point, Chris Matthews would literally have
to beg viewers to vote Clinton in order to outdo his current advocacy.
On unfamiliar territory and feeling desperate, the inflexible
campaign made the second mistake of doubling down on its voter
containment strategy, completely giving up on converting any new voters.
There is no obvious goal or governing principles coming out of her camp
at this point. No lines in the sand she's promising to draw as
President. All that's left is jeering smack-talk of Bernie-Bros,
pie-in-the-sky aspirations, and sexism—suggesting that anyone who still
likes Sanders has been cut from the target audience.
And it isn't working.
Why should it? People aren't idiots. Shirley Chisholm, Jan
Schakowsky, Barbara Lee, Sheila Jackson Lee, Elizabeth Warren and many
others have shown us that women can confront our sexist culture and
still refuse to submit to the male-dominated influences that have ruined
our economy and democracy. And consider politicians like Meg Whitman
and Carly Fiorina, who have also battled untold sexist barriers to
achieve their groundbreaking professional goals; only the most deluded
Democratic voter would consider handing them high office as compensation
for their troubles.
Essentially, the Clinton campaign is wrapping a sexist appeal
in the veneer of feminism: because she was a woman, Clinton couldn't
help but play ball with corporations, so give her a girl pass. What a
slap in the face to every woman who never sold out or gave up. It's one
thing to point out that a woman went through a mountain of man-shit to
obtain her rightful due, or blazed a path for future women, however
imperfectly; it's another thing, completely, to insist voters overlook
corruption because the candidate is a woman.
And as the campaign lashes out in a panic, other wheels are starting to come off the bus.
In the last debate, Sanders addressed race on three occasions: 1)
asked about the death penalty, he noted that innocent people of color
are more likely to find their way to death row; 2) asked about our
criminal justice system, he made sure to include in his answer the fact
that we incarcerate mostly people of color; and 3) when responding to
the Flint disaster, he asked a type of question rarely heard from a
Presidential candidate: what would have happened if Flint's population
was middle class and white?
Clinton said absolutely nothing about race. Well, almost nothing. At
the debate's conclusion, with the last question answered, Clinton
wondered aloud why there weren't opportunities to talk about race.
How must that have sounded to black viewers, who surely noticed not
only Sanders' pointed and appropriate injection of racial concerns into
his answers, but the absence of any equivalent from Clinton? I'm sure
she had good sound bytes at the ready; she just lacked the inter-sectional ability to weave them into a question that didn't parade
itself as race-focused.
Is it any surprise that public figures from the African American
community are beginning to withdraw their endorsements of Clinton and
line up behind Sanders?
It is as though the Clinton campaign was designed to last only so
long; slap-dash construction with a lifespan no longer than the short
time it would take to push Sanders out of the frame. When that didn't
happen, there was no Plan B. The public didn't care who Congress
endorsed, and they didn't care what the Chris Matthews of the world
said, and they aren't buying the argument that everyone troubled by
Clinton is somehow hoodwinked by Republican misogyny. They want actual
representation and appreciate a candidate who shoots straight.
And this is the nail in the Clinton coffin. The American people are
beginning to realize they have the ability to elect someone they're not
supposed to elect. Clinton represents everything "normal" about
elections that are now universally recognized as abnormal. She is a safe
bet only in a fictional world that is being dismantled. She is the
past, and the future has become viable.
Berine Sanders' support will continue to swell, as it should, and Democrats need the courage to call this a good thing—a great thing.
No longer can we permit our values and agendas to be boxed in by the
very influences that oppose them. Time is running out on our ecology,
our economy, and our social fabric, and nothing less than an out-and-out
champion for our future will do.
You probably already know this. It's probably why you are
voting for Sanders in your Democratic Primary. It looks like you'll have
plenty of company.
