Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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They just filed paperwork to from a PAC so Sanders can help raise money for the group directly.
Amid poor fundraising, Our Revolution earlier this month filed paperwork to launch a PAC so Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) can help it raise money directly.

Bernie Sanders’ top operatives formed “Our Revolution” after he lost the 2016 primaries to keep his army organized and motivated — and potentially prepare for another presidential run in 2020.

But an extensive review of the Sanders-inspired group depicts an organization in disarray — operating primarily as a promotional vehicle for its leader and sometimes even snubbing candidates aligned with Sanders. Our Revolution has shown no ability to tip a major Democratic election in its favor — despite possessing Sanders’ email list, the envy of the Democratic Party — and can claim no major wins in 2018 as its own.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/ ... 018-599331

Re: Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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Board members and Sanders presidential delegates from 2016 have raised questions about whether the group’s president, Nina Turner, is using her position to prepare for a presidential run of her own, and to settle scores with the Democratic National Committee from 2016.

Two weeks ago, the group’s board of directors nixed Turner’s attempt to install her personal political consultant and friend as her chief of staff, even though the person had no experience in political organizing and had praised President Donald Trump repeatedly and attacked immigrants on Fox News.
As Turner has led protests against the Democratic National Committee for being a closed, insider game — with a combativeness that has unsettled some on her own board — many Our Revolution endorsements have been issued with limited or no conversations with competing candidates.

Local chapters have been overruled by the national organization, often without warning, people involved say. The picks, those sources complained, are sometimes at odds with people promoting policies that Sanders supports. They’ve also frustrated supporters with scorched-earth attacks on some Democrats who don’t receive the group’s endorsement. In February, for instance, when Our Revolution endorsed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, it issued a lengthy statement blasting her primary opponent, Stacey Evans.
Members of the national board, meanwhile, have griped privately that Turner has used the group to advance her own causes.

In a conference call two weeks ago, the board’s executive committee overruled Turner’s attempt to install her consultant and friend Tezlyn Figaro as the group’s chief of staff, according to people on the call. Not only had Turner sprung the decision on the board, but Figaro had no experience building a political organization.

Board members flagged Figaro’s frequent appearances on Fox News praising Trump. She has said on the network as recently as the end of April that the president’s critics mostly don’t like that he’s shaking up the system. And last year she said immigrants are “coming into the country and getting benefits that Americans do not get,” and getting away with crimes while African-Americans go to prison.

“It’s a red flag,” said founding board member Catalina Velasquez. “If I know someone is inflammatory, using hate speech at a time when all oppressed people need to come together, it puts me in a very difficult position.”

They also asked why Turner had sprung the hire on the board.

“She was on our payroll, and I didn’t know that. Apparently no one knew that,” Flores said.

“I do have purview over staffing, and that’s just it,” Turner said. “I have the organization’s best interests in mind, and all of my board members know it.”

“That is not completely true,” Velasquez said. “The board can get involved at any time when any decision by the staff compromises the mission and vision of the organization.”

Turner did not deny that she had been overruled on Figaro’s hiring. Figaro has remained on as a consultant, though board members have been told her contract will end soon.
I got pissed reading it this morning. It's Nina Turner's show so the organization will eventually die out, shame Sander's name is attached to it.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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senorgrand wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 12:10 pm Ah, every Revolution has it's reckoning I suppose.

I never saw Bernie as the messiah of the Left...he was just the best alternative to what we were being spoon-fed in 2016. Building a "revolution" around him seems a little nuts. How about getting the DNC to adopt single-payer and a Robin Hood Tax into the national platform?
I read plenty about Bernie when he threw his hat into the ring and he is definitely not perfect. He has plenty of baggage and is not well thought of by Vermont socialists. Some sources even went so far as to accuse him of being the sheep dog candidate to help hillary get elected. Harsh accusation and would need real provenance to believe it.
I agree that single payer would make everybody in the country happy except for a very big constituent that the dnc cares about, the insurance industry.

Re: Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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Bernie tried changing the Democratic Party in 2016 and failed. The DNC is doubling down in 2018 and backing centrist candidates again. If they get whacked by the voters again this November and STILL refuse to give voters a real alternative to corporate capitalism in 2020, it's time for progressive Democrats to Demexit into the Green Party. There are not enough progressive voters for us to be divided between two parties (or more, if you count all the splinter groups). It would not be the end of the world. The Libertarian Party did not sink the Republicans.

Pyrrhic Party: The Democratic Establishment’s War on Progressives

The party’s antipathy for progressive candidates and ideas that seems to grow more conspicuous with each passing day.
by
Richard Eskow

"A truly clear-eyed assessment of the Democratic Party’s recent record would show that, under its current leaders, the party lost both houses of Congress and roughly 1,000 seats in state legislatures during the Obama years. The fact that the electoral tide seems to have shifted this year says little about their leadership. The shift is largely due to the party base’s understandable horror at Trump’s leadership."

---

"Perhaps not coincidentally, the party’s leaders have taken rhetorical postures and adopted policy positions that conflict with voters’ more progressive instincts. Hoyer supported the Iraq war and was deeply critical of the Iran nuclear treaty, a major greatest foreign policy achievement for the Obama Administration. Domestically, he is an austerity advocate who once insisted that benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare should remain “on the table” in negotiations with Republicans.

Pelosi, while progressive-leaning on many issues, has been a strong proponent of “pay as you go” (or “paygo”) rules that would require Congress to find funds for all new initiatives, either from taxes or cuts to existing programs. While Pelosi describes the idea as “common sense,” it is an economically unnecessary measure that makes it more difficult to enact progressive programs. (Economist Stephanie Kelton has written extensively on the topic. Kelton discussed deficit economics in a recent interview with me, which can be seen here.)

Pelosi recently eulogized billionaire Peter G. Peterson, a leading voice for austerity economics and Social Security cuts, and for the deficit-fixated policies that have hamstrung progressives for decades. The desire to remember a friend is, of course, understandable. But Pelosi went further, saying of Peterson:

His prophetic voice on the importance of fiscal sustainability brought together generations of policy makers no matter their political background to find common ground and effect solutions … His legacy will endure in many ways but especially for his work at the Peterson Foundation which will continue to America’s fiscal and economic challenges now under the leadership of his son, Michael.

Words like these send a discouraging message to the progressive voters that comprise the bulk of the Democratic base. They suggest that the Democrats will remain the party of “austerity lite,” favoring budget cuts over bold programs to rebuild the economy along Rooseveltian and Western European lines."

---

"the Democrats have a problem the Republicans don’t. The pursuit of big money drives establishment Democrats to adopt positions — and to nurture a political culture — that prevents them from winning their natural constituencies.

Republicans can run on a pro-corporate, pro-wealth agenda without much difficulty. But Democrats need to win white, black, brown, and young Americans who are lower-income and working-class, and must drum up enough enthusiasm to bring them to the polls on a regular basis. That’s hard to do with an agenda that is, in effect, a “kinder, gentler” variation on the Republicans’ view of government as a hamstrung, and sometimes nefarious, external force in American life.

It’s true that Democrats have a good chance of winning back the House year. But then what? Are they going to govern as they have governed in the past – by offering only limited possibilities in the present and low expectations for the future? If they do, they will lose again once voter disaffection sets in."

---

"Fortunately, there’s a way out. As Thomas Ferguson told us in a recent, in-depth interview, the Sanders campaign showed Democrats how they can win without big-money donors. That campaign became a financial powerhouse by receiving millions of small-dollar contributions from a broad base of supporters.

It won’t be easy. The dynamics of congressional fundraising are very different than those of presidential races. An alternative model for activist, driven small-dollar congressional campaigns has yet to be perfected. But it can be done, and groups like Our Revolution are working on it.

Moreover, Democrats have no choice. They can’t win and hold power with the policies and political practices of the past.

Laura Moser got a boost when the DCCC attacked her. The party establishment’s reputation is so poor these days that one candidate was delighted when the DCCC endorsed… his opponent!

When the party machinery becomes a liability among its own voters, it is time for the party to change."

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018 ... ogressives
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

Re: Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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To much verbiage - the issue is much simpler. The Democrats are owned by The Oligarchy/Establishment and the Green Party is Milk Toast. Bernie needs to grow a nut and form an independent party with a name and a mission statement.

Social Democrat or Democratic Socialist Party...who cares? Bernie is an Independent and we need a new party of The Left - The Democrats are owned. The current Democrat Party is done. We need a new party with a name to recruit people. Fuck the Democrats.

3rd Party/New party now. Trying to "reform" or influence the current Democrat Party is just old school bullshit. Fuck the Oligarchy...Fuck the Establishment. Let's go another direction and that means Left.

What currently exists is done and over..owned and operated by people with too much money and Fascist Ideals. Start over - Game Over. New players. New Government. What was is done....move along now.

We keep trying to believe that we can change or force the current Democratic Party to see our point but they are owned by people who are Fascists. We can no longer push them by peer pressure. We need to abandon them and move forward without them if that's possible. If you still believe we can vote for our Government Representatives then we need to overwhelm them with "not Establishment" and force a third party.

VooDoo
Tyrants disarm the people they intend to oppress.

I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Re: Sanders' Group "Our Revolution" Seems To Be Splintering

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Bernie and his organization (if there really is one...) lost most of it's momentum the moment he "endorsed" Hillary as the winner of the Democratic Primaries and urged all of his followers to fall in behind her because Trump was the greater enemy. He alienated me and millions of US who sent him cumulatively millions as backing for his run.

He gets no more money from me (nor from any of my Family or any of their friends who were, up till that point, *huge* supporters of his agenda and campaign with money and grass roots organization) until he secedes from the Democrats and fights them head to head. Bernie destroyed his own momentum by doing what the Democrats told him to do - step back, yer done.

That's why his organization is splintering...I'm sure a lot of his "formerly Democrat" supporters really think we can revive 2016's momentum and force the Democrats to adopt/support a Socialist agenda but the truth is that this will never happen. Until Bernie makes a clean break with the Democrats and runs as an Independent/forms the American Democratic Socialist Party he gets no more money from the likes of me. I feel strongly that if he were to raise a middle finger to the Democrats and declare "we are taking the gloves off!" and go whole hog with a 3rd party he'd see millions sending him money and jumping ranks to his side instantly.

Because it's just gonna go into the Democratic Party when they flush him down the toilet again if he insists on "going Democrat". This is the "Splintering" we are seeing....time to man up, Bernie. Dump the Democrats....you can work with them when we get you into the Presidency as an Independent. They are not with US or for US - they are against US.

VooDoo
Tyrants disarm the people they intend to oppress.

I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

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