Quote of the Day

Terrell Jermaine Starr has written a thorough analysis at Fusion on how and why The Bernie Sanders Movement did not appeal to many black voters. He writes: 

"It didn’t have to be that way. But his campaign never explained how black people fit into his vision of a radically changed America. And, according to a series of Fusion interviews with former staff members, campaign leadership didn’t really see the point in trying. 

Those former staffers described a campaign that failed to give its black outreach teams the resources they needed, that never figured out how to connect to black audiences, and that marginalized black media.

In the process, the campaign missed a chance to capitalize on a revolutionary message that otherwise might have appealed to black voters frustrated with the current political order."

These are some of the lessons with respect to why the predominately white-led progressive movement that backed Sanders lost the Democratic Primary.  I also suspect, but admit I haven't seen numbers on, that LGBT voters disproportionately voted for Clinton over Sanders, and that this group of voters had a specific set of concerns with respect to Sanders and his constant refrain that fixing Wall Street would fix all problems for all people. (And even if his beliefs are more nuanced than that, the perception of his beliefs are not as nuanced, and that's a serious marketing problem).

Because my values align with the values of many Sanders' supporters, I sincerely hope those in his movement look to explanations and analyses like Starr's rather than dismissing their loss as being entirely due to "election fraud," "a rigged system for Hillary," and/or "low-information voters."

Such dismissals, of course, are their own kind of un-empathetic, non-listening privilege.