I don’t watch cable news, and segments like this are part of the reason why. There’s a general dearth of analysis, and mainstream liberals more often than not use their platform as a perch to browbeat principled progressives. Bill Maher is no different, but Cornel West would have none of it. There’s a lot that deserves disdain here. First off, how Bill Maher uses the deaths of Black people at the hands of law enforcement to wag his finger at West for not voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016. The rash of police killings that persisted under President Obama, who did not use the DOJ to prosecute, continue, and would not have magically gone away under a second Clinton administration. Secondly, there’s a whole number of matters that Maher does not want to address that happened last year, like disappeared voters off the rolls, and a concerted effort by the DNC to derail the Bernie Sanders campaign. The Democrats thought they could rig their own primary on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and not pay dearly for it in terms of voter enthusiasm and support. They miscalculated horribly, and refuse to take any responsibility for any of this. Everyone else is to blame for the loss: The Greens Party, “Bernie Bros”, and don’t forget- The Russians. I suppose that losing Wisconsin and Ohio was the fault of these forces too.
Here we are, 6 months after the election, and Clinton supporters are still saying “I told you so.”Pointing fingers, but not examining what wound up being a route. To still be attacking voters just shows that there’s no understanding of the electoral college, and its function. What Clinton folks don’t realize is that the lesser of two evils as an approach did NOT work, yet they insist on doubling down on the approach. People were tired of it, but its all that the Dems have to offer going forward. People are tied of constrained, “responsible” choices- they lead to constraining progressives and radicals, and emboldening the far right.
Historians are going to have to study 2016 to understand the depths of what happened. We wont get any closer to this total comprehension if we don’t factor in everything that happened politically starting from January 2016, not November 9th. You can’t keep saying “I told you so” and just tell the rosier parts of the story. That’s not history, that is cherry picking.
What did you think of this exchange?