Posted on 07/20/2015 12:33:02 PM PDT by Kaslin
For years, the right has been frustrated by the left’s ability to unite various interest groups successfully as a force. The right hasn’t had as much success, with factions calling each other RINOs and lecturing about Reagan’s 11th Commandment. Now, it looks like the left’s ability to work together is finally unraveling. It is happening because the left has become increasingly obsessed with identity politics, labeling everyone in groups and stereotypes instead of as individuals. As we all learned from history, grouping people by race resulted in terrible things like slavery. It is unsustainable, as it breeds resentment toward other groups.
Last week, Netroots Nation, the organization of progressive activists online, held its annual convention in Phoenix. With 3,000 attending, it is the largest regular gathering of the left. Speakers included Democrat presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who was right at home among that crowd. But instead of listening to them speak, hecklers yelled and interrupted them until both were forced to leave the stage.
O’Malley began his speech talking about the need for ending private prisons and income inequality. Ironically, even though he was speaking about an issue President Obama and black leftists care about, prison reform, about 30 protesters streamed into the auditorium, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and yelling, “What are you doing to stop the killing of black men?” The protesters stopped his speech, and one took over the microphone for 15 minutes.
O’Malley responded by saying, “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” Now, to conservatives, that sounds perfectly normal, treating everyone equally regardless of skin color, and if a politician had said that line in front of a conservative audience, the crowd would have roared their approval. Not Netroots Nation’s radicals. They booed until O’Malley left the stage, with one woman standing on a chair screaming, “Burn this s**t down!”
Next, Sanders got up to speak and said he cares about Black Lives Matter, but the activists didn’t care. He yelled as loud as he could, and the activists yelled over him while he said, “Black people are dying because we have a criminal justice system in this country that is out of control.” CNN reporter Chris Moody noted that when Sanders brought up Obamacare, people shouted, "We can't afford that!"
The speeches were moderated by Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal immigrant journalist. Because of the hecklers, he was unable to ask Sanders about other issues like immigration and gun control, and the event ended prematurely 15 minutes early. Later, O’Malley was pressured into apologizing for his remarks. Hillary Clinton didn’t even dare speak at the conference.
There were plenty more signs the conference was deeply segregated into radical groups, many of them hostile to each other. The feminists included a “safe space” policy in the program that included a reminder not to rape other attendees. There were instructions on how to officially interact with transgenders in a “transgender etiquette” section. Events included a “Sunday Morning Recovery Party” to drink Bloody Marys after a Saturday night hangover and panels on “Bring Wine and Whiskey: Tactics for Engaging and Activating Millennial Women” and “New Voices, New Visionaries: Towards a Migrant Justice Movement Led from the Queer and Trans Frontlines.” Each special interest group held their own caucus meeting, with names like “Arab, Middle-Eastern, Muslim, South Asian Caucus” and “Queer People of Color Caucus.”
The Democrats’ coalition of special interest groups and stereotypes started showing cracks in recent years. The level of vitriol between transgenders and TERFs, short for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, makes conflict between those groups and the right look tame. Racial tensions are increasing, as the left continues to stoke the race wars. One conference attendee tweeted, “Every headline about Sanders drawing huge crowd in AZ last night overlooks way he poorly responded to women of color at #nn15 the same day.” Another attendee also complained about race, although he defended Sanders, “At least he showed up to #NN15 Many other politicians didn't they don't care about black people.” Sanders was universally denounced on the Twitter hashtag #nn15 for not mentioning the name of Sandra Bland during his speech, a black woman who died in a Texas jail a few days ago from apparently hanging herself.
The other big bastion of online progressive activism, The Daily Kos, wouldn’t even participate in the Netroots Nation conference because of dislike for the location in conservative Arizona.
So divided over identity politics, progressives may now spend more time fighting in groups to get more attention within the Democrat Party than actually getting anything accomplished substantively. When half the agenda is about race, gender, or sex, foreign policy and economics are getting crowded out.
Progressives use devious tactics to shove their agenda through, but because the agenda is ultimately divisive, the foundation is doomed to crumble. There is only so much of other people’s money to go around. The left is gaining more control over taxpayers’ money and designating it toward progressive special interest groups, but as the number and power of those groups increases, they begin to fight with each other over the dwindling pool of money. The left’s defining word “tolerance” has become a farce, anarchy would fit better.
Whatta laff.
So the tender, earnest Civil Rights pimps of the 60s get a little glimpse of the real outcome of their “Equality for All” meme: the beneficiaries say Screw Dat Crap, Give Us Everything.
But...But...you’re supposed to be noble and well meaning, just Victims looking for Equal Treatment!
Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Cracker? We’re lookin’ for the cash, man. Not worried about you and your people. Y’all are finished, it’s our day now!
Bump
Oh How I wish I had the video from Netroots from this weekend.
The NBC Affiliate out of Grand Rapids was running full steam about the Trump/McLoser dust up but not one word about O’Malley and Sanders getting booed off the stage.
Here is how I read this.
The Uber-Left now controls the Democrat Party.
They have now become dangerous to anyone who doesn’t support their beliefs.
Strange things happen when people this crazy become powerful.
The big question I ask is where they are getting the $$$ to do this?
the hatred is terrifying.
Innocent people are going to end up dead.
Yes, Quigley’s analysis rings true today.
And yet, when push comes to shove, they’ll rally around the last Democrat standing, because they know they’ll at least get a piece of the action.
Preview of the DNC convention next year?
No doubt about it.
Cool! They are starting to get it!
A half-century on...
The Catholic church created many demonologies over the years, to describe how Satan and the other fallen angels tried to recreate the appearance of Heaven in Hell.
However, such were the demon’s vanity and arrogance that Hell soon had an incredibly top-heavy government. Not only did demons think of themselves as royalty and military generals, but they also had a parliament, and a gigantic bureaucracy, to the point where Hell resembled Washington, D.C.
In looking at this Netroots assembly, it appears that even the low level demonic rank and file are just as arrogant, vain and contentious as their leaders.
No big surprise.
That was helpful. They might have forgotten without the reminder. I sometimes forget where I put my keys.
lolz :)
When you try to be everyone’s best friend, purely for votes, you end up with:
Black men
Radical Feminists
Straight white men
Gays/Transgenders
Muslims
Atheists
Hispanics
When they (finally) look around they see diversity alright, including everything they can’t support...then the hilarity ensues!!!!!!!!!!! Whomever develops strategy for the Democrat’s didn’t think this through very far. While they perceive conservatives to be ever more “radical” they miss the reality that we’re not, it’s just them moving further left. Each of these left-wing groups have now become so extreme they can no longer “coexist” - oh the irony!!!
Conservatives should leverage this incompatible contradiction that is the Democrat Party.
But hardly anyone is paying attention...
Let the lefties kill each other in their fight for idealogical purity. It would be less numbers for us to fight. What we are seeing is no different from what went on in China in the sixties. Struggle sessions, shouting down, and eventually they will turn on each other with violence. Pass the popcorn.
Nutroot Nazis being nutters when they ought to be neutered.
The money and influence come from many places:
Union dues.
Welfare.
Infiltrating government institutions and using them against their “enemies”; Dept of Education, IRS, DoJ, etc.
Promising “free stuff”.
Promoting “victim-hood” for everyone.
etc.
...at least they realize Obamacare isn’t what was promised, maybe they’ll start to wake up to all the other lies.
The federal government gives out $billions in grants, much of which (by direct or by circuitous route) gets into the bank accounts of leftist groups. Find a way to gut this flow of money, and the "Progressive Movement" would implode.
Where do they come up with this stuff? Unfortunately, the letter "T" is already taken, so they'll have to come up with another letter of the alphabet for inclusion in the acronym that begins with LGBT(enter your freakshow here)!
I also got a kick out of the "tolerant" folks over at the DailyKooks not even attending since the even was held in AZ.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.