It’s good to see someone mention that the Democratic party has deep progressive roots. He mentions a lot of names that stirred up sad memories. Jesse Jackson, presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988; I supported him, although his campaign fizzled out in the primaries before I got to have a say out in Oregon (I really detest our system that gives Iowa and New Hampshire an undeserved excess of privilege in electoral politics). Howard Dean in 2004; he was my preferred candidate then, too. I have a long history of support for failed candidacies, I’m afraid.
I keep making these choices, and will keep on doing it, though. He quotes Jackson’s speech before the Democratic Convention, and yeah, it reminds me why.
We find common ground at the plant gate that closes on workers without notice. We find common ground at the farm auction, where a good farmer loses his or her land to bad loans or diminishing markets. Common ground at the school yard where teachers cannot get adequate pay, and students cannot get a scholarship, and can’t make a loan. Common ground at the hospital admitting room, where somebody tonight is dying because they cannot afford to go upstairs to a bed that’s empty waiting for someone with insurance to get sick. We are a better nation than that. We must do better. Common ground. What is leadership if not present help in a time of crisis? So I met you at the point of challenge. In Jay, Maine, where paper workers were striking for fair wages; in Greenville, Iowa, where family farmers struggle for a fair price; in Cleveland, Ohio, where working women seek comparable worth; in McFarland, California, where the children of Hispanic farm workers may be dying from poisoned land, dying in clusters with cancer; in an AIDS hospice in Houston, Texas, where the sick support one another, too often rejected by their own parents and friends.
Nothing has changed. It’s gotten worse for people like that, if anything.
It’s worth listening to the whole thing.
(It’s in multiple parts, sorry, but really, worth finding it all.)
I have to include a little more than Pierce did. Note that there’s a fair bit of God and Bible in it; if this militant atheist can forgive it for the greater message, than you can do it too.
Common ground. America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina and grandmamma could not afford a blanket, she didn’t complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth — patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack — only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn’t stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture. Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt.
Farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right — but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough.
Workers, you fight for fair wages, you are right — but your patch labor is not big enough.
Women, you seek comparable worth and pay equity, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Women, mothers, who seek Head Start, and day care and prenatal care on the front side of life, relevant jail care and welfare on the back side of life, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Students, you seek scholarships, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right — but our patch is not big enough.
Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.
But don’t despair. Be as wise as my grandmamma. Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we’ll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our Nation.
We, the people, can win.
We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in the commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years we’ve been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who view public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interests and the wealth of a few.
We believe in a government that’s a tool of our democracy in service to the public, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth. We believe in government with the consent of the governed, “of, for and by the people.” We must now emerge into a new day with a new direction.
Is it too late to vote for Jackson? Remember, he lost to Reagan in 1984 and George HW Bush in 1988. Imagine what a different country we’d be living in if those two establishment conservatives had been defeated.
Over the past 40 years with the gradual deline of the Dixiecrats the Democratic party has become more progressive overall, not less. This may shock some who believe that Hillary Clinton is to the right of Richard Nixon, but it’s true. Jesse Jackson’s campaigns in 1984 and 1988 were a part of that transformation and one of the reasons why black voters are the most faithful demographic for Democrats now.
I can’t really speak about other locations, but I was brought up with the idea that Jesse Jackson was some kind of like, horrific reverse-racist that would make “kill whitey” a law if he got into office and titled himself the god of black people.
Cue my surprise when I found that his politics (mostly) align with mine and his so called “reverse racism” was just perfectly reasonable activism under a conservative dogwhistle label. Shamefully, this was even taught in high school, where my AP US history teacher used him as an example of “reverse discrimination”
Conservative conclaves in otherwise blue states sure are a trip.
Please, could somebody explain to a non-American (1) How did Iowa and New Hampshire get this highly privileged position? and (2) Why do other states stand for this?
@2
“I can’t really speak about other locations, but I was brought up with the idea that Jesse Jackson was some kind of like, horrific reverse-racist that would make “kill whitey” a law if he got into office and titled himself the god of black people.”
Peace be upon Vivec, but Jackson was an atrocious racist; Sarah Vowell wrote that where she grew up, the daughter of Cherokee parents, his name would only be hissed, maybe with a curse word before it. He bears the most direct responsibility for the Native American genocide, and he owned hundreds of slaves.
He was also extremely popular, a successful general and a champion the interests of the “common man” (which at that time meant semi-literate white farmers). He had a profound effect on the institutions of the US government and did more for small-d democracy than just about anyone in American history.
Just about all Democratic heroes prior to FDR were usually despicable racists… This is because America was itself despicably racist until about the 1960s, at which time we began our trend to merely sickeningly racist.
I remember that 1988 convention speech so well!! I was about to start graduate school, and was living at my elderly mother’s place about 30 miles south of Boston, still looking for an apartment. She looked at me afterwards and said, “I bet if they took a straw poll right now, the Dukakis delegates would all abandon him and vote for Jesse!” It was truly brilliant.
It’s also worth noting that he didn’t lose to Regan or Bush, but in 1988 he lost to a systematically organized Democratic Party campaign to defeat him. That was the first year of Super Tuesday, which the Dixiecrats had constructed to get the South to have as much or more weight than California and New York, and thereby ensure a conservative nominee — no more Mondale/Ferraro tickets for the New Democrats! But that Super Tuesday came early enough that there were still 7 or 8 candidates in the race (I forget exactly, but let’s say Gephardt, Harkin, Kerrey, Brown, Dukakis, Hollings, Schroeder and Hart). They split the white vote, and Jesse emerged from Super Tuesday with a delegate lead, because he had cornered the black vote across the 7 or 8 slave states that day. Thence kicked off a concerted effort by the party elites and big donors to convert the race into an ABJ affair: Anyone But Jesse. It as the racists in the DEMOCRATIC Party who put the kibosh on Jesse, not any dirty tricks by Republicans.
sigaba @4: Wrong Jackson
Peace be upon Vivec, but Jackson was an atrocious racist; Sarah Vowell wrote that where she grew up, the daughter of Cherokee parents, his name would only be hissed, maybe with a curse word before it. He bears the most direct responsibility for the Native American genocide, and he owned hundreds of slaves.
You are confusing Andrew Jackson and Jesse Jackson.
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States, and is a problematic historical figure for all of the reasons you list.
Jesse Jackson is an African-American activist and politician who is a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice.
#3:
Iowa goes first because 1) the Democratic Party’s nominating process changed after 1968 and 2) because hotels were booked up in Des Moines back in June, 1972.
Why Iowa gets to go first, and other facts about tonight’s caucus
@3
So each party has to select who will appear on the state ballots for President. This has been the case for a really long time.
Prior to the 1960s most people didn’t participate in primaries or caucuses. Prior to the 60s nominees were mostly picked by the party “elites,” people who were formal members of the party, functionaries, office-holders, people like that, and the process was really opaque. Many states still held primary elections but the way the votes from primaries were counted and allocated during the convention made these votes basically symbolic.
The primaries and caucuses that these states held were always a little spaced-out, because the elections themselves were usually indirect, they often simply allocated votes to “pledged delegate” in a state convention, and the state convention had to be held a certain number of weeks after the primary, and it had to have time to decide before referring its decision and delegates on to the National conventions.
In 1968 Robert F. Kennedy was running for president. The Democratic Party elites didn’t really want him to win, because he woild probably end the Vietnam War, but Kennedy started picking up tons of primary wins and making the argument that the voice of the people couldn’t be ignored. Then Kennedy was assassinated in California, and the default candidate took over: Minnesotan Hubert H. Humphrey.
Humphrey was beloved of economic progressives but he was a Cold War hawk and very pro-Vietnam War. The Democratic convention in 68 became an historically epic shitshow where there were huge protests and riots, the entire city of Chicago was almost placed under martial law. Humphrey lost in a landslide to Richard M. Nixon, who also promised to end the war “with honor.” (He then proceeded to bomb Cambodia but I digress.)
In the aftermath the both parties decided that they had to make the process more transparent and that the primary/caucus process had to be more small-d democratic. So the spaced-out early elections became more important, and the candidates didn’t want them to become more bunched together, because they only had limited time to spend in individual states and it was better if they could campaign in one state at a time.
Iowa and New Hampshire always did their caucus and primary very early, and now it’s sort of a legacy thing. Neither party dares put a bigger state in the pole position because it would be seen as elitist and anti-farmer, and the idea is to have small states go first so if a candidate starts losing primaries, he’s not totally eliminated after the first week, he has time to recover before big states vote.
Apart from that yeah it’s just stupid.
As others have mentioned, my post was referring to 1984/88 candidate Jesse Jackson – the actual subject of the post we are currently commenting on – not Old Hickory.
Of course, Andrew Jackson wasn’t a reverse racist either – just the plain old normal kind of racist.
@6 I like’em both :) my bad.
@2, thank you for providing me with my WTF of the day.
Crap, I meant #4.
@13 It’s what I get for reading on my phone while walking the dogs…
Nice speech. I would love to see Sanders tap more into the broader range of progressive concerns like that. Sometimes Sanders is too focused on the economics and tax policy, and he’s righteous when he addresses those issues, but Jackson seemed to acknowledge that that’s just one type of problem we face.
Also, re: Howard Dean, he’s a corporate shill for pharma and insurance companies now, working with Newt Gingrich. https://theintercept.com/2016/01/14/howard-dean-lobbyist/
I was quite disturbed when Howard Dean was dragged down for a hee haw. Now there is a whole party of hee hawr’s and jibber jabbers who’s rating seem to go up every time they blabber.
@anbheal #5, I was in my last months of graduate school, and I too remember well watching Jesse Jackson’s speech on a little black and white TV. I also remember being disappointed to hear Tom Brokaw cynically comment afterward that it was the same old folderol or words to that effect.
Lou Reed was not a fan of Jesse Jackson for his “hymie” slurs:
Thanks sigaba! That was a great lesson for me.
@rinn
538 now reminds me that the Iowa caucuses do not select the state nominee or even a hard-pledged delegate but, they allocate something called “state delegate equivalents” which are somehow renormalized to correct for population density (probably with Fourier analysis).
I couldn’t support Jesse Jackson, not because I didn’t agree with his ideas, but because I’ve never supported a preacher for public office, and never will.