Booing and Nothingness

Across social media, a lot of people are still reeling over yesterday’s booing at the DNC. In particular, they’re saying it was childish. I find that an odd claim. There are legislative bodies across the globe, including countries we often hold up as tutors in democracy, where elected officials routinely boo and get booed. You might even say it’s a sign of a slightly less than grownup political culture that we in the US react to it with such a charge, that we see it as such a taboo. It seems to reflect a kind of obeisance to the magic of authority that we typically associate with, well, children.

37 Comments

  1. ronp July 27, 2016 at 12:40 am | #

    yeah, booing should be considered fine. It is just everyone is paranoid about doing anything to weaken Hillary/Kaine as a tRump presidency will be obviously terrible for the country and the world.

    Hopefully she wins and a Sanders like candidate will have another chance soon.

    • Terry July 27, 2016 at 8:45 am | #

      There’s the problem right there, “A sanders like candidate will have another chance soon” next time won’t be the right time neither, because there will be some other existential threat and you’ll all have to rally round the democrats. You know, chances eventually disappear.

      • Roquentin July 27, 2016 at 4:08 pm | #

        Exactly, there’s always and excuse. They say the same thing every four years. “Next election it’ll be different” before trotting out the same tired excuses.

        I’m actually feeling really good about being done with the Democrats. So long to a hopelessly corrupt party who treats the left with open contempt. No more carrying water for these clowns.

        • notlurking July 28, 2016 at 12:53 pm | #

          Exactly…….we have to start now and reject all that bs from HRC and the neoconlibs….boooooooooooooo

  2. stevelaudig July 27, 2016 at 12:54 am | #

    Let me get this right. Clinton II, and the DNC, had the intent to and did, in fact, subvert a democratic process to favor the person who “may” have “won” and the supporters of the person who “may” have “lost” [we can’t be sure because the process was gamed enough to be reasonably questioned as reliably providing a “winner” and when the “maybe losers” cry foul, THEY are condemned? I think I don’t understand the point of condemning them as “sore losers” because we can’t be certain they are actually losers. It seems the fix was in and the fix worked. So we are to be pardoned if we choose to not be cheerleaders for a fixed outcome. Having the means to change electoral outcomes, motives to change electoral outcomes, opportunity to change electoral outcomes. All three are present here and there were enough “little riggings” or even the appearance of “little riggings” to make the democratic reliability of the final “result” the “big rigging” reasonably questionable. Politics is rather like justice in this sense. To be credible the process [and the parts of it] must appear to be democratic. Clinton II may, in fact, have won but to try to argue away the appearances that Clinton II may, in fact, not have won misses one of the points of democracy. It must appear to be democratic process. Those accused had the means, motives, and opportunities and it appears they used the means and opportunities to achieve their motive: her nomination. Cheers. She may have “won” Sanders may have “won”. Clinton II persists in making bonehead, tone deaf, decisions, hiring the corrupt Wasserman immediately after her resignation was another unforced Clinton II error because it looks like a reward to a corruptionist for a “mission accomplished”. It is giving the finger to clean politics types. It is offensive and unnecessarily so. Clinton II could have not done it and the “insiders” would have understood why. Clinton II is too smart, by half. I fear Trump will eat her alive at any debate. She’s beginning to look and smell like William Jennings Bryan and/or Hubert Humphrey, “winning” losers.

    They didn’t throw shoes.Let me get this right. Clinton II, and the DNC, had the intent to and did, in fact, subvert a democratic process to favor the person who “may” have “won” and the supporters of the person who “may” have “lost” [we can’t be sure because the process was gamed enough to be reasonably questioned as reliably providing a “winner” and when the “maybe losers” cry foul, THEY are condemned? I think I don’t understand the point of condemning them as “sore losers” because we can’t be certain they are actually losers. It seems the fix was in and the fix worked. So we are to be pardoned if we choose to not be cheerleaders for a fixed outcome. Having the means to change electoral outcomes, motives to change electoral outcomes, opportunity to change electoral outcomes. All three are present here and there were enough “little riggings” or even the appearance of “little riggings” to make the democratic reliability of the final “result” the “big rigging” reasonably questionable. Politics is rather like justice in this sense. To be credible the process [and the parts of it] must appear to be democratic. Clinton II may, in fact, have won but to try to argue away the appearances that Clinton II may, in fact, not have won misses one of the points of democracy. It must appear to be democratic process. Those accused had the means, motives, and opportunities and it appears they used the means and opportunities to achieve their motive: her nomination. Cheers. She may have “won” Sanders may have “won”. Clinton II persists in making bonehead, tone deaf, decisions, hiring the corrupt Wasserman immediately after her resignation was another unforced Clinton II error because it looks like a reward to a corruptionist for a “mission accomplished”. It is giving the finger to clean politics types. It is offensive and unnecessarily so. Clinton II could have not done it and the “insiders” would have understood why. Clinton II is too smart, by half. I fear Trump will eat her alive at any debate. She’s beginning to look and smell like William Jennings Bryan and/or Hubert Humphrey, “winning” losers.

    They didn’t throw shoes.

    • kevin July 27, 2016 at 1:07 am | #

      Corey Robin and his people, to a T

    • Bart July 27, 2016 at 10:26 am | #

      “To be credible the process [and the parts of it] must appear to be democratic.”

      Didn’t we lose al that during Bush v Gore, followed by Citizens United, et al?

  3. Zane July 27, 2016 at 1:02 am | #

    I’d say the criticism comes entirely from a conception of the Democratic Party as part of “the good side” in politics and therefore things like booing, though they might be acceptable when used against the GOP, are despicable when used against the Dems. This seems like a recurring issue this election season: Clinton supporters (and even some Sanders supporters closer to the center) have a view of the Democrats as “on our side” and don’t understand why leftists view them as the enemy (or at least not as a sympathetic actor).

  4. InWonder July 27, 2016 at 7:50 am | #

    I can’t tell whether this is feigned ignorance. Calling it childish is part of the framing of Sanders’ supporters as young. It reinforces preexisting messaging. Period. Objecting to the booing could have been messaged along different lines, to express the same desire by power for victims to be silent. It could have been expressed along class and culture lines more forcefully, for example, the way elite white people criticize out group cultures — like black culture for laughing loudly and clapping at movies. But obviously, she has to stay away from the ethnicity side of that equation for a while a longer.

    Why the decision was made to frame the opposition so stridently along age lines is a different question. It could be the simple reality that Clinton knew going in she’d be weak with young voters and generational hostility tested well with Team Blue types. But this wasn’t organic. If Clinton’s team didn’t push the term “childish” this week, it’s only because it has saturated its employees, allies, supporters and media mouthpieces with the Bernie Bros messaging so thoroughly already.

    This isn’t intended as an attack on you, Corey. I’m honestly curious. Your background and perspective is quite different from mine. Was this, in fact, rhetorical, and I just didn’t get it because it’s been a stressful couple of days?

    (Remember when these same elites thought protesting the Republican nominee by Republican officeholders, including those who had signed agreements to support the nominee, was an awesome act of patriotism?)

  5. Pat July 27, 2016 at 11:46 am | #

    Ted Kennedy attempted to grab the nomination at the convention in 1980. Jesse Jackson demanded the
    VP slot in 1988 threatening to disrupt the proceedings if Dukakis did not acquiesce. Conventions have
    featured machinations and ‘disunity’ for most of history especially when there was a good deal of ideological distance between the top two contenders. The over reaction to booing by primarily one delegation is just the next phase in the endless complaints about Sanders and his supporters.

  6. Anthony Greco July 27, 2016 at 12:10 pm | #

    As a Sanders supporter, I found the booing appalling, not because it was impolite, but because it helped Donald Trump. The booers, who presumably don’t want to help Trump, either didn’t realize that they were doing that, in which case they were being very naive; or they didn’t care, in which case they were being irresponsible. Naiveté and irresponsibility are traits that we associate with children.

    Children don’t like to lose, and the booing was childish to the extent that it reflected a refusal to accept that their side lost. (And it is certainly childish to cling to the fantasy that their side “might have won” if not for the DNC’s shenanigans. The DNC couldn’t possibly have been responsible for a margin of 3 million+ votes in the primaries and caucuses.)

    Children also find it hard to accept that life sometimes presents us with unpleasant, difficult choices. The booing was childish to the extent that it reflected the booers’ inability to confront the unpleasant choice that we are obliged to make.

    For all her glaring shortcomings, Hillary is all that stands between us and a President Trump. A grown-up should have no problem seeing that.

    • Corey Robin July 27, 2016 at 1:00 pm | #

      If you can find me a single instance in American history when booing led to the defeat of a presidential candidate, I will buy you a copy of my book. Or is history something that only children do, too? You people really need to get a grip.

      • Anthony Greco July 27, 2016 at 3:16 pm | #

        So you’re saying that the appearance of disunity and Hillary hatred at the Dem convention probably won’t be decisive. How very reassuring.

        • JM Hatch July 28, 2016 at 9:35 am | #

          Hillary could say she had a stroke tomorrow and make it all go away. Bill encouraged Trump to run, just so you could say what you said. How’s that morning mirror run going for you?

      • Anthony Greco July 28, 2016 at 11:57 am | #

        You would have a point if you could find a single instance, since the beginning of the television age, when the mere mention of an expected candidate’s name at a national convention repeatedly evoked a large chorus of boos. But you can’t, so you don’t.

    • Donald July 27, 2016 at 3:06 pm | #

      Okay ” as a Sanders supporter” (had to get my credentials established too) I will be reluctantly voting for Clinton myself, but your objection logically should be to the entire Sander campaign. By pointing out the corruption in the Democratic Party and by pointing to Clinton’s militarism and cynicism he weakened her. Presumably that will have far more effect than some booing.

      It follows that so long as there are Republicans who are worse, people to the left of the mainstream Democrats should never do anything ever that might be construed as a criticism of the party.

      I actually wasn’t crazy about the booing, but mainly because I wasn’t sure how it would be taken by ordinary people watching from home. That is, I am concerned about the image it might give the left if people swallow this ” childish” accusation. But I could be wrong.

      • Anthony Greco July 27, 2016 at 3:29 pm | #

        “It follows that so long as there are Republicans who are worse, people to the left of the mainstream Democrats should never do anything ever that might be construed as a criticism of the party.”

        No, it doesn’t follow. Sanders’ campaign was a worthy effort, and it accomplished much, but now we are at the point where the choice is no longer Hillary or Bernie or Donald; it’s Hillary vs. Donald. It follows that at this point in time, making Clinton look bad helps Trump. That wasn’t true 6 months ago, but it is true today.

        • Donald July 28, 2016 at 12:06 pm | #

          Actually, no, if the chief goal is stopping Republicans at all costs, then the Sanders campaign did damage to Clinton’s chances. Millions of people heard the message, which happens to be true, that she is part of a corrupt system. Many may decide that voting lesser evil every four years just perpetuates the system. What did Sanders achieve in terms of helping to beat Trump? He moved the platform leftward, but that will only impress people who probably would have voted for Clinton as the lesser evil no matter what.

          I am glad Sanders ran because I hope he started a lasting movement, but if beating Trump in this election cycle is the chief priority, then his campaign almost certainly did far more harm to Clinton’s chances than the booing.

          • Anthony Greco July 28, 2016 at 4:09 pm | #

            I disagree–I think that Sanders’ campaign certainly had the potential to strengthen Clinton’s candidacy. If it didn’t–and I do think it’s still hard to say–it would be because of a number of contingent factors, including shortcomings of both Clinton and Sanders. In any case, there was no way of knowing at the outset of Bernie’s campaign whether or not he would ultimately help the Republicans. To my mind, it was certainly worth the risk, if only because of the longer-run considerations that you raise. But I know a number of nervous liberals–including commenters on my blog–who have disagreed with me.

    • Roqeuntin July 27, 2016 at 6:59 pm | #

      Did it ever occur to you, even for a minute, that by dividing every single political action taken into “helping Trump and/or hurting Trump” you are playing right into his campaign? You actively force people, many of them far more leftist than you, on to his side when they loathe him and everything he stands for. If people like you keep on repeating that tripe enough times, eventually Sanders supporters are going to start to believe it. And what then? You’re the one conditioning them to think they may as well support him. Hell, you already think so, what do they have to lose?

      And my God, if I have to hear one more person talk about how Clinton is the “rational, adult” choice I’m going to lose it. As if your support of her wasn’t primarily emotional. But even if I play that game, your version of “mature” and “rational” equates to saying the things the powerful want you say and thinking the things they want to think. I can’t believe I didn’t notice this more in the past, but so much of what gets described as “reasonable” is just thinly veiled reverence for power.

      • Anthony Greco July 27, 2016 at 10:03 pm | #

        Only one of two people is going to be elected president of the US this year. It is therefore inarguably true that anything that hurts Clinton’s election chances right now helps Trump. You can call that tripe if you like but it is still an inescapable fact. To claim that in pointing to that fact I am somehow forcing people to Trump’s side is weirdly ludicrous.

        And on what possible basis can you suggest that my support for Clinton is primarily emotional? You don’t know me and obviously haven’t read my blog (tony-greco.com). I have repeatedly expressed my unhappiness with Clinton. My decision to vote for her is coldly rational. (I make no apology for using that word that so offends you.) I want a Supreme Court that will preserve abortion rights and maybe eventually permit decent campaign finance reform. I want to see some progress on climate change. I don’t want to legitimate and empower the racist and fascistic impulses in our society. Clinton’s election would serve those among other worthy objectives, however imperfectly; Trump’s would crush them. I assume you share those objectives. If you think that they are less important than registering your disdain for Clinton, then, yes, I might suggest that you are not being entirely rational, and that assessment would have nothing to do with a reverence for power.

        • stevelaudig July 27, 2016 at 10:19 pm | #

          This is not directed to Anthony but generally…. Visuals for the argument, Naive perhaps but an accurate depiction of my own level of “thusiasm” which isn’t “en”. https://fasab.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/hum-while-holding-your-nose.jpg
          cheers.

        • InWonder July 28, 2016 at 6:37 am | #

          I am a Sanders supporter, donor and volunteer who will vote for whoever can take my blue states electoral votes away from Clinton. I am fully prepared to vote for Trump or Stein. Clinton is unquestionably the greater evil. She is to Trump’s right on both foreign and domestic policy. She wants a land war with Russia, drafting women to do it. She wants to cut and/or privatize Social Security. Think I’m joking? ALL the neocons are with her ALL the Social Security cutters are with her. TPP will destroy our national sovereignty. She instructed her delegates to keep opposition to TPP out of the platform, even though it would not be binding on her. Of course she backs it. She’s just lying, like she always does. She and Kaine are both anti-choice. And she’s campaigning openly for Republican votes. Even if she got those voters to switch for her, they’ll certainly “go home’ down ticket. The Congress will be Republican if she is elected. No Supreme Court Justice will make it on to the court that doesn’t meet with McConnell’s approval.

          Trump would be a weak President, at war with his own party to some degree. His racist rhetoric is ugly, but the racism inside Clintonland is pretty intense, and getting more open. She has been ruled as being above the law. She committed serious crimes as Secretary of State, stole the primary, and the government and MSM does nothing. Putting her in power under these circumstances pretty much closes off any hope of returning to some form of representative government.

          If you look at the definition of fascism, Clinton fits it much more closely that Trump. Stop listening to propaganda and really LOOK at actual evidence. Yes, he’s a blowhard and a racist. But he was nominated Democratically, and is in trouble with the elite because he’s saying he wants LESS war and to protect American jobs.

          Vote how you want to vote. But lots and lots of Sanders voters are not going to be cowed into voting for Clinton. If the party wasn’t so corrupt, she wouldn’t have been nominated and the convention wouldn’t have been such a horrendous display of authoritarian behavior and deceit. That’s why people booed. And again, if the party was REMOTELY democratic, the fact that people who cared passionately enough about the party to pay thousands of dollars to go to the convention were this deeply alienated from the party and this angry would have resulted in changed outcomes. The party clearly prefers to lose with Clinton rather than guarantee a win by moving left and nominating Sanders, which it could have done. That tells me that the Clintons — who are close friends with Trump and know him well — are unconcerned about him, and do not actually see him as a threat to the country or the globe. That’s just a con. Which apparently has worked on you.

        • Roqeuntin July 28, 2016 at 7:25 am | #

          How exactly is voting for Clinton supposed to support abortion rights? Her VP pick, Tim Kaine, certainly doesn’t. If she can’t even pick a Vice President who supports a woman’s right to choose, what makes you so sure she’ll pick a supreme court justice who does? Or do you just have an emotional attachment to Team Blue that conveniently makes you overlook all evidence to the contrary?

          And Hillary is suppose to implement campaign finance reform? Really? She’s way, way more money from big corporate donors even than Trump. The idea that she’d somehow be more likely to reform the system that was, is, and always will be her lifeblood is patently absurd.

          What progress on climate change do you expect her to make? Do you really expect her to turn around and go against the wishes of the people who gave her all that money?

          Face it, there is nothing “coldly rational” about your choice to support Hillary. That’s line is close in the running for the biggest crock of shit of 2016.

          • Anthony Greco July 28, 2016 at 11:36 am | #

            I’m sorry, but if you really don’t believe that Clinton will appoint pro-choice justices to the Supreme Court, then you are living in some kind of left-wing bubble of denial. I could go on, but there would be no point.

    • Roquentin July 28, 2016 at 12:20 pm | #

      Obama sure has done a great job of it, hasn’t he? Oh wait, he hasn’t nominated someone to replace Scalia at all. It looks doubtful as to the Republicans losing control of congress, so that won’t be any different in a hypothetical HRC victory either. And even so, if Hillary was so willing to chose a VP based on the expediency of the moment, trying to flip Virginia and other parts of the South blue, what makes you think she’ll be any more principled not just with her Supreme Court nominations, but the people she has in her cabinet?

      The Court, the court, the court. It’s always the last refuge of the Clinton apologist. When they run out of ways to argue that she’ll be better based on any kind of policy decisions, they always go back to that.

      And in another 4 years, it’ll be something else. There will be a new reason we have to vote Democrat or the world will end. And nothing will change, but honestly that was the point all along. You just don’t seem to realize it.

  7. james July 27, 2016 at 12:46 pm | #

    Oh but I disagree. Of course people like to ‘win’. When I was growing up our ‘motto’ was win or lose, it’s how you play the game. And therein lies the problem. The way the DNC and Hillary played the game. None of us liked the winners who ‘won’ by conspiring, cheating, and lying. They may take the W in the win column, but everyone always knew they were the ‘losers’. I could give many sports analogies, but in the end this is politics.
    Remember the shame of Watergate.

  8. I think an observation is in order.

    Most of us know that famous moment when Fannie Lou Hamer said “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired!” The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party looms very large in American history as “ground zero” for the future and permanent racial diversity of the current Democratic Party. Because of its activism, the Southern branch of the DP was transformed from a Dixie party to a more liberal, sometimes even progressive, party. And this diversity spread across the entire Party. Obviously FDR’s and LBJ’s social programs gave a big boost to pushing the party left, but those programs would not exist were it not for progressive social action – and nor would their expansion beyond whites only. That FDR’s programs existence was premised on their denial to American Blacks is not to be forgotten, and their long time denial to Blacks has been implicated by historians as one important cause for the economic ill-fortunes of Blacks to this day. Change came, but it was late and we all know that. I only open this comment by pointing back to the MFDP as opening up the Democratic Party to a substantial Black presence is something that should be understood as a major, and irreversible, impact on that Party’s history.

    If we fast-forward (rather than “jump cut”, since this would entail cutting out history) to the DLC Clinton era, we observe the Democratic Party in openly denying its progressive agenda in favor of an explicitly corporatist one: “The era of big government is over!” spake Bill Clinton. Readers of this blog already know where that went and there is no need for me to skim a recap through that history now, except to note that the DP’s base was clearly on the outs then, but also the Republican’s open hostility left a lot of them with no place to turn when it came to Presidential elections. So they held their noses and pulled the lever for a neo-liberal Dem because the Republicans were scarier – and they were. While Bill Clinton locked up record numbers of African American and cut social programs to the poor – and gave us NAFTA – the Dems nonetheless traded on their recent progressive history to keep its base in line, even as it abandoned their interests. At this point, the liberals saw their work being undone by the very Party that put them in motion.

    Bush 2’s disasters, and demographic trends set the stage for the Obama Presidency. Also well known. So while the Republican Party sought to bring back segregation-lite voting (anti) access programs it is during two Obama terms that the corporatist/hawkish wing of the Dems kept their programs moving along.

    Another fast forward: It is 2016 and it’s Hillary and Trump – and BERNIE. Bernie: Mocked and derided by the mouthpieces of power – and conspired against by the DNC – and, well, you know what happened. Because of Bernie and his movement campaign the left of the Democratic Party is finally showing some signs of life. Journalist Bill Nichols is interviewed on the KPFA show “The BradCast”’s Tuesday show and makes reference to having met at the Democratic convention this week some newly-minted “Bernie-istas” running for office in local districts and municipalities around the country. Their explicit plan is to replicate the insurgent model of the Christian Right in the Republican Party.

    So why are we going from MFDP to “Bernie-istas”? All that just to say this: as the Civil Rights insurgency has resulted in a permanent and positive transformation of the DP, so too has Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign brought its own permanent transformation. Yes, I do think that this change is permanent. Demographics helps here, as does the Dem progs just being fed up. Neither the scolding from online Hillary-bots or that of a beloved (and Bernie-supporting) TV comedienne will change that. No doubt that the progs are in for a long fight but I also doubt that the neo-libs of the Party are going to be able to sleep as well as they have in the past for the next few years, whether Hillary wins or not.

    Whoever writes the history book on the Democratic Party will include chapters on both MFDP’s and Bernie Sanders’ respective impacts on that Party. Fannie and Bernie each in their own way made a difference. The Democratic Party is better for it, and I suspect that my imagined future historian may willfully bracket a part of that history to run from Fannie to Bernie.

    That does not mean I will vote for Hillary, though….

    As for the “booing”, my imagined historian will simply write it up as part of the spectacle of presidential conventions. As have all the others who have actually done the writing and documentary filmmaking on that subject.

    And on into the future there will be Boos. From all sides. Along with the booze!

    Sorry, I could help that last line.

  9. stevelaudig July 27, 2016 at 2:48 pm | #

    It may be an odd comparison, I won’t argue that…. OJ was, in fact, guilty. The cops, in fact, framed a guilty man. The jury (in my opinion likely as not thought OJ was guilty, but because of the, in fact, frame couldn’t be “sure”) wasn’t convinced couldn’t, and couldn’t, in good conscience, convict….. Clinton II may have “won” but …..you can finish the argument. Color me unpersuaded of her “in fact” winning. Doesn’t mean I won’t vote for her but it means I don’t think she is “clearly” legitimate and what’s the point of playing a rigged game. Better the edifice collapse, that seems to be the only way “real” change can occur anyway. cheers. I don’t see how I can vote for war criminal without becoming an accomplice.

  10. Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant July 28, 2016 at 10:37 am | #

    “Booing And Nothingness” — a well-wrought title for the present post, I’d say. Is Hillary the “Nothingness”, and that both her supporters and we all know this? Is there cause to fear any assertion of this in any forum where it can been seen, read, or heard? Why?

    “…at this point in time, making Clinton look bad helps Trump.”

    That is a perfect example of what I mean when I said that this trolling [yeah, I called it that — wikileaks has the docs] is not meant to persuade errant Bernie supporters as much as to keep Hillary’s own in line. If this guy thinks that booing only helps Trump, then this clearly suggests that Hillary’s own support, and any basis for it, is very weak indeed and is thus vulnerable to even the mildest of progressives’ intervention. Again, Corey — they fear you, Bro. This is because they really do have NO faith in Hillary and none in their own ranks to keep it together. If booing is so dangerous to Hillary then this says more about them and their candidate than it does about Sanders or his supporters, does it not? Seriously, if Hillary is so strong and, frankly, so worthy, why are they wasting time with us? Go forth and win. And when Hillary pushes the progressive agenda her defenders like to claim that she has (which is odd, given the lack of one in her history in public life) then they can come back and say, “We told you so!”

    Any bets we won’t be hearing that?

    And as for “making Clinton look bad”, who is responsible for that? The Republicans tried and it only made Hillary stronger against them. Making her look bad was a Republican congressional agenda boldly asserted in public with cameras rolling. As for booing, a case could be made that its purpose was not to besmirch Hillary so much as to express disapproval of what some who were interviewed after their protestations understood as a suspect process and a suspect outcome to serve suspect interests. If you saw the Dem Convention, it certainly looks like that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz got the worst booing of the whole show. Did that make her look bad — or was it that what she tried to do inside the DNC that made her look bad? Does that deserve boos? Wasserman-Schultz, like Ms. Clinton, pursued some bad policies — I’d say THAT is what makes one look bad, and not the booing.

    I’d also say that given her history, Ms. Clinton has not a lot to sell her to progressives fed up with anti-progressive policies. “Anthony Greco” knows this. The readers of this blog and its author know this. The progressives on the Convention floor and in the streets know this.

    If all the “Anthony Greco”s have to offer is fear of Trump in their defense of Hillary, then audience booing is the least of their troubles. They can start with their candidate.

    • Anthony Greco July 28, 2016 at 11:52 am | #

      I’ll try again. I’m not ‘defending’ or even ‘supporting’ Hillary. I’m simply pointing out that she is the only alternative at this point to Trump, which is why I will hold my nose and vote for her. You can argue if you want that she is no better than Trump, or a Trump victory wouldn’t be so disastrous, or whatever, but you cannot deny that hurting Clinton’s chances helps Trump. As to the effect of booing: It is the fairly unanimous belief of political operatives in both parties, as well as of the political horserace punditocracy, that the appearance of a convention unified behind the candidate is important and valuable for the campaign that follows. When millions of TV viewers see that a significant portion of the convention so detests Hillary that they boo so much as the mention of her name, even by the likes of Sanders and Warren, it has an impact. It may not have a decisive impact, but you can’t pretend that it has no impact. So be honest: if you really don’t care whether Trump wins, just say so, and then your position will be clear.

      • Will G-R July 28, 2016 at 1:51 pm | #

        Well how’s this: we see the choice between Clinton and Trump as a pseudo-problem, because apart from the negative consequences of a Clinton victory outlined in the standard leftist critique of Clintonite DLC neoliberalism, the positive consequence of a Trump defeat will largely be to recreate the very conditions that lead to a choice between a Clinton and a Trump in the first place. It’s like trying to negotiate with a hostage-taker when you and they both know full well that they intend to never release the hostage at all: they get more and more of what they want and all you get is the hope that eventually they’ll run out of demands to make, at which point they’ll probably just shoot the hostage anyway. So why bother?

        If Clinton wants to quash the sentiment behind “Bernie or Bust” once and for all, she has to present a credible case that she would actually halt the process of neoliberalization that began in earnest under Reagan and only gained further momentum under her husband and Obama, as opposed to briefly tapping the brakes on neoliberalization just enough to relieve discontent before shifting back to the gas pedal. But because she can’t and won’t present such a case, people like her will always be the precursors to people like Trump. Making and defending a choice between them under such conditions isn’t just pointless, it actively distracts from other types of political choice that might someday prove more meaningful.

        • Anthony Greco July 28, 2016 at 3:53 pm | #

          Translation: stopping Trump isn’t a priority for you.

          • InWonder July 29, 2016 at 6:12 am | #

            That’s right. Stopping Bill’s golfing buddy and the father of Chelsea’s dearest friend is not a priority. He’s running on further left policies, most importantly less war and no TPP, and he hasn’t committed election fraud or broken campaign finance or espionage laws.

            So of the two terrible choices our terrible ruling elite has given us, he’s the safer choice. I’ll be voting for an awesome third party that reflects my policy desires better (not Stein), unless either Trump or Stein can actually take my blue state’s electoral votes, in which case, I will vote for either of them. And after this dreadful convention, that might be possible, if Manafort can stop our Secretary of State from reprogramming the scanners, and shredding and whiting out ballots.

            You’re arguing for a purely fictional version of Clinton.

          • Will G-R July 29, 2016 at 11:38 am | #

            No, the translation is that stopping the conditions that give rise to Trump today and will give rise to future Trumps tomorrow isn’t a priority for Clinton herself. Continue electing people like Clinton, and people like Trump will only keep coming back, bigger and meaner and Hitlerier than ever, and if Clinton isn’t stupid she might even understand this. Becausestopping people like Trump is a priority for us, stopping people like Clinton is a priority as well.

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