Democratic sheepdogging goes back long before Bernie

With polls!

I'm not saying that Actual Flatticus friend Kevin Sarpei thinks it does, or even implies that it does, but, per his piece about Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard and others, one could think that. I know he was just focusing on the current election, but, we need to see that it's part of a modern Democratic history.

I did learn, per last year's sheepdogging, a couple of things about Turner that I didn't know. That said, I hadn't really gone down her trail much.

And, I learned that Gabbard, the alleged foreign policy free thinker, is on the Council of Foreign Relations.

At the same time, Sarpei fails to note what might be far worse — her friendship with representatives of the BJP party that now governs India, as well with members of its RSS fundamentalist Hindu parallel auxiliary and support group. Also missing is Tulsi's earlier gay marriage hatred and her dad's larger homophobia. I blogged about that in early 2016.

(Update, Jan. 11, 2019: Per this Tweet Sarpei retweeted without quote-Tweeting, I also will operate on the assumption he is a 9/11 Truther, which doesn't surprise me.)

He rightly notes Bernie opposed BDS, but doesn't note that Warren, even deeper in the Zionism tank than Bernie, also does.

Also missing, though outside the direct Bernie purview? Indivisible Team, clear sheepdoggers IMO.

OK, that said, I said that I would use that piece as a kick-off to discuss sheepdogging among Democrats in past elections. So, here we go.

I'm starting with 1976, as it was a highly contested primary battle due to a likely Democratic win.

1976: There really was no organized or semi-organized, "sheepdogging," as best as I can recall, after Jimmy Carter locked up the nomination in advance of the election. Jerry Brown jumped in the race late, but not really to be a sacrificial lamb followed by sheepdogger. And, he wasn't really that much more liberal on that many things. Already back then, he was an early outlier of not just neoliberalism in general (Carter was also a neolib in many ways), but of what eventually became tech-neoliberalism, dominating much of today's national Democratic party.

Fred Harris was the one true progressive in the race, but was out of it well before convention time, so no sheepdogging was involved.

1980: This was mano-a-mano, of course. Ted Kennedy, after failing to drop his baggage, and thus dropping the nomination possibility, did NOT sheepdog for Carter, of course. Instead, after his self-focused convention speech, he went home. Jerry Brown was in the race early, but stood no chance.

1984: Kind of like 2016, with former Veep Fritz Mondale a semi-incumbent but not totally. He was challenged by Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson. Mondale uttered his "Where's the beef" bon mot at Hart's more full-on neoliberalism to help cut him down, while Jackson shot himself in the foot with his Hymietown.

Jesse didn't do real sheepdogging here. That's mainly because Mondale's chances were largely written off. But ... stay tuned!

1988: Mike Dukakis won, with Jackson second, and getting ignored for Veep consideration instead of Lloyd Bentsen. Al Gore was third, Paul Simon (the punchline to an Al Franken joke today) was fourth and Dick Gephardt fifth.

Jesse went on to become the first big sheepdogger, at least in this post-1976 cycle herding up more liberal members of the party for a technocrat type candidate. So, let's start there, as that's a generally good link.

First, there are sheepdogs outside the Democratic Party elected apparatus. Noam Chomsky and other pundits and intellectuals who bemoan a Democratic candidate in one breath but then work to rally the troops in the next? They're another type of sheepdoggers.

What did Jesse in particular get?

An anointing as the official black "go-to" for national Democrats to approach, and other things. As in, if the national party needed to address minority hiring at a big biz that was also a big Dem donor, Jesse was the go-to guy.

Beyond an ego stroking, money to him via going to the Rainbow Coalition was the payout. And, the exploitation of his position as middleman in biz outreach and more.

That said, the sheepdogging by Jesse didn't really start until 1992, when the Big Dog, the Slickster, Bill Clinton, got nominated. And, it got worse in 1996, after Bill ended "welfare as we know it," etc. Clinton was petrified of a Jesse primary run in 1996, and even said so later.

And so, on to

1992: This was another "open" primary cycle on the Democratic side. With the number of candidates in play, and Jesse not one of them, no sheepdogger emerged after Clinton's nomination. As with a later election, it could be argued that Clinton himself, with an early version of triangulation, played both sheepdog and nominee.

Besides sheepdogging, then-former and not-yet-current Gov. Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, ran on a personal platform that included supporting a flat tax.

1996: Other than Clinton's worries about a Jesse run — and more help furnished to the Rainbow Coalition and Jackson personally to cut that off at the pass — the race was tepid.

And, yes, the book is by a semi-wingnut author from the official wingnut publishing house, but, nonetheless, there's a fair amount of truth in "Shakedown."

2000: Within the Democratic half of the duopoly, Bill Bradley was a moderate bit more liberal than Al Gore. However, he refused to be a real sheepdog.

2004: This saw the rise of two sheepdoggers, Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. Dean developed a reputation as a "liberal" for Vermont passing a gay-and-lesbian domestic partners bill that Dean had originally opposed. He added to that by opposing the Iraq War from the safety of his governor's mansion.

Dean got his reward as chairman of the DNC. That said, he, before Rahm Emanuel, started the recruitment of "Blue Dogs."

Kucinich got his reward by being treated more seriously than he deserved. He wound up sheepdogging for Obamacare in the House.

John Edwards, the Breck Girl, was a pseudo-sheepdogger as Veep nominee.

2008: Like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama was his own sheepdogger, above all else. The power of myth.

Wonder how many Democrats who (rightly) call Bernie Sanders a sheepdogger were suckers for Obama.

2016: Bernie was an obvious sheepdogger. And, he got his payoff with the start of his foundation and think tank, starting with wife Jane running it, which fits well with her history of apparent grifting.

Speaking of, she was the cause of Flatty blocking me.

He claimed that the federal bank fraud investigation of Jane Sanders was all Trump Admin hackery. I pointed out that, despite the Trumpster who first called for the investigation, the actual investigation was launched by the Obama Administration's Department of Justice before the primary season was over, let alone the general.

If ANY political considerations were involved, it was Dear Leader holding that investigation over the Sanders' collective heads to make sure Bernie sheepdogged.

But, Flatty (despite being blocked on Twitter by Jane Sanders by that time) couldn't buy that.

Oh, Bernie's new book, highly overrated, is both sheepdogging, and probably, with bulk buys from big Democrats and Sanders Institute staff, a reward for sheepdogging.

Beyond Bernie, are there other sheepdoggers? Elizabeth Warren, per Sarpei, endorsed Clinton after Bernie essentially conceded. Sheepdogs starting to fall in line. That said, Warren had a chance to be a sheepdog candidate, as Bernie waited on her before announcing his run.

The "Putin Did It" post-election sheepdogging for the non-Trump Team members of both halves of the duopoly is more disconcerting.

And, now, in 2017, the Becks, as semi-nutters, could themselves be accused of sheepdogging for things surrounding the DNC fraud lawsuit.

That said, Sarpei gets / seemed to have gotten other things wrong, wrong, wrong in that piece.

Like blaming Assad for the April gas attack. Kevin needs to start reading him some Consortium News and get the facts on Syria. He also needs to realize that a lot of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment's guilt-tripping of Assad is "Putin Did It" by extension. (No, this is not a claim that Assad is innocent. It is a claim that some of the gas attacks blamed on him, including earlier this year, almost certainly weren't done by him.)

UPDATE: I may have misread Kevin here. I'll quote the original.

It’s at Point 6 under Nina Turner:

As far as I know, and I’ve searched hard, she hasn’t addressed the claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind the apparent sarin gas attack in Syria in April 2017. 

Yeah, I think not claiming that Assad was behind it is better than claiming that he was, but in the end, not challenging the claim helps the establishment as well.

Per Kevin’s comment here, I’m OK with saying it looks like I misread him.

To be precise, I wrote not once, not twice, but three times about the April attack — and relevant past issues. And, if he reads Consortium News, I presume he largely agrees.

On Tulsi Gabbard, Sarpei again fails to mention her BJP / RSS connections.

I remention this for serious reasons. Her Hindu nationalist connections surely fuel her Islamophobia. And, no, per our Twitter exchange, mentioning this is NOT digging up "every bit of dirt."

Update, as Sarpei didn't respond last night on Twitter, due to time zone difference. He agrees that Islamophobia is a serious issue. That said, that even more means it's not "every bit of dirt." The BJP / RSS thrive on Islamophobia.

And, re the danger of electronic voting machines, I've addressed that before.

More specifically, I've addressed claims that they flipped 2004. And the original version of "Putin Did It," ie, that he hacked election machines. Or that Hillary rigged Arizona, beyond just election machines.

Are they perfect? No. I've noted that before, including saying that European-style paper ballots might be better. Did they make McCain president in 2008 or Romney in 2012? Also, no. Per that 2004 piece, if they really were rigged, they could have, surely for Romney.

At the same time, on paper ballots? They're not perfect either. If you don't know the moniker, Google "The Duke of Duval County." What matters is the structural integrity, and the human integrity, behind the voting system in general. Vote-stealing is as American as Democratic sheepdogging.

Oh, and Sarpei also should stop linking to videos by 9/11 truthers and otherwise general conspiracy theorists if he wants the likes of me to take him more seriously on foreign policy issues. (I'm talking about James Corbett in particular.)

I know he's enthusiastic about campaign finance problems and other issues, but anybody who knows me well knows that I have little truck with conspiracy theorists. Knowing that the 9/11 Commission did not fully investigate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's role in Sept. 11, 2001, is not the same as believing there is a conspiracy about who did it, that NIST was wrong about how the towers fell (I saw that referenced on the original Corbett video Sarpei had linked), etc. And, when, in going to Corbett's website, I saw JFK assassination conspiracy theories, in general, that was more than enough, without needing to see the particular theory Corbett supports.

That said, I've seen far worse 9/11 Truthers. And others.

And, whether on FB or Twitter, I normally block them.

I have an exception for Alex Jones on Twitter, just to see if a potential Twitter friend retweets Alex in a non-mocking way. Ditto for Zero Hedge.

So, I don't mean to harsh your mellow too much, Kevin. But there's a difference between facts and conspiracy theories. The Assad part of your statement isn't a conspiracy. It's just a conjecture which most likely isn't right.

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Sidebar: From the pre-modern era, Henry Wallace could be considered a sheepdogger by agreeing to be FDR's Commerce Secretary after getting dumped as Veep. Before that, William Jennings Bryan could be considered the same after Wilson dumped him as Secretary of State, for not challenging Wilson's drift, or drive, closer to war.

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Meanwhile, to critique within my current party of presidential voting?

Per David Cobb's safe states strategy in 2004, and Jill Stein doing her recount last year only in states that would benefit Hillary Clinton?

I think it's time we called this sheepdogging, too. That's one reason I almost voted SPUSA for president in November.

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That said, there could be such a thing as Flatticus sheepdogging. That would be writing something that hinted it might be a critical look at him, but actually turned out not to be so at all. The people being sheepdogged would be people of generally progressive angles who might have seen him on Twitter, then heard some vague rumblings about him after he died.

They might go to a piece like that, and not realize the full story.

And, Kevin probably didn't think I was setting up a bank shot. I hadn't started out that way, but about halfway through this I decided to do it. That decision was intensified by reading your most recent piece.

I'll have more soon on honoring his legacy by going beyond it.