That’s a good point, I’m not entirely clear how tough a Clinton administration would be on banking regulation. Her record as a legislator has been cooperative but I don’t know what happens when she’s president.
Well the principle is that the party should listen to the voters and not overrule them in favour of what they think the better candidate is. Well the voters decided.
Now I’m not sure how much Sander’s campaign went after the superdelegates specifically and how much is was just his supporters. Though his campaign didn’t really contradict them when they were asking superdelegates to follow the wishes of their constituents.
An interesting insight I just had. Bernie’s supporters have really replaced the role of the super PAC in Sander’s campaign. Generally supporters stick close to the candidate’s own campaign and narrative and let the super PACs do the other stuff. But without super PACs I feel like Bernie’s supporters have unusual levels of organization and autonomy and they make a lot of the attacks and arguments that he’d rather not make personally. I’m curious if this is due to the degree to which Bernie dominates youth or if it’s a natural result of no super PACs + the Internet.
Strictly speaking, the SuperPac and the candidate aren’t allowed to coordinate. The most absurd implication of this-- that the candidates are pawns pushed around by third parties, may well be most legally correct one.
Yes, so it’s a question of context. If he is described as “Someone who is considered radical in America but would be right at home in the Liberal Party of Canada” then I’d say that’s accurate. When an editorial tries to pass him off as a radical left-winger without context it seems pretty crazy. His radical left-wing policies are probably some of Canada’s most sacred cows (health care, heavy bank regulation) that our conservative parties ardently deny they will mess with.
If you are trying to make a statement about psychology, then people clearly do vote based on this stuff. Endorsements, fundraising numbers, crowd sizes and previous wins matter. The large media outlets consciously avoided reporting on Sanders success at fundraising and crowd sizes last summer.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m not going to get scared into voting for Hillary in November. Either she sells me based on what she WILL ACTUALLY DO, or my empty gesture will be to stay at home. (Not that this’ll affect my state’s electoral college either way - New York has had enough of Trump over the last 40+ years, no way WE’RE going to put him in office).
[quote=“Cowicide, post:55, topic:79070”]
The plan is for our grassroots movements to systematically unseat obstructionists whether they be bluedog Democrats or typical Republicans.
[/quote]The Blue Dogs are dead, swept from office in their deep red,largely southern seats by the Tea Party and replaced with nutjob GOP congressmen. Good work?
The fact that you even think they exist in any meaningful sense, and need to be fought against anymore is just hilarious. There are more people in the Bike caucus than the Bluedog caucus.
[quote=“Cowicide, post:55, topic:79070”]
It’s a long-term process. People looking for a quick-fix don’t really understand our grassroots dynamic.
[/quote]The grassroots energy in the party is coming from three groups- Black Lives Matter, Fight For Fifteen, and the Dreamers. All led by young POC, mostly young women of color, all predating Bernie’s entry into the campaign. The idea that these are his ideas, his party, his grassroots movement is absurd.
We were here before Bernie ran. We’ll be here after Bernie finishes losing. The party is moving left, and has been for 20 years. Bernie’s success is the result of that, not the driver.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:68, topic:79070”]
If you are trying to make a statement about psychology, then people clearly do vote based on this stuff.
[/quote]There’s a ton of research that regular endorsements don’t even sway voters anymore. I suspect it’s even more true for something like a superdelegate endorsement. Most of them are local, unelected party figures. The sort of people you only know if you’re sitting at local party meetings. The general public doesn’t know them at all.
I don’t expect voters to care about individual superdelegates in general. It’s the raw numbers. “Clinton is leading 400-13” sways votes, not the names of the people who cast those 400. Early on the race delegate counts were reported mixing elected and super delegates, which gave the impression that Sanders was getting about 5% of the vote rather than about 40%. That definitely makes a difference in whether people think of him as a legitimate candidate or just some also-ran crazy guy.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:73, topic:79070”]
I don’t expect voters to care about individual superdelegates in general. It’s the raw numbers. “Clinton is leading 400-13” sways votes, not the names of the people who cast those 400. Early on the race delegate counts were reported mixing elected and super delegates, which gave the impression that Sanders was getting about 5% of the vote rather than about 40%. That definitely makes a difference in whether people think of him as a legitimate candidate or just some also-ran crazy guy.
[/quote]The problem with this and similar arguments about how the media supposedly treated treated Bernie is that you have to explain the huge demographic disparities between Bernie and Hillary’s support. And you’re inevitably left arguing or at least imply that white people are somehow magically immune to the media’s influence, or that POC are dumb and easily fooled by the media.
That not inevitable unless the person making the argument fundamentally buys into racist ideas to begin with. Media influence is one factor among many in how people vote, and if it changes, all other factors that account for demographic differences still exist.
Imagine any other negative thing that would affect Clinton’s chances of becoming president - say she had some minor expense scandal that made a few people question her judgement but that ultimately didn’t come to much and it caused her to dip a couple percent relative to Sanders.
We’d expect to see that dip among white voters and among black voters because generally voters care about the judgement of candidates. But if you took black voters in South Carolina, who broke Clinton 84-16, they would still be overwhelmingly in support of Clinton if a few of them changed their minds. Would we look at that and say, “Black people don’t care about expense scandals!” That would be boiling all black people down to whatever is on the top of your mind right now.
ETA: I just want to say, I don’t doubt that you have heard someone implicitly or explicitly that people of colour are being fooled by Clinton and if they only knew what was good for them they would vote Sanders. I’m not denying that people will really say that. I’m saying that people who say that are making a stupid argument and a racist argument.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:76, topic:79070”]
But if you took black voters in South Caroline, who broke Clinton 84-16…
[/quote]Just like the Black voters of the Virgin Islands did over the weekend. Just like the Black voters of Illinois did months after SC. And the Black voters of California will tomorrow if the polling is correct.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:76, topic:79070”]…they would still be overwhelmingly in support of Clinton if a few of them changed their minds. [/quote]The difference between them in the popular vote and delegates comes down to Clinton’s massive wins with minorities. The bottom line is that Bernie got crushed by the non-white vote. He bet his whole campaign on a demographic that doesn’t have enough people to win the primary. Hillary made the same mistake 8 years ago. No need to muddy the waters with talk of how the media gave her the election. Even if they did alter margins, they clearly didn’t alter the outcome.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:76, topic:79070”]ETA: I just want to say, I don’t doubt that you have heard someone implicitly or explicitly that people of colour are being fooled by Clinton and if they only knew what was good for them they would vote Sanders. I’m not denying that people will really say that. I’m saying that people who say that are making a stupid argument and a racist argument.[/quote]It’s the implication of the argument you’re making, whether you realized it or not.
The difference between Clinton and Sanders’ votes comes down to the difference within black votes, plus the difference within white voters plus the difference within all the other voters. Media coverage appeared crassly biased to me, and I can’t say whether that would have altered the final outcome or not. But arguing about whether it would have been enough of a factor to matter is different than arguing about whether it was a factor at all.
I could equally turn around and say that by saying the media didn’t make a difference to black voters you are saying that black people never change their minds when confronted with new information.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:78, topic:79070”]
But arguing about whether it would have been enough of a factor to matter is different than arguing about whether it was a factor at all.[/quote]It’s become one of the standard lines for why Bernie lost. If you’re not arguing that Bernie lost because of the media, then fine.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:78, topic:79070”]
I could equally turn around and say that by saying the media didn’t make a difference to black voters you are saying that black people never change their minds when confronted with new information.
[/quote]That’s not turning anything around. That’s the same argument I said you’d eventually get around to making.
I feel like we are clearly talking past each other here, because I can’t tell what you argument you are saying I made.
Here is where I think we are:
I think better media coverage of the Sanders campaign would have improved his results.
You are saying that if you combine that with Clinton’s wins with black voters, it implies that black voters are less media savvy than white ones.
But then, employing that same reasoning I think you could say the following things that I think are wrong:
Sexism played against Clinton and therefore in favour of Sanders, young people supported Sanders more than Clinton, so young people are more sexist than old people (this is a foolish argument); and
Anti-semitism played against Sanders and therefore in favour of Clinton; black people supported Clinton more than Sanders so black people are more anti-semitic than white people (this is also a foolish argument)
Both of those a bullshit arguments using the same form. They jump from X is correlated to Y and Y is correlated to Z to saying that X is correlated to Z.
You can’t take “Mainstream media coverage favoured Clinton” and “Black people didn’t support Sanders as much as they supported Clinton” and jump to “Black people pay more attention to mainstream media coverage than white people”, let alone painting black people as foolish for doing so. I can understand someone being suspicious of this because some people have attempted to do just that, but that’s not a logical leap, it’s just importing racist assumptions from the beginning.
Demographic analysis of voting results seems to invite people to make racist conclusions. Obviously the difference between black and white voters supporting Sanders and Clinton suggest there are cultural differences between black and white communities. But there is no monolithic black or white community to speak of in broad generalities, and ultimately the votes are cast by individuals who believed in the candidate they were voting for, not by demographics who played out some pundit’s stereotypes.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:80, topic:79070”]
I think better media coverage of the Sanders campaign would have improved his results.
[/quote]I think people only make this argument when they’re trying to call the results of the election into question.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:80, topic:79070”]
You are saying that if you combine that with Clinton’s wins with black voters, it implies that black voters are less media savvy than white ones.
[/quote]Many of Bernie’s supporters have been making this argument the entire campaign. From the very start a lot of them argued that Bernie would improve his performance with POC once we got to know him. Then they shifted to dismissing POC as “low info voters”. Then to arguing that Black people in the south were “low info voters”, but that Black people in the north and west were better educated and would surely embrace Bernie. And now a great many of them are arguing that he lost due to unfavorable media coverage, with the implication being that white people somehow “saw through” the media’s lies, and POC didn’t.
[quote=“Humbabella, post:80, topic:79070”]But there is no monolithic black or white community to speak of in broad generalities, and ultimately the votes are cast by individuals who believed in the candidate they were voting for, not by demographics who played out some pundit’s stereotypes.[/quote]Demographic predictions have been pretty much spot on this entire campaign. It’s why basically every knowledgeable observer knew it was over after SC voted.
