Can someone explain in 8 human English sentences or less why Bernie '16 isn’t McGovern '72 as regards the general election?
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It is totes cheating; it feels good, bro.
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Because Trump isn’t Nixon?
Because there wouldn’t be a “Democrats for Trump” organization this time?
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I believe there were 17 republican candidates about this time last year.
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Needs more semicolon!
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Jesus. And yet somehow it’s “crazy” that Hillary’s sole opponent is still in the race when Trump …er … TRUMPED 16 other potential candidates.
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Alternate theory: The dismissal and belittling of Sander’s campaign didn’t really start until his campaign should have been over. At that point, the conversation should have been “Good job everyone, look at all these issues we’re focused on now. Let’s all get organized to push them in the general election.” That was why he ran as a Democrat in the first place, so the left can present a united front.
He could have seen the writing on the wall as far back as Super Tuesday. Now he’s doing everything he can to turn his supporters against the people he agreed at the start to fall in line with if he didn’t win. By refusing to cooperate because the front isn’t united behind him, Sanders betrayed the Democrats first.
I don’t believe all Sanders supporters are naive privileged millennials, but I do believe that about the Bernie or Bust crowd who think the “Democratic establishment” has to be destroyed.
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You know, multiclassing always sounds great, but then you have to spread your XP pretty thin and you’re never quite up there in your skills range at the higher levels.
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Except the media and the Clinton campaign did not take Sanders seriously right out of the gate. From the beginning the media narrative was either to ignore Sanders or to point him out as an oddity, not to actually give him the air time that other candidates who were/are rather extreme got.
This again, seems to be some subset that the media has decided is the mainstream of his supporters.
And besides that, the Democratic party has time and again failed to even marginally adress the left wing of their party. They’ve trended to the right since the end of the cold war and continue to do so, making the center of American political life (which was already kind of conservative) even further to the right. They are making FDR democrats (which, frankly, Sanders represents) seems like the far left…
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I never wanted him to “fall in line.” A lot of Sanders supporters would respect him far less than they currently do if he simply turned around, saw the overwhelming disdain for Hillary and told us, “Hey, you like me? Now like Hillary.” That would have translated into disdain for Bernie and Hillary. This way, he can actually transfer his supporters to Hillary with something resembling credibility. But I suppose it depends on how you view politics. Are politicians beholden to their supporters, or the other way around? Because his supporters don’t want him to quit.
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Even Sanders telling me to support Clinton isn’t going to get me to do it. And continued attacks on him in the press from Clinton surrogates isn’t going to do it either.
This idea that he should roll over is insulting, particularly coming from Clinton supporters. Remind me again when she withdrew in 2008? Oh, yeah. June, while McCain clinched it in early March.
He hasn’t lost yet, and he should keep pushing his agenda and maximizing his influence for as long as he can. Against a candidate as bad as Trump, this is the best opportunity for the Democrats to be shifted left for a generation.
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The problem is nobody dislikes Bernie Sanders as a person. Clinton is despicable and Trump is nothing more than a successful scumbag racist. And I agree - this is an election. He can stay in as long as possible. The last thing I want is a Trump presidency. I mean, Jesus H … but in that god awful situation the one benefit of that would be that he beat Clinton. I know people – good, hardworking, well-liked and long standing employees – who were FIRED for emailing ONE GODDAMN document to their gmail from their work email so they could easily work on a spreadsheet from home. Compare that to what she did - and she wants to the the President? Please! She is the one who should be stepping aside. Let someone PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE – someone NOT under an FBI investigation run.
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Define “sentence”
What policies, specifically, are the left wing trying to bring attention to that the Democrats refuse to address? I mean address, not agree with. I’m getting real tired of being told that nuanced economics and incremental change aren’t compatible with being a true progressive.
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Well, a couple that spring to mind immediately are…
- Universal, single payer healthcare (which works FINE)
- A dignified and fully functional safety net for all humans
- No war. None. Unless we’re actually invaded.
- Capitalism doesn’t run rampant over everything, it’s not a sacred cow
- No corporate welfare for things that damage our environment.
- Proper implementation of ‘Rockefeller taxes’. There is no benefit to concentration of wealth.
- Universal balancing of resources so that we don’t have ‘poor’ communities while others are beyond wealthy.
I could go on for a while, but the list of things that the Democratic party has no interest in but should be core parts of any progressive agenda is pretty extensive, actually.
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Well, there is the disconnect between, say Clinton’s lip service to reigning in Wall Street and her actual connections to Wall Street, for starters. Or maybe there was the massive bailouts which many (not just progressives, either) opposed, but went through anyway, because the banks were “too big to fail”, not to mention the recovery in name only when more could have been done to help the people most impacted by the 2008 bust. Or perhaps the dismantling of the welfare system under President Clinton for a work to job type system which has not been helpful? Or maybe the Obama’s administration lack of backbone in supporting even a single payer option when it came time to reform healthcare and instead just making it a huge give away to insurance companies? NAFTA and TPP? Drone bombings? Invasion of Libya? Continued support of an apartheid state and of a whole host of dictatorships? The talk on banning nuclear weapons while not doing anything to actually get rid of them?
Naturally, not all of this is up to Hillary, but I think she’s proven to be rather middle of the new road on much of these issues and I’m not comfortable with that. If you are, then so be it. I don’t have to agree with you, however or nor should I keep my mouth shut just to make the democratic party comfortable.
[ETA] I didn’t call you either progressive or not. That designation is up to you, not me.
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\8. Trust-busting/anti-monopoly/too-big-to-fail-is-bullshit.
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“Nuanced economics” begs the question more than a little bit.
In any case, I’ll settle for the Democratic part living in fear of their progressive wing in the same way that the Republican party lives in fear of its angry nutjob wing.
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How did I know single payer would be at the top? We tried to get it. We all really wanted single payer. Republican obstructionism killed it, and until we get a way around that roadblock it’s simply not going to happen.
You can go on Clinton’s web site and easily find a plan for each of these. Yes, some are not accepted by the Democratic platform (“No war” isn’t viable. [EDIT: Full stop. New topic:] pulling the rug out from under eg the fossil fuel industry will ruin communities & the lives of workers who depend on it…) If your response is that you don’t trust her to do what she’s saying that’s a different argument, but you can’t say these things haven’t been addressed.
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Well, I spent most of the last 15 years doing data analytic work in healthcare for medicaid programs…so it’s something I’m very well versed in and I have a number of far wiser people than me to fall back on.
In actuality, Obama’s scrapping of the public option was one of the worst things that could’ve happened to us as a nation from a healthcare standpoint. That’s really all we need.
Well, it’s part of the same argument…but I also don’t trust Clinton to surround herself with people who don’t have the same biases (because…the past). I also don’t think she’s sincere and I’m a bit worried that if we get 12-16 years of milquetoast democratic candidates we’ll not only not get anything useful done but also end up trapped for another 20 years afterwards because of missed opportunities.
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