I don’t see where that link supports what you said. But hey, thanks anyway.
I think the lies were mostly spread by Trumpites and not Bernie supporters.
Could you please stop the stupid Bernie-Bro bit, it is goofy and divisive. Whoever wins this nomination needs everyone that is not Pro-Trump to get out and vote for the Democratic candidate. Constant insults of 20% of the anti-Trump is not helpful in the end, is it?
Still haven’t supported your statement that Bernie was unwilling to be VP.
There was 0% chance that Clinton would have asked him. The last thing she needed was to be tied to a socialist. That term was poison in 2016. The issue is moot.
A lot of people blame WikiLeaks and Bernie supporters for Hillary’s loss.
Maybe if Hillary didn’t accept the question from Donna Brazil in the first place…
She got caught and it’s everyone else’s fault.
Most people think the establishment stinks. Medicare for all polls well, so do other positions he has.
I like Warren too. We’re lucky we have her.
You misspelled rational.
No, you are wrong. The number of Sanders supporters who didn’t support Clinton in the general election was typical of the historical norm for supporters of the losing primary candidate.
Since the election was so close, I have a hard time believing that Clinton wouldn’t have won if she had gotten 100% support from Bernie’s primary voters. But it’s not the case that Clinton faced some unusual challenge in this regard that other candidates haven’t had to deal with; a great many of Clinton’s own supporters, for instance, vocally supported Romney over Obama in 2008.
And current polls show that Sanders, at least, has as good a chance as Biden of beating Trump. So it would make just as much sense (ie not much) to ask “Are Biden and Buttigieg effectively helping Trump?” Sure, those of us who support a particular candidate would love it if everyone else dropped out, but contested primaries are part of how our system works.
According to pundits, very possibly yes!
According to political scientists, not so much.
We have a time-for-a-change dynamic where, after eight years of a president of one party, the other party has an advantage. By winning the popular vote, Hillary already beat the odds in 2016.
We also have a dynamic where, unless the economy really tanks, the incumbent is likely to win a second term. One reason for that is the primary system. The eventual Democratic nominee is now spending a lot of money to win nomination that, from my anti-Trump perspective, would be better spent in September and October.
Competitive primaries damage the nominee. The problem then is – who should drop out? One at a time, I can make a case that each of them should. But if they all did, somehow allowing party insiders to use their expertise to pick someone highly electable, that would look almost as bad as the circular firing squad does.
For never-Trumpers, is isn’t an encouraging situation. The one hopeful sign is that Donald J. Trump is, for the Republicans, a weak nominee. That’s why Hillary was able to come so close to beating him in a structurally GOP year.
Perceptions matter more than reality, though. IIRC, in 2016, average voters were of the belief that they had a choice between an unusually moderate Republican and an unusually extreme Democrat. (This view of Trump has since evaporated, I believe.)
How so many voters (albeit a minority) became convinced that the stood-by-her-man wife of Bill Clinton was a left-wing extremist astounded me.
Donald Trump, while a weak GOP nominee overall, is a very effective negative campaigner. One word from Trump, albeit it an ethnic slur uttered many times, has, I fear, greatly damaged Elizabeth Warren’s November 2020 prospects. Does he hurt himself almost as much as Warren every time he slurs her? Almost.
This is what the best evidence I’ve seen says. But also see what I wrote above about Hillary. Even though I like Klobuchar, we know how she’s opened herself to comparable sexist attacks.
Since I have no more ability here to influence when giving plausible advice as when giving better-but-impossible advice, here’s the impossible advice. The Democratic front-runners need to to, for the good of a country threatened by a wannabe dictator, fall on their swords and draft the hardest-to-pigeonhole Democratic governor they can find. I nominate Gina Raimondo. There’s something about her voice that, to me, would make painting her as a shrill harridan very, very difficult – even for as expert a misogynist as Donald Trump.
Of the front runners/ folks who actually have a chance to get the nomination, Biden is my last choice. I really don’t want him to get it. That said, if he is the nominee then he gets my vote. Not only that, I will encourage my family members and friends to vote for him too. I would vote for a steaming pile of fresh dog turds if it was running against Trump. I think most Democrats feel the same way.
Spent Thanksgiving with a 20 something PhD candidate and socialist. He’s a Bernie Bro. His view that if it isn’t Bernie or Warren, then he’s not going to vote. View is that it would be better to suffer 4 more years of Trump to really fuck things up vs any of the other Dems and risk a Republican resurgence in 2024.
I would find young university radicals soooo cute, except that enough of them will help re-elect Trump. Hope I gave him some food for thought.
Probably smart. Smart people don’t make as many mistakes, but when they do, its a beaut!
The Kremlin’s work is done here. (My emphasis.)
This viewpoint relies on the assumption that Trump will spend a second term basically attacking people whose demographic traits are not shared by the voter in question. Trump will be vicious toward people at the southern border; Trump will be vicious toward transgender people; Trump will be vicious toward black women; etc. ‘A shame but it doesn’t touch me, so…’
The reality is that Trump may not only decide to be vicious toward a group your friend does belong to, but that Trump will make progress in becoming absolute dictator, quashing dissent, wrecking the economy, getting us into wars calculated to make him richer, etc. etc. etc. And he will have succeeded in appointing more Federal judges and Supreme Court judges, meaning that with each passing day there is less chance of stopping him.
I know that you know all this, and that you probably said some version of the above to your friend. But it bears repeating: being all Pure in one’s voting habits empowers assholes. Don’t be Pure. Don’t enable assholes. VOTE.
I’d never heard of her, but I clicked on the video.
One question. “We [Rhode Island] have gone from the 36th worst economy to the 9th best in the nation.” In my dialect, “36th worst” (in a set of size 50) is a synonym for “15th best.” What does it mean in Standard English?
If you haven’t already, tell your friend that if Trump is re-elected with a GOP senate, they will potentially change the government in ways that might make democracy effectively nonexistent. In other words, voters may not necessarily have the choice to replace the GOP beyond 2020. Minority rulers are acutely aware that they wield disproportionate power and operate in a manner that is increasingly at odds with the public interest, thereby sowing increasing levels of discontent. From their vantage point, therefore, the answer isn’t more democracy, but much, much less of it, using whatever means are at their disposal.
Very true.
But Trump’s team isn’t just vicious; they’re vicious because they know that it will incite outrage, which is what they want. They want outrage and polarization. They want different elements of the opposition to question each other’s commitment to common interests. Just look at the Pete Buttigieg dilemma: very popular among educated white progressives, but highly unpopular among more mainstream Blacks and Latinos.
I predict that if Trump is reelected and succeeds in getting more justices on the bench, he will begin going over major news outlets – by suing them. Repeatedly. And the courts just may start letting it happen.
Here’s the thing. He might be exactly right. Even if Biden gets the nod and then beats Trump. Then by 2024 the banana Republicans take back the White House, I still see that as a better outcome than 4 more years of Trump.
The amount of damage Trump has done to the US at home and abroad in just 3 years is staggering. 5 more years and asahi’s predictions of the US ceasing to exist as a democracy has a real good chance of coming true.
I disagree. I think Hillary’s insistence that she was the heir apparent to the Presidency hurt the Democratic Party. I think the primary season is important for many reasons. It encourages debate on the nuances of the issues and brings them to the forefront. I hate this idea that we weaken our candidates by making them fight among themselves. I think it’s strenghening.
And based on my personal experience, with my 24 year old godson/nephew (who was living in my home during the last election season) and his friends, I’m not convinced that Bernie hurt Hillary.
Prior to Bernie’s candidacy, that kid was totally apolitical. I couldn’t get him to register to vote. Or think about issues that impacted his life and future. Or get engaged with the world beyond himself, his friends and their music projects. And I tried. Then Bernie came along and managed to teach him that this stuff was important to him and his future. He went to rallies, campaigned with his friends, and voted.
Then Bernie lost the primary. To my surprise, even though my kid was disappointed, he got realistic real fast. Because he had learned that the issues were important. He literally spent about 15 minutes grieving Bernie’s defeat then began to think about how he could support Clinton. And he did. While he didn’t officially campaign for her, he wrote countless Facebook and blog posts about why it was important to show unity and support her, and worked to spread that idea among his friends. Because he knew that she was not the enemy and there was a much bigger enemy to defeat. And he proudly voted for her.
And if Bernie hadn’t had run, and Hillary had been unopposed in the primaries, he wouldn’t have voted in 2016. He would still be apolitical and feeling the system had nothing to offer him.
And I think it was a big mistake for Hillary not to welcome some healthy vigorous competition in 2016 Maybe she would’ve been the nominee, maybe not. But one of the problems I have with Biden and Warren is that they were intimidated into not opposing Hillary in 2016. And now I think they are both past their sell by date.
And I think the Clinton monopoly and the presumption that she was entitled to “her turn” as President hurts the Democratic Party to this day. Because I see a tranche of candidates that are past their prime and a tranche that isn’t quite ready yet. But I think the Clinton domination of the Democratic Party kept a lot of potentially good candidates from pursuing their Presidential aspirations, and despite the flurry of contenders now that she’s a non-issue, I think we are feeling that vacuum still.
Whatever Joe Biden’s faults, he is a very sentimental man, and one of the most human politicians active in the U.S. today. His oldest son Beau served as a Major in Iraq, earning a Bronze Star. He was himself a rising star in the political world, serving as Attorney-General of Delaware, probably en route to the Governorship; he was very dear to Joe. In the Spring of 2015, when Clinton and Sanders were lining up donors, Beau endured a slow death from brain cancer. Joe and his family sat vigil at Beau’s death-bed, grieving. Joe Biden was too heart-broken to speak at the June funeral, but Joe’s boss gave a eulogy. This at a time when candidates for the Presidency were attending fund-raisers and lining up interviews.
Cite? By October, Biden stated that he and his family were finally ready for the campaign but it was too late. What is the evidence his delay was not due to his family’s grief?
Biden would have got a huge sympathy boost if he jumped in 2015 as well as having the power of the vice presidency to utilise. Most important of all he was very damn popular. He still is among democrats hence his lead but in 2015-16 when he was still in office he was higher. Politically it was an open goal for him to run so the fact he didn’t can only be down to the fact he didn’t put his ambition above his family.
Hillary spent decades on party work, built a substantial organization, handily won more elected delegates than the competition, and decisively won the popular vote. GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression, and the slavery-era relic electoral system. are what hurt her and the Dems. I.e. the problem is structural, not ideological,
Tramp was right, the election was rigged. Beforehand, he promised to challenge the results. Sad.