I’m just thinking back to 2008. If someone said that the Party owed Hillary Clinton for increasing turnout (turnout in 2008 was well higher than turnout this year), it would have been considered laughable. Saying Clinton owed the Party her support was pretty uncontroversial. (Yes, I do realize there was a PUMA movement… very few people defended them)
I’m not sure I get how increasing turnout in the primaries is particularly important.
Because that accustomizes them to a lifetime of voting and feeling betrayed at the result.
Because anyone who registers just for the primaries is still registered in November.
So much for getting money out of politics.
Turnout has been fine but it is no 2008. The huge increases in turnout have been on the GOP side.
On what basis do you assume that those who specifically register to vote for a particular candidate in a primary, however many those are (I am sure it is some non-zero number), will come out to vote for the other candidate of the party in November? Registered voters ≠ Likely voters. They can become likely voters but that takes follow up, which is what we are talking about here.
That said I do not disagree with the statement that Sanders does not owe the party anything. He does however know that Clinton with a Democratic Senate and perchance to dream a Democratic House will move the country more towards the direction he wants it to go than a GOP president would with a GOP Congress or a Clinton would with a GOP congress.
Does he owe his stated agenda anything?
And I predict he will not be doing a damned thing to help them.
I find his lack of interest in building a true movement to be completely astonishing, but there you have it.
I’ve brought up Zephyr Teachout before…huge Sanders supporter, very very progressive, running in a difficult US house race in a district in NYS just up the road from me. I’m sure she’d love a couple hundred thousand bucks from the Sanders campaign. Hey, I’m sure she’d appreciate an endorsement or even a word or two of support. I just got an email yesterday on Teachout’s behalf from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who used to hold that seat and doesn’t even agree with Teachout on all the issues. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for Sanders to do the same; it would take about five minutes. It could make all the difference to a campaign like Teachout’s.
But he isn’t doing it. Why would we expect anything different in the future? It doesn’t reflect well on someone who keeps talking about revolution, given that revolution in this case seems to consist entirely of electing him.
I have been googling, and I am having trouble finding how Sanders is supporting other candidates. I’ve tried looking for Bernie’s Army and Bernie’s Army candidates and other similar search phrases, but most of the links come up are about Bernie’s Army of supporters or volunteers working on his campaign. There are some articles about some Sanders Democrats, like here’s one, and they are candidates that have views in line with Sanders and all sound like people I hope get elected, but they’ve all endorsed Sanders, it doesn’t say that Sanders has endorsed them. Each of them endorsing Sanders probably got them some news and their names out there a bit. The Act Blue site is cool and looks like it works well, but it’s a tool that any Democratic campaign can use, so it doesn’t look like it has candidates listed there.
I’m genuinely trying to find enough, because I’d be absolutely thrilled if all the enthusiasm for Sanders leads to other progressive candidates being elected. I’d be so excited. But I’m having trouble finding evidence of that. I guess if the Sanders supporters go vote in November and vote Democratic straight ticket then that will help, and I’m guessing at least a good number will do that, rather than just vote for President and no one else.
As far as I can tell, he **hasn’t **increased turnout this year. Voter turnout up for Republicans, but down for Democrats. Turnout might still be high for the general election, there’s not an exact relationship between the two, but you can’t say that the Democratic Party owes him for higher turnout.
And I’d say that Sanders owes the Democratic Party something, since he ran as a Democratic candidate for attention and money that he wouldn’t get as an independent:
I do not think Sanders is a narcissistic asshole like the OP said, I do like him in a lot of ways, I just don’t understand some of what his campaign is or is not doing. I like a lot of what he is saying that he would do, but he needs other Democratic candidates elected with him, and I don’t see how he’s working on that happening. I hope that he is.
For a little bit of background to what I said above, regarding what I see as Sanders’s unwillingness to support other “progressive” candidates:
I was never especially drawn to Bernie Sanders for a bunch of reasons, but I do see myself very much as a progressive. My positions on the issues line up pretty well with those of Sanders and the great bulk of his supporters: in favor of gay rights, in favor of reproductive freedom, in favor of environmental causes, in favor of a more progressive tax system, against Citizens United, against… There are a couple of issues where I disagree with the senator, but not many; and on at least one of them (guns) I’m to his left.
(And by the way I put my time and money where my mouth is; when I have the funds I donate to campaigns and to political causes, and I have worked in several states over the years for presidential candidates from Mondale to Obama as well as a whole bunch of congressional candidates and people running for state and local offices.)
One of the things that Sanders has done very adroitly is to decide who is and who is not “progressive.” What this boils down to, unfortunately, is that everyone who supports him is progressive, and those who do not are “establishment.” That includes organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood. It also includes me, because I support these organizations (when I can) and apparently also because I don’t buy into Sanders’s thinking that financial issues (Wall Street, breaking up the banks, Citizens United) are far and away the most important of all.
I think that defining progressivism to include only people who think like you do (and dismissing everybody else) has worked for Sanders thus far, in that it has helped give him a pretty enthusiastic base and underscored his outsider man-of-the-people message. I think that on the whole, though, it is a lousy, lousy message, and not because it makes me wake up in the morning saying “OMG I’m not progressive enough Bernie Sanders SAID SO” (I don’t have any doubts about my progressive bona fides, thanks), but because it divides and splinters and drives a wedge and pushes people out, and I think that is a terrible direction for a political movement to take. “He drew a circle that shut me out,” as the old poem put it. I had hoped that Sanders would build a broader movement, one that would be inclusive rather than exclusive, one that would support other like-minded (and not necessarily completely like-minded) candidates; and he has chosen to go the other way, and for a long-time progressive like me, it’s a problem.
Think about it. If he can get enough people elected to Congress who support his plan (and he’s confident enough can’t be “turned” by President Clinton), then he can get it through Congress and make Clinton decide whether to sign it or veto it, knowing full well that a veto makes Clinton look bad.
Will the people who come out of the woodwork to vote for him (and I am still convinced that a significant number, if not most, of them are in it pretty much only for free public school tuition and free universal health care, and are possibly under the impression that it also includes a significant interest decrease, if not an outright forgiveness, of existing student loan debt) even bother voting in November if he’s not on the ballot, unless they think that by voting for Sanders-friendly Representatives and Senators will get the “Sanders Plan” into law?
The only way I see Sanders coming out “in force” for Clinton is if he thinks there’s any chance that the Republican candidate will win if he doesn’t.
Good enough for me, but I don’t have to be convinced. Still, what would be wrong about such a position? Honest enough, not to pretend that one is suddenly overwhelmed by the wondrous nature of policies one previously found fault in. Simply to say the truth, Hillary is not correct enough, but the Republican candidate is far worse.
I’ve voted since '68, every time. I didn’t vote for Clinton because he played the saxophone, I voted for him because he wasn’t Bush. Mondale wasn’t nearly progressive enough for my tastes, but he wasn’t Reagan. And so it goes.
Voting is a duty, an obligation to make the choice, even when it sucks. I was not asked to take a bullet for my country, a ballot seems a small enough sacrifice. Democracy is not the smartest form of government, nor the most efficient, it is simply the most just form of government. We are not asked to believe that our fellow citizens are wise and learned. We are tasked to believe that they have the same right of decision.
And I do. Though, Lord knows, it ain’t easy…
Honestly 'luci that seems like a pretty trivial reason to have withheld your vote from him, although mama always did warn me 'bout sax players. 
Who are the “Sanders-friendly representatives and senators”?
40 of the 44 Democrats in the Senate have endorsed Clinton, last time I looked, including several of the most progressive senators. The other 4 have endorsed…nobody. These are folks who have served with Sanders. Not a single one wants to be tied to him. Which doesn’t mean they won’t support his proposals, but should make the most ardent Sanders advocates think twice about his ability to get things done.
7 sitting House members have endorsed Sanders. (Only two of them actually served with him.) More than 150 have endorsed Clinton.
I know there are a few challengers who have given Sanders their endorsement. That might get us up to, what, 20? 25? 30? That assumes that they all win. It’s hard to get much legislation passed with that kind of “majority.”
Sanders, in turn, seems to have endorsed no one.
If Sanders wants to gather a posse of Sanders-friendly congresscritters, who will pass his agenda and send bills to Clinton that will force her into a difficult decision, well, he’s going about it wrong.
[BTW, I think that there is very little in Sanders’s “plan” that is anathema to Clinton. If the Dems win both houses of Congress and shift leftward, enough to allow Sanders-backed legislation to reach Clinton’s desk, I think she’ll happily sign nearly all of it. The will of the people and all, plus which she’s supported a lot of these proposals already–her point has often been that the political climate won’t currently support some of these ideas. If the House and Senate get together to pass single-payer, for instance, there’s no way she vetoes it.]
My Mama just warned me about loose women and low companions, but could not tell me where they might be found. So that I might avoid them. She was long on advice, but short on information.
Being noncommittal about raising money for downballot candidates is like being noncommittal about supporting the party’s nominee. Sanders should be raising money for Democratic candidates whether he wins the nomination or not. Assuming he is actually a Democrat. Has he even changed his party registration yet? If he loses(which is likely), will he be an actual Democrat or continue to be an independent?
I wouldn’t be calling a senior with his ethics a “narcissistic asshole” if I were you. He hasn’t made a career of climbing the social ladder. I have a feeling HRC would try again in 2024 if she doesn’t get her way this time.