I’m not all that keen on Clinton running again this time, to be honest. Oh, I’d vote for her if she did…really anyone but Trump…but I’m hoping the Dems put up someone new (and younger). Bernie, however, would be a disaster IMHO and would simply ensure another 4 years of Trump. He couldn’t win the nomination last time, and he won’t be able to win it again this time…all he’ll do, again, is be a spoiler, splitting the Dems and draining their vote. You are living in a fantasy world if you think Bernie would be good for the Democrats going up against Trump this time. If they do, they will be, once again, snatching defeat from the slavering jaws of victory…and victory is getting pretty fucking tired at this point of having defeat snatched from him by the Dems in key and critical elections.
Democrats who don't support Bernie Sanders as the frontrunner are the people who put Trump in office
I actually found the Sanders supporters to be more in line with Trump supporters: emotional, irrational, etc. The main word I’d use is resentful, in a non-specific way, hostile to anyone who disagrees with them (as you have helpfully demonstrated), and completely dishonest when it comes to witnessing. IOW, both Trump supporters and Sanders supporters behaved like utter tools through the entire election while simultaneously maintaining that they were the victims and not the bullies. Sanders is bad for the country and bad for the Democratic party. We need a candidate like your namesake who actually appeals to the better angels of our nature instead of just pounding the two-note drum of resentment and want. A little more “what you can do for your country,” and a lot less “what your country can do for you.”
I think the only way the country moves forward at this point is a strong third party or independent candidate who can rise above the knee-jerk hatred a third of the country has for candidates of either party.
Everybody is sick of Hillary. I voted for her, but we gotta face facts here.
I don’t know if Bernie could have beaten Trump, but yours is not a good argument that he would certainly have lost, or even that he would have done worse than Hillary. Surely you know that the electorate in one of the party’s primaries is much, much smaller than the electorate in the general. And it skews differently, politically.
Sorry, but no QED about it.
No, it’s not QED, but I’d say he would have done worse than Clinton in the general election. Oh, he probably would have gotten some of those blue collar workers who went over to Trump, but I think he’d have lost more independents and unaligned. I know, for my own part, I wouldn’t have voted for him…I’d have voted 3rd party. I doubt I’d have been the only person who voted for Clinton but wouldn’t vote for Bernie at the time…I think he was having some issues connecting with several minority groups, though I might be mis-remembering. Certainly I think middle of the road moderates would have had a harder time going for Bernie than Clinton.
Of course, had he actually won the primary then the conditions would have been so different that it’s hard to judge, especially if Clinton concedes and, for the good of the party throws her undiluted and full support behind Bernie early enough and gotten enough of her followers to do the say then it might have been a different story.
I think there’s a difference between Bernie Sanders’ movement now versus 2016, which is when his movement started to grow some legs. I definitely think the party now, in 2018, is tilting in the direction of Sanders, and away from the Clintons. Sanders has given the Democrats a platform that appeals to people, beyond just being a speed bump against conservatives. But that was not the case in 2016, when he wasn’t a household name.
If Hillary runs again for the Democratic nomination in 2020, I’ll be happy to vote against her. But she isn’t going to. She’s almost certainly not going to run. She hates campaigning, and she’s yesterday’s news. She’s done.
Same with Bernie. Oh he pulled the Democrats to the left, and you liked that? Then thank him, shake his hand, and usher him to the back of the room where he can support a new crop of candidates.
Nobody is the anointed front runner. The notion that we have to pick our candidate 2 years early and skip the primary is fucking ludicrous. They tried that with Hillary in 2015, and look how that worked out.
Pretty much all this.
The factor that seems to get ignored is that Sanders didn’t have to face the full wrath of the GOP smear machine. I just had to put up with right-wingers accusing blandly middle class Dems like Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillam of being socialist; put Sanders out front, who has actually used the S-word, and that’s the news 24/7 between the DNC and election day. And since the vast majority of Americans still have a weird kneejerk aversion to even the word, Sanders would get steamrolled.
You remind me a lot of the way Ron Paul supporters used to be - a fired-up, devoted, noisy base who were convinced that if only the party establishment would nominate their guy he’d sweep the nation and bring the country to victory and prosperity! Except, of course, that they were also quite a small base percentagewise. Sanders has an admittedly larger base than Paul did, but it has as much chance of translating into a national win as Ron Paul’s did.
Well, we’re getting the “bankrupt the country” part, and what Trump is promoting isn’t so much “federalism” as “proto-fascism”.
Agreed. And not only is she not running, she ought at this point to sit back with a big bowl of popcorn and watch from the sidelines.
Okay, here’s the ugly truth that Sanders supporters don’t want to listen to. Sanders would have lost the general election badly because he wouldn’t have been able to motivate black people to vote for him. And no Democrat is going to get elected President without black support.
Tru dat.
Also, Sanders would have faced a similar right-wing propaganda blitz to the one Hillary encountered in 2016, only preying on Sanders’ particular weaknesses, of course. Polls showing how well Sanders would have done against Trump don’t show how he would have fared against that onslaught. They mean even less thanthis poll from the end of July, 1988, showing that Dukakis was absolutely crushing Bush the Elder, 55-38.
By the time the GOP finished wrapping every communist from Karl Marx to Hugo Chavez around Bernie’s neck, he’d have been lucky to win any states besides Vermont, Massachusetts, and DC.
Who the hell believes that if Bernie had gotten the Democratic nod, Trump and the Republican party would have ceased all the nastiness and rolled over? Such a race would have been twice as disastrous.
If you don’t think so, please tell us what you think the Republicans would have done if Bernie had been the Democratic contender…because I haven’t had a good laugh yet today.
I was a big fan of Bernie in 2016, and I think Hillary was an awful candidate who ran an awful campaign. I think he likely would have won the 2016 election against Trump, as he’d campaign sensibly and would also appeal to the ‘we want an outsider’ vote. But even though I was firmly behind him in 2016, I can’t see why anyone would want him as a candidate in 2020. He’s old enough that his age is a huge issue, he’s solidly lost a presidential bid, there’s significant resentment against him from many Democrats because of an (unreasonable, IMO) perception that he hurt Hillary’s campaign and the party, and there’s no novelty behind him now. I don’t think that 2020 will have as many people looking for an outsider to shake things up instead I expect a theme of ‘lets get back to normal’, which isn’t his selling point. I see him as one of the few people who could realistically get nominated who would also have absolutely no chance of unseating Trump, if he did manage to run I would expect a resounding defeat.
One of Bernie’s problems was that you don’t get extra votes for being enthusiastic.
If Sanders is the best candidate the Democrats can put up, we’d best get used to Republican rule.
Which is highly necessary — you can’t beat something with nothing, nor with “the same, but said in a socially polite way”. I should hope they finally learn that.
But he can be the elder statesman and inspiring force, it doesn’t have to be Bernie or Bust.
If you win the nomination the corporate shills and brainwashed elites line up behind that candidate.
Evidence: Donald Trump
I think much of her problem was illustrated in the recent interview she gave, where she said she didn’t want to run for President - but she wanted to be President. Same sense of entitlement as she has had ever since she decided to stick to Bill after his whoring around - that she deserves it, that the peasants don’t need to be persuaded, just instructed. And then will give her what is hers by right. She doesn’t want to be elected, she wants to be anointed. Or at least to have some moistened bint lob a scimitar at her.
Well, an outsider who has been in the Washington establishment for thirty years. And, as has been mentioned, black anti-Semitism would have worked against him, being a explicit socialist would have worked against him, being (if possible) even less charismatic than Hillary would have worked against him. And, as also mentioned, the Republicans would have campaigned against him, both as they did against Hillary (gosh - poor-mouthing the other side! How shocking!) and with the added advantage that his proposed policies are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Can you imagine the debate against Trump? “I created thousand of jobs from building casinos and real estate - you think we have child poverty because there are too many different kinds of deodorant”.
He would be lucky to get more than Vermont and DC.
Something I never understood - Bernie runs for the Democratic nod. The Democratic party has a larger share of progressives and socialists than the US in general. He loses. How is this an indication that he is going to get a lot of the US electorate in general, with its lower share of progressives and socialists?
I get the feeling that the Dems are going to run on a theme of “anybody but Trump”. Hillary wasn’t “anybody” - Bernie isn’t either.
Socialists are people who look blank when they are asked how to pay for all their ideas. Because, apparently, they find the question puzzling. Apparently no one has ever asked them that before. Trust me, when one of them runs for the White House, they are going to get asked that a lot.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not sure that the transitive property of electoral politics is real.
Do you like the job that you have? Was what you looked forward to the interview process or working at the job?
If you say that you looked forward more to working at the job than going through the interview process, does that mean that you have a sense of entitlement, that you deserve it, that HR managers don’t need to be persuaded, just instructed? You don’t want to be interviewed, just hired?
Actually, though the tone is a bit rude, I agree with this.
It’s pretty much the same look that republicans get when they are asked how they are going to pay for tax cuts.
Hillary didn’t say she was looking forward more to working as President than running for President - she said she didn’t want to run for President. So, to use your analogy, she didn’t want to be interviewed, just hired.
Regards,
Shodan