Think twice. Bear in mind that that necessarily includes “Power to the Trumpers.”
It would explain why he’s got the Clinton fans in such a panic …
This debate is utterly useless. Hillary isn’t going to ‘cave.’ Bernie can do what he wants from there.
If I’m a super, especially one who has publicly, tacitly endorsed Hillary, am I really going to sacrifice my prestige and possible promotion within the party or executive appointment by going back on it? Yeah, good luck with that. Bernie is not going to win a majority of the supers, let alone come even close to what Hillary gets. Deal with it and move on.
No I think my defenses could be described as cynical. Frankly I found it a little silly, and yes cynical, that Slacker is demanding some noble honesty from Sanders that he himself really doesn’t believe in.
How do you figure? Howard Dean invented it in 2004, Obama raised it to a higher level in 2008, and Bernie just used Obama’s email list to give the former Obama donors a new horse to back.
I guess I should have used a quote in that post, because you must not even understand what I was responding to, which was this:
Still think Sanders wasn’t being defended in cynical terms? :dubious:
ETA: Ah, now I see that CarnalK set you straight. Maybe read the thread a little more carefully next time.
Sanders has been a politician basically his entire adult life-over 50 years. Since he’s a Senator right now instead of running for city council on the green party ticket with an alt newspaper gig on the side, there’s no doubt he’s developed a few cynical attitudes of his own.
Indeed. But I’m not sure that many of his fans would necessarily enjoy this narrative. I am positive my idealistic 16-year-old Bernhead son would not, for one.
Yeah, kids these days, huh? Wear their hair all funny. And that so-called “music”! Just a bunch of noise, you ask me…
Damn kids…get off my lawn!
I think the biggest thing people always overlook in today’s politics is how information is growing by leaps and bounds every election cycle. Are people generally doing new things, or are we just hearing about them where before we didn’t? Presidential elections generally, and elections in the modern era especially, are a tiny sample size. But politics isn’t.
There will be a behind closed doors negotiation and Clinton will certainly agree to some of Bernies conditions to get an endorsement. If even 30 percent of Bernie’s supporters (who are actually normally voters) choose to stay home its pretty unlikely that Clinton can win the general.
Fair enough, but the participation-limiting and participation-skewed caucus system he has depended upon is to a large degree antidemocratic too. The superdelegates are mainly cemocratically elected officials, btw, representing the will of their constituencies.
So he’s not going to vote for Clinton, I take it?
Yes, that’s another way to describe the preening self-righteousness of the non-participant. We see that a lot on this board, too.
It’s fair, yes. It’s also petty, ego-driven and ultimately destructive. But perfectly fair, in bold letters, yes, no question.
This is the first time anyone has actually addressed what I said. Calling it “your post is your cite” is bullshit; I was pointing out that nobody has actually done anything to rebut what I wrote. Now you have. Thank you.
That said, where are you getting “These are some of the demands I would make” from? Here’s the HuffPo article the OP references. It contains a video of the supposedly extortionate answer from Sanders. Those words appear nowhere in that video, unless I’m really spacing out. Can you cite where he said “These are some of the demands I would make”? If he actually said those words in the context that’s implied, yeah, I don’t think that’s great. But I’m not sure I’m willing to take it on faith–and I’m damn sure not going to listen to an hourlong podcast just to hear those words spoken.
IOW: cite?
If this were only true. Most young people, it seems (not my son) listen to banal dance pop that is not remotely new or interesting. And Bernie is really just a Gene McCarthy and Howard Dean mashup.
The revolution will not be tweeted.
He was asked: “If you were to lose, and the Democratic Party comes to you and says ‘Now, take this movement, that is full of energy and is against the establishment, and make sure they vote for the establishment candidate’. What do you say?”
His answer:
Sanders: "Well, you know, what I say - number one, I’m not big into being a leader, you know, I much prefer to see a lot of leaders and a lot of grassroots activism; number two is, what we do is together, as a nation, as a growing movement, is we say, alright: if we don’t win - and by the way, we are in this thing to win, please understand that - what is the Democratic establishment gonna do for us?
For example, right now, you have a Democratic establishment which has written off half the states in this country, you know that. And they’ve given up on the states in the South, in the Rocky Mountain area - are they gonna create a 50-state party? Are they gonna welcome into the Democratic Party the working class of this country and young people, or is it gonna be a party of the upper middle class and the cocktail crowd and the heavy campaign contributors, which is significantly the way it is now? I’ve talked to Democratic Party leaders and said ‘Y’know what, instead of going around and raising all kinds of money from wealthy people, why don’t you meet in some football stadium, and bring out 50 or 100 thousand people, bring the damn Senate in there - Senate Democrats - and start talking to people, ask them what they want you to do. How about that? That a radical…?’
In other words, if I can’t make it - and we’re going to try as hard as we can, until the last vote is cast - we wanna completely revitalize the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people, instead of just one of large campaign contributors."
Interviewer: "Now normally, politicians would ask for something for them - a cabinet post, etc. What would - I’m gonna assume that, whether you are gonna ask for that - I don’t know, and you wouldn’t say here - let’s assume for the moment being that you’re not gonna ask for that. If you’re gonna ask for a policy positions as you just indicated, what are the policy positions that you would want?
Sanders: “Ok. I want Secretary Clinton, if she is the nominee, to come out for a Medicare for all, a single-payer health care system. I want 15 bucks an hour as the minimum wage. I want to rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure - Flint, Michigan is not the only community in America that doesn’t have safe drinking water - our roads, bridges, rail system is disrepair. I want a vigorous effort to address climate change - I mean, I am very worried, I mean I talk to these scientists - this planet is in serious danger, and you can’t cuddle up to the fossil fuel industry, you have to take them on. And also, what is resonating, and I believe very important: making public colleges and universities tuition-free - Wall Street tax on speculation to pay for that - ending all these corporate loopholes…those are some of the demands we would make.”
(Transcription by me, apologies for any errors).
I don’t think Sanders is talking about his personal endorsement of Sanders. Rather, he’s speaking about what the Clinton campaign would have to do to win the votes of the progressive movement. Note that he explicitly frames it in those terms, and caps it off with “the demands we would make”, ie the demands of “a nation, and a growing movement”. Nowhere does he refer to personally endorsing, or not endorsing, Clinton. Thus, it’s somewhere between premature and malicious to claim Sanders is extorting Clinton, or somehow harming the Party.
Thanks for the transcript.
Yeah, the OP is a tempest in a teapot.
And I’m amused to see the interviewer talk about how normally politicians would ask for something for them. Extortion!
A lot of the supers are elected officials. They have voters to answer to. Voters who will not be happy if their vote runs counter to the express will of the people who voted for Bernie in the primaries. Believe me, come next election, there will be people to remind the voters of their betrayal.
There will be a few pouting True Believers left, certainly. But most will be celebrating the election of President Clinton. As will a very large contingent of Republicans, btw.
These boring kids these days . . .
:dubious: I think not. Did either ever have the guts even to claim the name of “socialist”? Did either ever clearly and unambiguously put the blame for most of our troubles on the 1% where it belongs?