“Entitled Hillary supporters”?
Hillary Clinton has been cleaning Sanders clock amongst African-Americans, Latinos and people with high school diplomas or less.
Is your position that blacks, Hispanics and working class people are “entitled”?
If so, please explain.
Not rogerbox, but it seems me that “entitled Hillary supporters” is a subset of Clinton primary voters.
Look at it like a team sport. My son plays baseball. When he commits to a season, he commits to the season. If they lose all their games, he still is out playing the last one. If the coach puts in a lousy shortstop who keeps making errors, he sucks it up for team morale and keeps his mouth shut.
Your teammates are counting on you and its bad form to go home because you don’t like how the game is going.
Outside of party politics, you are an individual. Once you sign up for the season by voting in the primary, you are part of the team.
Why in God’s name should I look at it like a teams sport? You are voting for your political leadership not playing softball. With the two party setup so thoroughly entrenched in the American system it’s outrageous to expect people to sit out the primary system, basically half the election process, unless they adopt a slavish devotion to the team they signed up for.
I think that’s an insane way to view the parties.
I do not agree that I have signed up for any team by voting in a primary. I always vote in primaries, one or the other. The choice I make there is wholly independent of the choice I make in the general election.
I would disagree. If a Sanders supporter honestly believes that Clinton would be no better for the good of the country than Trump or Cruz (or player to be named later), that the latter would not cause significant harms that could be avoided had there been a to them less than ideal Democrat in the Presidency, then I may think they are horribly and potentially tragically mistaken, but their not voting would be justified.
Look at it from the other perspective. There are a large number of voters who have voted in the GOP primaries and caucuses for candidates other than Trump or Cruz. Are they ethically obligated to come out and vote for Trump if Trump wins the nomination, no matter how much they believe that he would be a disaster for the country? Or are they ethically free to sit it out or even to decide that while they would have preferred Bush Kasich or Rubio, a Clinton or Sanders would less harmful than would be Trump (or Cruz)?
And it’s also not just about a bad shortstop. If Trump wins the Republican nomination you seriously think it’s rational to expect every registered Republican to vote for him in the general because of team spirit? Quite ridiculous.
I know its strange, but that’s how I see it. Which is why I don’t vote in primaries. I think that it is a team sport.
I think that if Trump wins the nomination, then thats telling some Republicans that the party isn’t what they want it to be anymore - that the majority of their party has moved a different direction. And I think that if people viewed it like I do, they’d have left the GOP (as I did) years ago. Because if you do treat it as a team sport, you’d better have faith in your team.
President isn’t the only choice you make when you vote in the general election. Sitting it out is a cop-out.
Oh, I hope you guys give me Clinton, I think she’ll make a better President. But I’ll vote for Sanders, the GOP has gone batshit crazy and there is too much to loose in the Supreme Court. I think Sanders will not get a damn thing done, but he’ll hold the line there and at some other critical points. Not being a Democrat, I don’t think I have a right to cast a primary vote (legally, yes - ethically - no). I was screwed by a party I couldn’t vote for in good faith once, I’m not doing it again.
To be more specific: not voting for president is an ethical choice if you think neither choice is any better or worse for the country; splitting your ticket is also an ethical option.
Personally I have concluded that I will support “my team” because I believe that GOP Congressional obstructionism makes progress extremely difficult, but concluding otherwise is not IMHO unethcal.
I don’t have a problem with someone arguing that Sanders should be the leader of the progressive team. I do have a problem with some of Sanders’ supporters saying that they won’t support the progressive team (even a watered-down version of it) if Sanders loses. There’s a productive form of political idealism and a destructive form. That would be destructive. To his credit, I don’t think Sanders would advocate destroying the progressive cause. I think he wants fair treatment by the party if he continues to make an impact on the race, and I think that’s not an unreasonable request or expectation. But if he loses, I really hope that he can convince his supporters to fight for the progressives, or if nothing else to fight against the destructive republican cause.
I suppose that some of Sanders’ more extreme supporters might try to make the argument that the Democratic party turned out not to be the right ‘home’ or the right platform for their ideas, and that they’re leaving the party, that would be nothing short of self-indulgent, narcissistic two-timing of the highest order. The Democratic Party has given Bernie Sanders, a guy who has been reluctant ever to call himself a Democrat at all, a platform and a megaphone, and a pretty effective one at that. Without that apparatus it is still possible that Sanders would still be out there making noise anyway, but there’s no denying that having the Democratic brand has been a powerful branding exercise. Trying to build a political movement using a vehicle that’s already built versus trying to build the vehicle himself is not at all insignificant.
Pretty much how I see it. I think either Sanders would disappoint his base and be somewhat more pragmatic than I’m giving him credit for, or he would fall on his sword for his base. How many times can a person fall on his own sword?
Nevertheless, I would vote for Sanders to keep the republicans from winning the White House for another 4 years. I’ll take obstruction and holding the line with a well-intentioned but ultimately disappointing and ineffective progressive leader over what would surely be a 4 to 8 year nightmare under Ted Cruz.
We got caught by surprise, we didn’t think we needed a leader for the progressive movement, mostly because we underestimated our own numbers. Suddenly, there’s Sanders, and suddenly there’s Trump, and suddenly everything is stark and staring.
Sanders is the candidate more than he is the leader. And if he doesn’t work out as leader, we can get another one.
What a strange team sport. In other team sports, people try out for the team, agree to be on a team, agree explicitly that they’re going to work together toward an objective, an objective with no value outside of the game itself.
Choosing political leaders is nothing like that. The “teams” don’t require people to join the team. There’s no explicit ruleset requiring people to stick with their team. And the “team’s” victory is far less important than the real-world implications of the leader selected.
But people are trying out for the team – the leadership of the team to be more specific. Could a President Sanders pass legislation through edicts? How does he get it all done by himself? What wasn’t Obama able to do it all by himself? Oh that’s right – he has to work with members of his party to find ways around his opposition. And believe me, there’s a lot of teamwork at play.
It’s not one person running the show all by himself. It’s his advisers, the people who support his campaign, the people who organize the party. In other words, it really is a team. Politics is definitely a team sport, especially in a complex constitutional democratic republic such as ours, with separation of powers, with dual federalism, and other machinery in a system designed from the start to change slowly.
You’ve agreed to be on the team when you vote in the primary. You’ve agreed, in my mind, that you will work together toward the common objective when you call yourself a Republican or a Democrat - and if you don’t call yourself that, I don’t think you can ethically vote in their primaries. That objective is the party platform. I think the party - made up by members of the party - who self select - get to vote in their primaries - and if you aren’t willing to actually be a member of the party by supporting the party’s eventual candidates - even if they weren’t your choice, then you don’t vote in the primary, you vote for the best candidate that the parties give you in the general.
I don’t hold other people to this - its a strange (although not unique) point of view.
No I haven’t. I mean, seriously, I haven’t. You can’t just tell me I agreed to something that I didn’t agree to. That’s not what it means to agree to something.
The parties could easily change this. They could require voters to check a box signifying a pledge to vote for the eventual party candidate; if they did that, then yeah, my check in that box would signify the agreement you’re talking about. But they don’t do that. They don’t ask me to agree to do that, I don’t give any indication that I agree to do that. The agreement between me and the Democratic party is, and I mean this literally and seriously, entirely a product of your imagination.
And you can’t imagine an agreement into place.
LOHD, despite her use of the word “you” she has made it very clear that this is how she thinks about it for herself and only for herself and does not impose her personal ethic on any of the rest of us.
Interestingly enough I heard a different ethical argument made by Michael Smerconish on his XM radio show explaining why he, a card carrying registered “no affiliation” voter (PA’s independent option) since 2010, has re-registered in the GOP. Bottom line as I recall the bit, he feels an ethical obligation to vote against Trump in the primary and to not be a bystander … but clearly he will not vote Trump in the general if Trump is the nominee.
I do not think that Dangerosa would begrudge Smerconish his personal ethical judgement. It just is not how she sees it for herself.