Feel the #extortion Bernie has planned

Politics & Elections
521

Sure I am, because in that instance, you should vote for the Democratic nominee, which is still a very good way to stop him (my favorite, in fact).

Thanks to the browning of the country, your strength is actually waning.

Only seem, based on what? I have never failed to vote for a Democratic nominee, and you can be sure that if Bernie were the nominee, that trend would continue. (In fact, recognition of this fact, and the general Democratic loyalty of the Hillary fanbase, was what really galled me when my Bernhead friend called me and said “you and the other Hillary supporters will still reliably vote for any Democrat in the fall, whereas the Bernie supporters won’t, so you should just vote for Bernie in the primary if you want to make sure the Republicans don’t win.” Grrr.)

You read the Barney Frank thread, right? According to him, what you are saying…well, it ain’t necessarily so. And he oughtta know.

Sez you.

I notice today that others are starting to focus on this general topic, and beyond just what Bernie said in the Cenk interview. For instance, I heard this just a few hours ago from Hillary Clinton:

Whether you agree with this or not (and we already know you don’t), we all know the Clintons wouldn’t break out a talking point like this if they hadn’t focus-group tested it. So I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the Democratic primary electorate sees it the same as I do.

In looking for the origin of a quote in that article, I came across this, which I find very interesting. It initially made me roll my eyes in frustration that the DNC doesn’t even require someone to be a registered Democrat to run for the Democratic nomination. But there might just be something even more important in their bylaws, emphases mine:

:dubious:

Yes indeedy, verrry interesting. If I went back to some of the early posts in this thread, from what I recall I think I would find several people arguing something just about the opposite of what I bolded. Does this change anyone’s thinking?

The other thing I heard today on this topic was on the Meet the Press roundtable (one of my favorite parts of the week):

522

Firstly, I was addressing the question of whether we’re voting for individuals or teams, and I argue that it’s the latter. We are given a choice between American conservatism and liberalism. With respect to the presidency, we’re voting for the leadership of this ‘team’. I think it’s fair to debate whether the democratic party is necessarily the franchise symbol that represents the team, but the progressive movement, in all of its various shades and forms, is the team that Sanders and his supporters are part of. Whether they understand that or not I don’t care - that is the reality. Well, I do care about the consequences of failing to understand that reality, but I don’t care about whiny and naive counter-arguments in an attempt to justify the idea that it’s acceptable to sit out of an election knowing that the consequence would likely be the election of Ted Cruz. Ethically speaking, I refer to the Hippocratic oath on this one: first, do no harm. Progressives who willfully refuse to acknowledge at least some of the progressive positions that Hillary has advocated over the years and willfully refuse to participate in the election would do lots of harm to their country, even if it is unintended. This is also true of ‘progressives’ who knowingly vote for some obscure down-ballot candidate who has absolutely no chance of winning. Either of those actions would be helping Ted Cruz. And make no mistake about it, Cruz is the kind of guy who would bury the progressive cause – for years.

And almost all of it falls within the scope of what is constitutional. The president is Commander in Chief of the military. The congress can delegate certain powers provided that they do so through legislation and that the president and his agencies adhere to whatever guidelines they propose. There is also broad precedent for compromising or negotiating privacy rights during times of national security crisis – there’s a lot of Court doctrine to support all of this.

But Sanders couldn’t pass health care reform on his own. He couldn’t raise taxes on the wealthy or on corporations on his own. He couldn’t do half or even most of what he proposes on his own. And Sanders is not the first progressive who thought he could magically use the bully pulpit of the White House to push his agenda. Sorry, but most of Sanders’ supporters just don’t have enough perspective on this to know what they’re talking about.

523

That’s just what the oligarchs have trained you to believe. :wink:

524

Yes, rather than vote R. The Pubs have made it easy to confidently expect that.

525

So the center-left can be counted on in that regard, but the far-left may just wander off and vote for Jill Stein or no one at all? You don’t see anything wrong with that picture?

526

Nothing at all. It would be astonishing if it were otherwise. Neither the centrists nor the leftists have any use for the Republicans. But the centrists are more at home in the Democratic Party, and the progressives are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party because its Establishment’s political center of gravity is obviously still where the DLC/3d-Way was, the neoliberal position. which to them is not much improvement over the GOP’s. And if the party as a whole shifts left – then progressives will vote Dem consistently, while the GOP remains just as abhorrent to centrist Dems as it was before, unless the GOP also shifts left and revives a moderate Rockefeller Republicanism that rational Dems can accept.

527

Because of cross-filing in municipals elections, this would mean that hardly any truly informed voter should be voting in the primaries where I live.

However, let’s say that you modify your post to make municipal elections an exception – which I think you would do if you lived in my town. I still see a bunch of problems with it. Essentially you are telling me, as a new Democrat (changed my registration from Republican to Democrat last month) that the party doesn’t want me if I am only 90 percent loyal to my new party (which is approximately the case). That seems to be a bad idea from you own POV.

528

Huh?

529

Which (and I realize that you are just describing this position, not endorsing it) is an insane position to have. Sure, you could argue that there are some very specific, and very important, policy areas in which D and R are far too similar… particularly centered around areas of money in politics and so forth.

But you have to willfully blind yourself to the dozens of issues on which there are HUGE differences between D and R to come to the conclusion that they’re nearly identical.

But don’t you think that that is already happening? Don’t you think the cynical democratic establishment types in their proverbial smoke filled rooms are very carefully watching what is happening right now and taking notice?

Suppose it ends up being the case that if Bernie continues to draw huge crowds, and ends up making the election vastly closer than anyone ever predicted he could, but ends up with somewhat fewer pledged delegates than Clinton, and that plus the superdelegates gives the nomination to Clinton.

Your position, (I hope I’m not confusing you with someone else, correct me if I’m wrong), is that passionate Bernie supporters who honestly prefer Clinton over Trump/Cruz (even if it’s in a “D+ > F” kind of way) should stay home, or vote 3rd party, purely to send a message.

What troubles me about that is that it makes several assumptions, every single one of which has to be true in order for it to be a good play:
(1) A Trump/Cruz presidency isn’t really much worse than a Clinton presidency, either short or long term
(2) If Clinton wins then all of the Bernie momentum will end up accomplishing little
(3) If Clinton loses, then the powers that be will look at what happened and strongly and decisively get the message
(4) Which will then result in the dems nominating a far more progressive candidate in 4 or 8 years
(5) Who will win
(6) And who will successfully promote progressive policies, despite facing a supreme court that is now vastly more conservative than it was before, thanks to 4 or 8 years of Trump/Cruz appointing justices

If even a single one of those assumptions is wrong, then you’ve ended up not “throwing away” your vote, but doing something far far worse.

530

See here.

531

So everyone who didn’t vote for Obama is a racist?

532

I think a closer paraphrase would be all the Clinton supporters or maybe Democrats who didn’t vote for Obama are racist.

533

Most Democrats who switched from Clinton to McCain in 2008 probably were.

534

Sean McElwee uses data analysis to argue that white switching from Democratic to Republican in the Obama era is, yes, driven by racism.

535

And the slow decline of credibility of racist accusations continues.

536

Well, then, that settles it - EVERY Dem voter who voted Republican instead of Obama was a racist.

537

So Republicans who vote for Republicans aren’t racist?

Look, this is how you know someone is racist - do they have racist beliefs? Then they are racist. If they don’t, they’re not racist.

538

And they’re all going to own up to it too. That’s why racism is such an easy problem to eliminate.

539

So, a Clinton supporter who always votes Democratic, somehow just doesn’t feel like voting for Obama, and we’re supposed to invent a non-racial rationale for that decision?

I don’t think we have to label someone “not racist” just because they say they have nothing against black people.

540

Some of us Sanders supporters have plenty of perspective. I have had the experience of watching the Dems elect both Clinton and Obama, and seeing them bargain away, or attempt to bargain away, most of the social programs that progressives hold dear. Clinton signed Glass- Steagall, which was passed with the bipartisan support of DLC centrists in the Senate, and which has proved to be disastrously foolish. With Glass-Steagall in place, we had NO bank collapses in for fifty years. Without it … we all remember 2007, I believe. Clinton signed lesgislation, also bipartisans thanks to Dem centrists, which dismantled important anti-poverty programs and which cast millions of Americans into poverty. He also signed “get tough on crime” legislation, also bipartisanly supported, which made America a sort of horrifying laughingstock to the rest of the world, with the highest incarceration rate of any country. His single really progressive “achievement” was a totally botched attempt to get universal health care passed.

Woo-hoo.

Then we got Obama, who DID manage to get an ATTEMPT at universal heath care passed, using a plan developed by a Republican think tank and first put into use by Mitt Romney. The plan did nothing to control medical costs or displace our expensive medical insurers, of course. Big Pharma, the insurance companies, doctors and hospitals are still riding high on the hog. And of course, Obama has ATTEMPTED more … he TRIED to get Republicans to accept cuts in Social Security as part of a “Grand Bargain” with them on financial issues. But they were so blind stupid mad that they wouldn’t go for it. And he once bragged that he OFFERED the Republicans 90 percent of what they wanted in his initial negotiation with them. Does this sound like honest negotiation? Would you think someone who had gone to a used car salesman and offered him 90 percent of his asking price at the first go-round was doing a good job of negotiating.

Now, Obama has not accomplished a lot else during his administration, and you can chalk some of that up to wilful obstructionism, but I also haven’t seen a lot of TRYING to pass progressive policies out of Obama. He just doesn’t seem INTERESTED, you know?

And what I HAVE seen in EVERY election, is hearfelt, passionate declaration by Slacker and others like him that THIS election matters more than any other EVER has, that letting the Republicans take the White House would DESTROY the United States or at least the Democratic Party, and also … BOOGAH BOOGAH!

So, yah, I got some perspective. It ain’t a pretty one. And thing is, I am WILLING to vote for the Dem candidate, if I believed there was a chance in hell they’d realize their progressive base is pissed and they should really think about appeasing them.

Not seeing it. Certainly not seeing it here. And I REALLY like Jill Stein. So for the moment, I’m just hoping Bernie wins. Because even if he CAN’T get progressive legislation passed in the teeth of a Republican Congress, I know he’ll do something that a centrist wouldn’t … he’ll at least TRY. And who knows, he might succeed here and there. Beats all the nothing the centrists have shown me.