Hillary fans don't get it.

Yes, how dare people not vote for a candidate who shares none of their fundamental positions?

OK, let’s say you are a pro-war, pro-undeclared-war, pro-assassination, pro-imperialism, pro-Obamacare, pro-choice, pro-gay, Hillary Clinton voter. And to you someone who is opposed to war, opposed to continuing a war against the express directives of Congress, or at any point was in favor of self-determination in any part of Latin America is just beyond the pale. And advocates of Medicare For All need to die so they can get off your beautifully manicured lawn.

So you will tolerate anti-war voters voting Democrat, even if it means you get a Congressional majority & have to take responsibility for passing laws (:eek:). And if they are also pro-gay and/or pro-choice, you feel entitled to their votes, if they vote at all.

But there are all these “young” progressives. As in, young enough to still have children under 25, and poor enough that their children might actually enlist to fight in a dirty, dirty war like poor people. And they’re not so fond of the American war machine, because those are their friends and neighbors, their own children, themselves getting dragged off into foreign adventures by the likes of the Bushes and Clintons. And they are probably pro-gay, and they may be pro-choice, but they are not really pro-imperialism and pro-war, and if you are, well, they think you can go vote GOP then, because the GOP purged its anti-war voters back in 2003, right? *There’s *your home, as far as they’re concerned.

And they have opinions about student debt (Who do you know who’s a student? Oh, some of your straight friends might have grandchildren, right?) and about Wall Street’s financialization of the economy (which you assume is fine and good and pays your pension). And you don’t get any of that because you are an out of touch rich old gay man.

So they look at Hillary, with her Wall Street ties, and her Walmart ties, and her private prison ties, and her chumminess with the Bushes and the Kissingers (like, literally, she spends the holidays with Henry Kissinger, he is a *close *personal friend, I am not even making this up), and to them, Hillary Clinton is not a progressive. She’s not a squishy ally. She’s the other side. She’s a part of the problems.

So, yeah, she’s pro-gay. And she has black friends, sort of. For a wealthy, conservative, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, ruling class matron, she’s a little, ooh, “liberal” (gasp!)–but only by those standards. As far as the larger society is concerned, she’s practically a Bush.

To you, she’s an ally, like a gay-friendly Habsburg.

To the commoners, she’s another enemy, like all of your pro-war, profiteering, financialized faction. And they don’t accept that anti-war, pro-socialized-medicine populist democrats need to line up beyond a pro-war, pro-profiteering aristocrat, just because she calls herself a “Democrat.”

They are talking about a revolution, and they are looking to the Democratic Party as a vehicle. But even by the standards of old-time New Deal Democrats, Hillary Clinton is a bit–classist, untrustworthy, and even backward. She could steal that vehicle from them for the next eight years. And then what?

Yeah, I guess I will take Trump over her. Sorry.

Now, Bernie, he’s pro-gay, pro-choice, all that stuff you’re hoping to unify the party around. But he can’t be trusted to join in on the suppression of Latin America, or to send dirty, dirty commoners to kill Arabs in Libya.

AND HE WOULD RAISE YOUR TAXES! IT’S LIKE THE DIVINE REAGAN NEVER DESCENDED ON US FROM HEAVEN TO FREE US FROM THE TAXMAN!

So he’s not even “American” to you. But unlike you, he’s “progressive” to us.

You need to switch to decaf.

This is the break the “John Miller” campaign has been waiting for! :slight_smile:

I’m about as progressive as anyone (just ask The Usual Suspects around here), but I find Bernie simply not ready to be president. The NYDN interview, the constant conspiracy-mongering when he loses a state, the fanaticism of some of his more virulent supporters…he’s really been turning me off, despite my agreement with his GOALS (as opposed to his nonexistent PLANS to achieve them). I started out a Bernie supporter, but #Bernielostme quite a while ago.

Again: how does President Trump bring Bernie’s perfect world closer to reality? Also: do you deny that if Hillary gets the nomination, the president will be either her or Trump? If so, which would be less likely to do harm to the progressive movement and more likely to help it?

A great many Clinton voters are Sanders fans who have gotten it.

Yeah, in a sort of ideal case, we’d love him to be President. Since that isn’t going to happen, we have to figure out how best to bestow our vote.

Also, he has a lot of flaws of his own, as jayjay notes. I think he really is the less-strong candidate. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s out. He can’t win. He isn’t going to be the nominee. So even if I thought he was God’s Gift…well, tough noogies. It’s Clinton or Trump.

(I’m totally fine with Sanders having his spotlight at the convention. He can wrench the platform as far left as he wants. He can give fiery speeches, and he can even be petulant and be rude to Clinton. All part of the game. Just so he doesn’t do a third-party run, because that’s peeing in the punch bowl.)

I get it. If you’re a representation of a Bernie Sanders supporter, you tend to have views that really more align with European socialist parties regarding global politics (you don’t like America being the leader of the world). I think the Green Party is really where the Sanders types are coming from, but without Nader, its kind of hard to technically be a Green.

Help fight my ignorance please. “Clintons” is plural; what were Bill’s dirty foreign adventures? Bill was something of a peace-maker: Oslo Accords, Dayton Agreement, deploying Jimmy Carter to end a crisis in Haiti. Hillary is also a peacemaker, spearheading an agreement with Iran. Was it wrong for Bill Clinton to respond to the Siege of Sarajevo, in which thousands were dying? Was it wrong for Bill Clinton to respond to the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies? Please help; I’m trying to get a clue what you’re talking about.

It’s true that an “Arab Spring” has led to Arab vs Arab civil wars especially in Syria and Libya. I’m not expert enough to comment on whether involvement of Western powers has made these better or worse, but humanitarian efforts hardly qualify as “imperialism.” As for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, let’s not forget that
[ul][li]a majority of Democratic Senators voted Yea.[/li][li] the hope was that pressure would lead Saddam to submit to inspections or even abdicate.[/li][li] Senators were responding to the very belligerent attitudes of the American people[/li][li] Democratic Senators didn’t realize that Bush and Cheney were telling blatant willful lies.[/li][/ul]
Of the wars during the 1990s, the only one that I recall getting strong “progressive” opposition in America (though I supported it) was the 1991 defense of Kuwait.

What am I missing?

I’m not a “Hillary fan,” but I’m a Hillary supporter. This isn’t a fucking tennis match.

And I do support Bernie’s ideas more than Hillary’s, but I’ll be damned if we let Trump get near the Oval Office.

Start your “revolution” at the local level. Shooting for the presidency is ridiculous without support from local offices.

honestly, this sounds less and less like a real candidate, and more of a desire for a societal/cultural revolución. Hasta la victoria, siempre! Or not.

America is a capitalist society with rich and poor. Some are in the first category, others in the second. And btw, there is an in between rich/poor. War isn’t always bad, even if its to do something other than fight “colonial imperialist exploitation.”

President Trump might lead to change within the Democratic party. There’s really only so many ways we can answer the same question with the same response.

It’s the same reason Donald is having such a tough time unifying the normally perfectly disciplined (at least at the national level) Republicans. Lots and lots of Republicans don’t feel like he adequately addresses the issues they care about.

Republicans who are disgusted with Trump ought to stay home, or vote third party, or write a protest vote. It’s Trump’s responsibility to appeal to them, and they’re not “traitors” for voting against him. The same is true for Hillary. If she wants votes from people who care more about economic justice than any other issue, she has to give us a good reason to overlook the fact that she’s married to the wrong side of it.

On this particular issue, which lots and lots of people consider to be the main issue (in some cases, the only important issue), Hillary is indistinguishable from Trump. Your taxes will be the same under Trump or Hillary. You will not have anything closer (or further away) from a single payer healthcare system under either candidate. Your CEO will still make 726% more than you do under either candidate. You will continue to have a higher effective tax rate than Warren Buffet. Both Hillary and Trump would have bailed out Wall street in the exact same way Obama did, and nobody would have been prosecuted, and the public wouldn’t own any of the companies we paid for. Education prices will still be outpacing inflation by many multiples. Both candidates will be equally unfriendly to labor unions (especially if she governs similarly to Bill Clinton).

This is the important stuff that makes people feel as if they live in a just society, and aren’t just working to make their feudal lords even richer. Hillary is one of these feudal lords, every bit as much as the Donald is. She has embraced Wall street, and it has accepted her as one of their own. She represents corruption and nepotism and smoke filled backroom deals and the continuation of politics as usual.

I’m sorry, but “at least she’s not a racist” isn’t really a good enough reason to sacrifice my soul and vote for her. The reason I say I still probably WILL vote for her is that economic justice is not the only criteria I’m considering. I’m afraid that Donald will be an absolute foreign policy catastrophe, as he’s willing to cozy up to anyone who flatters him, without regard to any objective criteria. He doesn’t care what our allies say, and he doesn’t understand even basic diplomatic concepts. Hillary will be a much more steady hand here, even though voting for her is just rubber-stamping the rest of the bullshit.

Nonsense. There’s a lot of overlap between the Sanders platform and the Clinton platform. Overall I’d say they’re about 75% in agreement and 25% in disagreement.

The problem is low-information voters who don’t really understand the platforms. They’re just swept up in the passion of the movement without understanding what the movement is about.

That passion is the only connection between Trump and Sanders. Anyone considering jumping from one to the other is pretty much admitting they don’t understand the issues and is just voting for images.

The Democratic party certainly will change if voters on the far left cost them the election. They will move right to pick up more dependable voters. There is no chance they are going to move left as a result. If that’s the change you are hoping for carry on.

You can claim between Clinton and Trump they are the same. I disagree completely but whatever vote for whatever you want.

There is a huge difference between a Republican controlled congress with a Democrat as president and a Republican controlled congress with a Republican president. No one with progressive interests should even consider the possibility of allowing a Republican controlled congress to operate without the threat of veto. If they control both branches of government we’ll see every progressive advancement in the last 30 years rolled back.

Bernie supporters aren’t getting the president they wanted it’s too late for that. At least consider some damage control rather then burning your own house down to prove a point no ones going to reward.

Did you not have the balls to post this in the pit? Since you are calling out another poster?

Hate to break it to you but the idea that Bernie is the champion of poor people is asinine.

He’s the champion of a group of people groomed to be an elite at colleges who’ve found out that life hasn’t turned out the way they’d like.

Considering how vastly more popular she is amongst African-Americans and the way Sanders has proven to be completely clueless when it comes to convincing African-Americans to support him(his “ghetto gaffe”) this comment shows a gross lack of self-awareness.

Once again, the people supporting Hillary Clinton come vastly close to being “the commoners” than the people supporting Sanders.

I know a lot of guys liked to show up at the Occupy protests dressed like they were unemployed truckers but that doesn’t make them members of the proletariat or even soldiers for the proletariat.

Hmmm. I’m a Bernie supporter, and don’t “get it”-- that is get what the OP is on about.

The problem with the Arab Spring is simple: majority rules is not a good thing in a country where 60% of the population openly support executing ex-Muslims.

And a majority of Democratic Senators don’t deserve to be President. We only need one President, we can afford to be picky.

That is revisionist bullshit. Clinton voted against the Levin Amendment, which would have required agreement from the UN Security Council (the ones whose weapon inspectors were being used as an excuse for war). Saddam Hussain did submit to inspections, and the weapon inspectors explicitly stated that there was no evidence that Iraq had or was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction, but the war happened anyway.

Then they lack the moral fortitude to be President. The President needs to be somebody who will publicly make a stand against bills like the Patriot Act the authorisation for the Iraq War and say “This is a bad law, an evil law, and I refuse to sign it.”

Then they are too stupid to be President. The President needs to be someone who cannot be suckered into killing a hundred thousand people by waging an aggressive war.

As Secretary of State, Hillary endorsed a right-wing coup in Honduras, which I believe was in violation of existing treaties. She pushed for the bombing of Libya, which was a humanitarian disaster, and may have been (I don’t know how much credence to give cranky communists on the internet on this one) as much an imperialistic attempt resource as vendetta against Qaddafi.

You’re right that Bill was not such a warmonger. But Hillary is not quite her husband. Some people try to pin the bombing of Kosovo in the late 1990’s on her, but that may be a reach.

And the Iran deal was finally negotiated by the State Department of John Kerry. I’ll give him credit.

And? Are you an anti-revolutionary? Like I’m sure you’re all for rolling back the War for Independence, the Sexual Revolution, the New Deal, and Civil Rights. Democracies are not* just *a way to get the populace to buy into conservatism. Sometimes the people want actual reform, and we have a little revolution in the country.

Maybe it’s not clear that when I talk about the anti-war vote, I’m not really just talking about actual pacifists; the anti-Bush-wars-and-extraordinary-renditions vote, is that clearer?