# HRC supporters coming after Bernie Sanders & his party re-vamping suggestions with knives out **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 25, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182 "2017-04-25T02:29:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/1 "2017-04-25T02:29:03Z")
This article below is representative of some I have seen lately where the knives are out for Bernie Sanders recent suggestions that the Dems need to step away from hard line identity politics and become more bottom up grassroots, economic justice oriented if they expect to win nationally. [Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male](http://www.salon.com/2017/04/24/bye-bye-bernie-the-self-appointed-captain-of-the-democratic-ship-needs-to-stop-chasing-the-great-white-male/) > [@](#): > > To the extent that Democrats are looking for their progressive soul, Sen. Bernie Sanders is not where they should be fixing their gaze. Sanders is clear that he is not a Democrat — except when he needs to be one in order to run for president. Yet he is demanding that the Democratic Party head for what Rebecca Traister last week called “third-way centrist bullshit.” > > Economic populism and what are commonly erroneously and dismissively referred to as “social issues” — such as reproductive rights, immigration reform and civil rights for people of color, those who have disabilities, people of all faiths, LGBT people and women — are indivisible. Sanders routinely demonstrates his own lack of progressive values by dividing them. > > There is no economic populism without abortion rights and civil rights. No one can have economic justice if he or she doesn’t have fundamental rights. Yet Sanders has made it plain that abortion rights are negotiable and brushes off “identity politics.” He consistently argues that his values — and his alone — should define what it is to be progressive. (Which can’t help but remind one of Donald Trump’s unilateral defining of terms.) The synopsis of the article is that Sander’s position is tantamount to caving to self doubt and compromising on positions that can never, ever be compromised such as having Dem candidates who not 100% behind pro choice positions. The article further asserts that Sanders butt hurt supporters defecting to third parties or not voting at all was a determining factor in costing the Dems the election. Sander’s position is synopsized in [this Face the Nation interview](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/04/23/bernie_sanders_clear_to_everyone_that_the_model_of_the_democratic_party_is_failing.html) > [@](#): > > SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, I think what is clear to anyone who looks at where the Democratic Party today is, that the model of the Democratic Party is failing. > > We have a Republican president who ran as a candidate as the most unpopular candidate in modern history of this country. Republicans control the House, the Senate, two-thirds of governor’s chairs. And in the last eight years, they have picked up 900 legislative seats. > > Clearly, the Democratic Party has got to change. And, in my view, what it has got to become is a grassroots party, a party which makes decisions from the bottom on up, a party which is more dependent on small donations than large donations, a party, John, that speaks to the pain of the working class in this country. > > The middle class is shrinking, 43 million people living in poverty. Almost all new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent. People can’t afford to send their kids to college. They can’t afford child care. They can’t afford health care. The Democratic Party has got to take the lead, rally people, young people, working people, stand up to the billionaire class. Does Sanders have a point? Is a platform based on economic justice more viable for electoral success than the current platform? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/2 "2017-04-25T02:36:33Z")
I like Bernie. I supported him for president. But maybe he should join the Democratic party if he wants to change it. I mean seriously, the Democrats are leaderless right now (what with Obama out and Hillary headed for the hills), but the press seems to want to anoint Bernie as some new leading light when he’s not even part of the party. What’s stopping you from joining, Bernie? Are you too much of a special snowflake or what? ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/3 "2017-04-25T02:50:26Z")
“I’m just a butt hurt snowflake baby . . .” From the unfinished “Butt Hurt Snowflake Blues Boogie Cantata.” ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/4 "2017-04-25T05:26:35Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Does Sanders have a point? Is a platform based on economic justice more viable for electoral success than the current platform? Someone’s gotta’ say it. During the Obama years, the Democratic Party ran to extreme positions on social issues and greatly pumped up the significance of those social issues, while their traditional attachments to the working class on economic issues kind of shrank to very little. Consider just a few things that were done during in the past few years. (1) Opening up military combat brigades to women. (2) Turning against the Hyde Amendment. (3) Signing executive orders requiring that public schools, the military, and other places recognize gender identity being separate from biological sex, and even making the military pay for gender reassignment surgery. (4) Trying to force Catholic charities to buy insurance that covers birth control, and fighting a huge legal battle about this and going all the way to the Supreme Court. (5) Forcing universities to change policy on how they deal with sexual assault allegations on campus. (6) Etc… This list could go on for quite a while. The same trend can also be seen in the symbolic gestures that are chosen. President Obama had the White House lit up in rainbow colors to show support for gay causes. If he ever had it lit up with a labor union logo, I’m not aware of it. And anywhere you go, you hear Democrats talking about the “pay gap” between male and female CEOs. 20 years ago, they instead talked about the pay gap between CEOs and workers. Bernie is trying to tell them that most Americans are not a female CEO and really don’t care whether female CEOs get slightly less than male CEOs. The extreme political correctness of the liberal elite and the Obama Administration’s attempts to push it by force on the whole country frightened many voters in Ohio and Iowa and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, leading to the Democrats losing territory where they’d been used to winning for decades. Bernie knows this. He’s trying to communicate it to a clueless party leadership that’s simply unwilling to listen. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/5 "2017-04-25T06:47:01Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Someone’s gotta’ say it. During the Obama years, the Democratic Party ran to extreme positions on social issues and greatly pumped up the significance of those social issues, while their traditional attachments to the working class on economic issues kind of shrank to very little. Consider just a few things that were done during in the past few years. (1) Opening up military combat brigades to women. (2) Turning against the Hyde Amendment. (3) Signing executive orders requiring that public schools, the military, and other places recognize gender identity being separate from biological sex, and even making the military pay for gender reassignment surgery. (4) Trying to force Catholic charities to buy insurance that covers birth control, and fighting a huge legal battle about this and going all the way to the Supreme Court. (5) Forcing universities to change policy on how they deal with sexual assault allegations on campus. (6) Etc… This list could go on for quite a while. In other words…Obama’s problem was that he was a decent human being who cared about important civil rights issues? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/6 "2017-04-25T06:57:50Z")
Hey ITR, just out of curiosity, would you say that the left or the right had a stronger record on labor protection and economic populism over the last 9 years? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Terrific](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tom_terrific/32/342_2.png) [@Tom\_Terrific](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Terrific)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/7 "2017-04-25T12:34:53Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Hey ITR, just out of curiosity, would you say that the left or the right had a stronger record on labor protection and economic populism over the last 9 years? I’m not ITR but my opinion is that neither party has had much of a record on labor protection or on economic populism. Both parties were pro TPP. Globalism is great for the United States. Open borders are wonderful. Then comes Bernie and Trump. Trump isn’t even a republican. They don’t know what to do with or about him. I do expect him to be impeached, not because he has done anything more outrageous than other presidents over the years, but because he seems to want to try to do the things he promised to do over the campaign trail. I think that both republicans and democrats will vote to impeach, guilty or not. Bernie is like Trump in not being mainstream, politics as usual. The message in this election is that “It’s the economy, stupid” Your progressive social issues will have a much better reception if people have a job, housing, and their other basic necessities covered. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/8 "2017-04-25T13:39:15Z")
> [@astro](#): > > This article below is representative of some I have seen lately where the knives are out for Bernie Sanders recent suggestions that the Dems need to step away from hard line identity politics and become more bottom up grassroots, economic justice oriented if they expect to win nationally. > > > [@](#): > > > > He consistently argues that his values — and his alone — should define what it is to be progressive. (Which can’t help but remind one of Donald Trump’s unilateral defining of terms.) Yes, heaven forfend: > [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > In other words…Obama’s problem was that he was a decent human being who cared about important civil rights issues? “Decent,” defined only by **Beren Erchamion**. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/9 "2017-04-25T13:40:45Z")
> [@astro](#): > > This article below is representative of some I have seen lately where the knives are out for Bernie Sanders recent suggestions that the Dems need to step away from hard line identity politics and become more bottom up grassroots, economic justice oriented if they expect to win nationally. > > [Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male](http://www.salon.com/2017/04/24/bye-bye-bernie-the-self-appointed-captain-of-the-democratic-ship-needs-to-stop-chasing-the-great-white-male/) > > The synopsis of the article is that Sander’s position is tantamount to caving to self doubt and compromising on positions that can never, ever be compromised such as having Dem candidates who not 100% behind pro choice positions. The article further asserts that Sanders butt hurt supporters defecting to third parties or not voting at all was a determining factor in costing the Dems the election. > > Sander’s position is synopsized in [this Face the Nation interview](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/04/23/bernie_sanders_clear_to_everyone_that_the_model_of_the_democratic_party_is_failing.html) > > Does Sanders have a point? Is a platform based on economic justice more viable for electoral success than the current platform? The Democratic Party has to do a 180 because what they have been doing isn’t working at all. It’s blindly ignorant of them to say “we would have won if it wasn’t for those damned kids!” Yes, obviously if everyone who had voted differently all rallied behind Clinton, she’d be President right now. But they were never going to because they don’t have a Democratic Party or candidate that they can get behind. Clinton didn’t lose because Bernie dragged her down a few tenths of a percentage point. She lost because she sucks as a candidate and she ran a shitty campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/10 "2017-04-25T13:55:59Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > She lost because she sucks as a candidate and she ran a shitty campaign. Why didn’t the Democrats realize this in May of 2016? Or June? Or July? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/11 "2017-04-25T15:27:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Why didn’t the Democrats realize this in May of 2016? > > Or June? Or July? As a decided non-Hillary fan who voted for her anyway with Trump as the alternative I suppose the main thing is that a lot of democrats did realize this but what could they do? Even before Trump rose up as a serious contender I was agog that she was the golden child of the party. Super polarizing, loathed by a big chunk of the electorate, entitled and with steamer trunks of baggage and _this_ was going to be our candidate? I suppose it was sort of ordained in that she took over whatever machine Bill Clinton stepped off of and that organization had the most money and most horsepower early on. So I get the positioning and leverage she had, but HRC was not a likeable candidate and frankly the real rub (for me) overriding everything else beyond the baggage and lack of charisma etc. etc. was the arrogance. The raw seething arrogance that yet another Clinton was going to grab the brass ring. Bush I and II was bad enough but… this husband and wife POTUS tag team was too much. And where were the other strong democratic contenders? Some say this is because there are relatively few Democratic Governors which have been one of the main POTUS feeders in recent history, Obama excepted. > [@](#): > > US Governors - Democratic (16) Republican (33) Independent (1) Sanders has a point that many democratic voters are completely divorced from the selection process as those without the backing of the moneyed political professional class and party gazillionaires have no chance. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/12 "2017-04-25T15:44:03Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > the Democratic Party ran to extreme positions on social issues This projection could be harnessed to build the world’s first thousand-screen IMAX theater. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/13 "2017-04-25T16:21:18Z")
I guess Bernie must have been the leader of the Great Right Wing conspiracy. It’s clear in the underhanded way he made sure that Hillary would lose by running against her in a primary, something no decent person would do because the primaries system was designed to coronate Hillary as the Democratic candidate. There’s just no way Hillary would have lost if Bernie hadn’t run because her campaign would have been so much different. She had no choice but to ignore and insult the voters that Bernie appealed to as a result of his treachery. The Democrats have to tighten up their primary system after this so that only votes for the predetermined party candidate will count and dissuade anyone else from ever attempting to gain the Democratic nomination democratically the way the Republicans did. So let’s just keeping blaming Bernie, after all, there’s no way it could be anything Hillary did. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/14 "2017-04-25T16:47:19Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I guess Bernie must have been the leader of the Great Right Wing conspiracy. You jest, but have you _ever actually seen him_ in the same room as Donald Trump? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/15 "2017-04-25T16:54:30Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > You jest, but have you _ever actually seen him_ in the same room as Donald Trump? I have seen him in the same room with Larry David, so that ruined one theory. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/16 "2017-04-25T16:58:58Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, heaven forfend: > > “Decent,” defined only by **Beren Erchamion**. Not at all. You have admitted that you think racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia are wrong. So enacting policies in line with those things being wrong can be nothing more than being decent. A decent person opposes those things. The idea that Obama is extreme is laughable. The extreme left are the people who everyone constantly makes fun of, calling them SJWs and the like. Obama is nowhere near that. Hell, the whole reason why Sanders got any traction was that he was being more extreme (the furthest left of any candidate) than Clinton, who was running on staying the same as Obama. Obama is not in any way an extremist, and nothing that happened was extreme. I will freely admit that Clinton did not court the white working class as she should have. That the Democrats were not appealing to them, assuming they didn’t need them to win. That we didn’t use our track record on actually helping even poor white people to try and win. But the idea that Obama is extreme or pushed extreme legislation is just laughable. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/17 "2017-04-25T17:02:06Z")
And I will continue to point out that one-line snark is never convincing. I get making the posts, but not why you would not then go on and actually explain. Well, unless it’s the pit or about something unimportant, and you’re just trying to be funny. I don’t get it in GD/Elections. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/18 "2017-04-25T17:13:27Z")
I’m not a Democrat, and I find it bizarre how many other non-Democrats seem to think they have some insight into what Democrats need to do. It’s not your party; stay out of their business. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/19 "2017-04-25T17:24:07Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Someone’s gotta’ say it. During the Obama years, the Democratic Party ran to extreme positions on social issues and greatly pumped up the significance of those social issues, while their traditional attachments to the working class on economic issues kind of shrank to very little. Consider just a few things that were done during in the past few years. (1) Opening up military combat brigades to women. (2) Turning against the Hyde Amendment. (3) Signing executive orders requiring that public schools, the military, and other places recognize gender identity being separate from biological sex, and even making the military pay for gender reassignment surgery. (4) Trying to force Catholic charities to buy insurance that covers birth control, and fighting a huge legal battle about this and going all the way to the Supreme Court. (5) Forcing universities to change policy on how they deal with sexual assault allegations on campus. (6) Etc… This list could go on for quite a while. > > The same trend can also be seen in the symbolic gestures that are chosen. President Obama had the White House lit up in rainbow colors to show support for gay causes. If he ever had it lit up with a labor union logo, I’m not aware of it. And anywhere you go, you hear Democrats talking about the “pay gap” between male and female CEOs. 20 years ago, they instead talked about the pay gap between CEOs and workers. Bernie is trying to tell them that most Americans are not a female CEO and really don’t care whether female CEOs get slightly less than male CEOs. > > The extreme political correctness of the liberal elite and the Obama Administration’s attempts to push it by force on the whole country frightened many voters in Ohio and Iowa and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, leading to the Democrats losing territory where they’d been used to winning for decades. Bernie knows this. He’s trying to communicate it to a clueless party leadership that’s simply unwilling to listen. Republican who hates Bernie’s economic agenda and I agree with you 100%, in terms of political strategy. It’s weird because Bernie’s supporters I’ve ran into on the internet are inflexible, extreme idealogues who’d rather watch the world burn than compromise. But Bernie himself is basically saying “let’s focus on economics, which everyone cares about because it affects everyone, and not make social justice the centerpiece of the party.” That’s not even the same thing as saying liberal social justice issues shouldn’t matter, it just puts them back where I think they work better–more on the local level. A candidate running in Manhattan or San Francisco can talk about gender identity issues, but a guy running in the rural areas of Minnesota can focus on economic issues, farm issues and not wade into “loser” social justice issues in terms of how his voters would feel about them. I think we’re much more geographically split on a lot of social justice issues; but I can plausibly see voters anywhere from a trailer in the middle of Montana to a Manhattan apartment caring about economic arguments. I do agree with **John Mace** if Bernie really wants to reshape the Democratic party he should formally join it. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182/20 "2017-04-25T17:27:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Not at all. You have admitted that you think racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia are wrong. So enacting policies in line with those things being wrong can be nothing more than being decent. A decent person opposes those things. > > The idea that Obama is extreme is laughable. The extreme left are the people who everyone constantly makes fun of, calling them SJWs and the like. Obama is nowhere near that. Hell, the whole reason why Sanders got any traction was that he was being more extreme (the furthest left of any candidate) than Clinton, who was running on staying the same as Obama. > > Obama is not in any way an extremist, and nothing that happened was extreme. > > I will freely admit that Clinton did not court the white working class as she should have. That the Democrats were not appealing to them, assuming they didn’t need them to win. That we didn’t use our track record on actually helping even poor white people to try and win. > > But the idea that Obama is extreme or pushed extreme legislation is just laughable. Maybe, maybe not. I like to think of myself as generally progressive but the [Obamacare thing with the Nun](http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/16/little-sisters-of-the-poor-win-big-in-obamacare-case/)s and the Obama Administration’s [Title X requirements](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435385/transgender-students-title-ix-obama-administration-rewrites-it) on gender identity issues were a road too far for many people. Even if they were not that exercised about gay marriage, and in the end even a lot of moderately conservative people were OK with it, these last two things pushed a lot of people’s hot buttons as the state pushing it’s nose into areas where it did not belong but was determined to be dictating actions. You can argue that’s it’s all about social justice, but from the perspective of an on the fence moderate these two policies could easily be seen as somewhat “extreme” (and also arrogant in their righteousness) relative to contemporary mores. Obama may have been moderate himself but the reality was that some of his policies were pushing the envelope hard. Maybe too hard for many voters to accept. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hrc-supporters-coming-after-bernie-sanders-his-party-re-vamping-suggestions-with-knives-out/785182.md?page=2)