Yes, there are polls that show him doing better than Clinton head-to-head, but that is because he was was being promoted by right wing and Russian propagandists as a wedge against Clinton.
Cite?
Then vote for his opponent. I don’t care if you jam your thumb up your nose while you do it. This is easy. This is obvious.
C’mon, post it already…
(Oh, you were typing, then stopped. Fucking vote if you want to keep Trump out. I’m sorry that some people need this next part explained, but, vote for Trump’s opponent if you want to keep Trump out. It’s really motherfucking simple.)
Spoken like a horse’s pa-toot.
I’ve attended the local Democratic Party meetings, and I never saw such a sad & useless mess in my life.
One Candidate–I said candidate–showed up in torn clothing, un-shaved, & with uncut hair. Honest to God, I thought he was a homeless man, who snuck in for the buffet. He thought that a weekly party with music & food would defray local racial tensions.
Except–we already do that in “Bug Tussle”. Been doing it for years. Hasn’t helped.
The local Party head was an ex-cheerleader, barely out of High School, who came across as brainless. Her response to an attempt of the local Nazi Party to have a rally on the Square was to make a sign that read “Love”. And she thought that made a difference. {FACEPALM}
The Cops & ANTIFA scared off the goose-steppers.
The local party could not even publish a legible voting district map.
I was looking for dynamic people. Who grasped issues. And would fight corruption.
I found goofballs. Refugees from a Paulie Shore movie.
Not sure if you could say that the polls showing Sanders doing better than Clinton were definitely caused by Russian propagandists, but it is part of the record that Russia was attempting to boost Sanders before turning all of their attention to boosting Trump.
Here is an article from the Washington Post:
And it cites the Mueller Report.
While much attention has focused on the question of whether the Trump campaign encouraged or conspired with Russia, the effort to target Sanders supporters has been a lesser-noted part of the story. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in a case filed last year against 13 Russians accused of interfering in the U.S. presidential campaign, said workers at a St. Petersburg facility called the Internet Research Agency were instructed to write social media posts in opposition to Clinton but “to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”
Another story:
They attempted it again in the 2020 election.
Russia knew that promoting Sanders was going to help Trump.
And your solution was to walk away and make demands, instead of sticking around and seeing if you could actually do something?
Here you go.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/bernie-sanders-russia-2016-election-interference-415691
and more recently,
I’m curious what you think Sanders was supposed to do about that?
I know what you are supposed to do about that. Don’t be a useful idiot.
I didn’t say that he was supposed to do anyting about it. I was just posting a cite that it had occurred, since it was requested.
My main point what that while Clinton was the front runner, Putin and much of the GOP establishment did not attack and for the Russians at least supported his candidacy. If he were to actually beat Clinton and become the nominee, the attack factory that had been aimed at Clinton would have targeted him instead with a vengeance, and so polls that said that Sanders would beat more easily than Clinton would, are not to be believed.
Basically its comparing the number of points scored by Clinton playing basketball vs Sanders throwing free throws.
Make a public announcement, declare that he won’t be a party to foreign influence, and drop out of the race.
Clinton comes out ahead vote-wise, Sanders comes out ahead reputation-wise, and Trump takes a flop sweat bath.
Let’s think about that world for a moment.
If candidates do as you suggest then primaries are essentially worthless. Either the party puts forward only one candidate, the anointed one, and every one else must stay out.
Or, worse, you will let Russia pick the winners. All Russia must do is let it be known they support a candidate and that candidate must leave the race for the good of the party. You have now ceded control over the nominee to Russia.
I do not think those solutions are better than letting the primary do what it is intended to do.
And remember, once Sanders was out he unfailingly supported the democratic nominee and worked to help them.
Did he give the Clinton campaign the info about Russian influence in his own campaign?
He did it right in 2020. Once he’d figured out he’d been Putin’s bow-wow in 2016, he dropped out in 2020 as soon as it became apparent he was not going to be the nominee and threw his full support behind Joe Biden.
That’s what he should have done in 2016, but he was too pissed about the DNC insider discussions in their emails. That again, he only knew about because they had been leaked at Russia’s behest. In 2016, he barely dropped out in time for the convention and he never did throw his weight behind Clinton in any meaningful way. That was terrible.
No one is saying there shouldn’t be a robust competition for the nomination. But when it becomes clear that you’re not going to win, get out and help the party.
Huh…
One of the many things that makes Donald Trump angry is that Bernie Sanders does not seem to hold grudges. In recent speeches, Trump has pointed to the information that has come out, through WikiLeaks’ disclosures of John Podesta’s e-mails, about the Clinton team’s attitude toward Sanders during the primaries: the slights (“doofus”), the schemes (“where would you stick the knife?”), and the eye-rolling (“socialist math”). Perhaps worst of all—at least from Trump’s point of view—was Donna Brazile’s passing along of debate questions. "Now, Bernie Sanders should be angry right? Shouldn’t he be angry?” Trump asked a crowd in Florida. He sounded a little bit puzzled—he would be so mad.
The truth is that Bernie Sanders is very, very angry—at Donald Trump. He is angry enough to have spent weeks travelling on behalf of Hillary Clinton, speaking for her in union halls and arenas, to students and activists. When he talks, he is entirely Bernie—“We are going to fight for that democracy; we are not going to become an oligarchy”—and he hints strongly that he has done some negotiating with her before getting on the stage, and will continue to do so after, as he hopes, she is elected. When praising her positions, he often says “Secretary Clinton has told me” or “Secretary Clinton has promised,” as though he knows that it might not work, with the sort of swing audiences he is dispatched to persuade (students, working-class voters), simply to declare that taking these stands is in her nature. But he knows what he wants: for her to win. “This campaign is not a personality contest,” Sanders said near the beginning of a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday night. “We’re not voting for high-school president. We’re voting for the most powerful leader in the entire world.” He had been introduced by Pharrell Williams, the musician, who was now sitting on the stage with Clinton herself, as if it were an actual high-school election. Statements like that serve to remind Sanders’s supporters that they don’t need to be charmed by Hillary Clinton—he is over it, and they ought to be, too. But, if personality doesn’t matter, the person does. - SOURCE
And, it seems, Clinton would not have done as you suggest had the tables been turned:
Clinton, who competed for the 2016 Democratic nomination against Sanders and won, claimed that Sanders is unlikable and has been relatively unaccomplished during his congressional tenure.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done,” Clinton said in the documentary. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
Clinton would not pledge to support Sanders if he won the 2020 Democratic nomination citing the wide Democratic field and concerns about Sanders’ online supporters, calling them “Bernie Bros.” - SOURCE
Fortunately, we never had to find out. But I can’t say I blame her. 2016 was an extremely consequential election.
Bernie did not endorse Clinton until July 12, 2015. She’d been the presumptive nominee since June 6th. WTF was he still doing in the race at that point? He couldn’t overcome her delegate lead. It was pure spite and malice. She needed those votes.
You and I are never going to agree on this, and I’m not going to re-litigate it. But I do hope people are considering just how much damage the Russians did in the stretch leading up to 2016. They have even more impetus to continue their manipulations in 2024.
And the useful idiots are useful idioting eight years later. Dance Putin’s puppets, dance!
I agree but it is worth noting:
You are trying to have it both ways. As you noted, Sanders had plenty to be upset about yet you expect him (or any candidate in a similar position) to bow out for the good of the party and support the nominee.
Yet, Clinton had a reason to be salty so it is ok if she did not do the same had Sanders won.
Rules for thee but not for me.
I didn’t say it was ok. I said I wouldn’t blame her. But it’s all speculation, because Bernie never won a nomination and we never had to find out.
It seems you were advocating a rule that would apply to any primary from past to future.