Thinking that if Sanders gets elected it would (be like Norway or Sweden) is, gasp, delusional, IMHO anyway. As is thinking that what Sanders is pedaling could or would make us that way, even if he magically got his way. As is Sanders himself. YMMV of course.
If he gets his stuff through? And what do you think the chances are of that happening? Sanders will get ten times more obstruction than Obama has. He’ll be lucky if he gets his cabinet approved in four years.
Democrats have to stop imagining they can win over the Republicans. It’s never going to happen. Democrats need a President who will fight back against the Republicans.
The difference is that the right wing nuts have a lot of other fellow nuts who will control the House and possibly the Senate. On the other hand, Sanders is going to have trouble getting even his own party to sign on to anything, nevermind a GOP controlled Congress.
I voted for Hillary, and hope she wins. But I won’t have that much trouble voting for Sanders. I suspect the functional difference between the two will be pretty minimal.
If Sanders wins, it likely means there’s a Democratic Senate too, which changes the calculus at least for the first two years.
Like I said, MMV. I think there is a huge functional difference between Clinton and Sanders…I hope it’s one we never have to find out. It’s hard for me to fathom my fellow citizens who are seriously putting forth the likes of Trump and Sanders as candidates and I’m hoping this madness ends soon.
I agree with you that Sanders would have trouble with even his own party, never mind the GOP, which is why I think there is a huge difference between the candidates.
The GOP will control the House, so I don’t really see where a large functional difference will come from. Legislation that fails to pass by 100 votes isn’t any more of a law then that which fails by 50 votes.
There is no separate vote for Prime Minister and for the House of Commons (equivalent of the House of Representatives). The Prime Minister winds up being the leader of the party with the most seats in the Commons*, and usually he holds an outright majority. There is a Senate, but it’s unelected. Being an unelected body means that the usually don’t have the legitimacy to block legislation (they could try, but if the Senate threw its weight around too much that would probably overcome Canada’s long-standing inertia around the institution and democratic reforms would be enacted).
- Technically there are scenarios where this might not be the case, but in practice it’s nearly always been true.
I’m probably going to vote for the Democratic nominee for the first time in my life because the Republicans scare me enough to not vote for my normal libertarians. I’m honestly hoping that Bernie is the nominee purely to troll the political process for the next four years. My wife and I were just talking about moving to Chile or Argentina if Trump becomes president.
No way. I wouldn’t ever vote for Bernie or any of the GOP contenders, they are all too extreme. Variously opposed to climate science, realistic foreign policy, abortion rights, GMOs, evolution, capitalism, Muslims, nuclear energy, environmental protections, bankers, Mexicans, industry. Take your pick, it’s a smorgasbord of bad positions.
But that’s the beauty part: if Bernie is the President, and the GOP holds the Senate and/or the House, then they’ll largely stymie each other except on non-extreme stuff where they agree; if one party holds all three, you get the bitter with the better.
So if Hillary loses the nomination to Bernie – and if, for the sake of argument, you’re right to say Bernie and the GOP contenders “are all too extreme” – then you should still pick the extremist who’ll be at odds with the other extremists, not one who’d agreeably rubber-stamp the same extremism as fast as it can get to him.
Of course. My calculations are all about who I feel is more electable within the subset of Democrats; I don’t have anything personal against either candidate. If the party had chosen someone like Webb or O’Malley, it’s a harder decision, but still comes down to who is more likely to implement policies I support.
Yes, this is what I have always done and will continue to do.
Certainly. The reasons have all been said already.
Sure, he’s leaps and bounds better than any candidate on the Republican side at the moment.
I prefer Clinton but if Sanders is nominated, he gets my vote.
Yes, without hesitation, although I’d fear for the next four years if he didn’t have massive coattails.
Probably, but I’d hold my nose while doing so. I mean the GOP leaves me no choice. It’d be much harder if the GOP had a moderate running.
I’d happily vote for Sanders if only for the supreme court picks. Also Sanders is no Ralph Nader.
I’d hope I could persuade XT to hold his nose and vote for Bernie. Martin Hyde would be in a world of pain though. From his vantage voting Dem would make no sense.
Sanders 2016: Hey, we survived W.
There’s no way I wouldn’t vote for whoever the Dem nominee is
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I’d hope I could persuade XT to hold his nose and vote for Bernie. Martin Hyde would be in a world of pain though. From his vantage voting Dem would make no sense.
Sanders 2016: Hey, we survived W.
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I doubt I’ll have to but I hope I can convince him that Bernie is not so bad if it’s between him and Trump or Cruz. Sanders is a politician. He’s not going to burn down the country. Cruz will. Trump probably won’t - we hope.