# Let's keep sneering at "Bernie bros", it worked so well last time. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 5, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524 "2020-02-05T03:08:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/421 "2020-02-14T18:08:00Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > And the republicans are going to support Biden’s plan, why? When they ACA was up for debate, the democrats accepted 206 amendments from them to improve it, and they all voted against it in unison anyway. > > The democrats aren’t pushing any health care reforms unless they take back the house and senate, and if they do that, why settle for the half-ass solution designed to prop up the insurance company? At that point, let’s stop being the only rich country that takes the profits of the insurance industry as their first consideration to run a health care system. > > Literally 31 out of 32 got this one right, and long ago. They think we’re insane that this is even a debate. > > Given that Republicans are going to stonewall Biden just as they stonewalled Obama (and the fact that Biden thinks otherwise, despite the fact that HE WAS RIGHT THERE for all of it alone makes him completely unsuitable to be president), then there’s no need to appeal to Republicans with a half-ass plan. > > And if we can’t actually enact the changes either way (because either the house or senate is Republican) then we might as well move the overton window by shouting about the health care system that works for the rest of the world instead of meekly proposing reforms to our broken one. If the GOP is going to stonewall Biden, imagine what they are going to do to Bernie. You keep talking about moving the Overton window as if failing to implement UHC, but shouting about it, is going to somehow do that. It won’t. What moved the Overton window was Obama having achieved limited success with ACA. People who opposed it initially but received the benefits, had their minds changed and don’t want to give it up now. That was a successful move of the Overton window. Failing to implement UHC, as any Dem is sure to do with a majority GOP senate, will not move the Overton window one inch. It will be seen as a victory for the GOP and solidify their base. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/422 "2020-02-14T18:11:43Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I already said that there is a 99% chance that I will vote for the democratic candidate. And yet you are actively encouraging me to stay home and not vote. And yet you hope that the reasonable nature of the Bernie voters will reassure your faith in humanity and all that. > > In what way you have influence - speaking directly to Bernie supporters - the only action you’ve taken is to deliberately try to discourage me from voting for the non-Bernie democrat. Not even implicitly, explicitly. You told me to stay home on voting day knowing that there’s a 99% chance I’ll vote for the democrat. > > So if you succeed, and I do exactly what you say, and the democratic nominee gets one less vote - are you going to feel proud and accomplished? > > Would anyone else here like to support his “stay home” stance? Rebuke it? I also said [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22136306&postcount=483) earlier. You probably missed it. ---
**Author:** ![Fugazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@Fugazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fugazi)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/423 "2020-02-14T18:13:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > (I didn’t get the “31 out of 32” reference.) I think he’s talking about other 1st world countries who have figured out how to give all of their citizens healthcare. Too bad America is too fucking stupid to enact such a radical idea. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/424 "2020-02-14T18:18:00Z")
> [@Fugazi](#): > > I think he’s talking about other 1st world countries who have figured out how to give all of their citizens healthcare. Too bad America is too fucking stupid to enact such a radical idea. Hey now! Many Americans prefer the term, “exceptional”. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/425 "2020-02-14T18:19:55Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 Where did my comments have anything to do with getting Republican support? The GOP will always try to sabotage; we just want to emerge with something of value at the end. > > “Huge bitterness even by Democrats … crazy chaos … electoral defeat.” That’s what you’re rooting for? 😕 When you say Biden’s plan is more practical, I assumed you meant that Republicans might actually be willing to work with it and enact some sort of reforms. But you acknowledge the Republicans won’t, so I’m guessing you meant that a less ambitious plan will go over better with the electorate? It just seems to me that if we get another democratic majority in the house and senate, which is what we’d need to enact either plan - at that point, why not actually fix the health care system instead of a half-ass minor improvement that props up the insurance companies for longer? > [@](#): > > (I didn’t get the “31 out of 32” reference.) I may be getting the number wrong. Maybe it was 30 out of 31, or 32 out of the 33 richest countries in the world all have some form of single payer health care. In some, it’s not actually single payer, there are multiple payers, but they are so highly regulated in terms of what they provide and prices and such that they are effectively single payer. We’re a very strange outlier. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/426 "2020-02-14T18:33:02Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > If the GOP is going to stonewall Biden, imagine what they are going to do to Bernie. Stonewall him, too? They will go maximum obstruction for Biden. So… they will go maximum obstruction for Bernie too. What would be the difference? > [@](#): > > You keep talking about moving the Overton window as if failing to implement UHC, but shouting about it, is going to somehow do that. It won’t. What moved the Overton window was Obama having achieved limited success with ACA. People who opposed it initially but received the benefits, had their minds changed and don’t want to give it up now. That was a successful move of the Overton window. Failing to implement UHC, as any Dem is sure to do with a majority GOP senate, will not move the Overton window one inch. It will be seen as a victory for the GOP and solidify their base. You may be right in that implementing the ACA may have moved the Overton window to the left a bit, I’m not sure. My estimation is that it help fix the bleeding of our medical system just enough that it will take another 10 or 15 years to fall apart, and will only serve as a delay to real progress. But I think you’re misunderstanding the overton window. The overton window is about public discourse and what the bounds are on what we’d consider normal political discourse. If the two parties portray it is the ACA and reforms to it being on the left end of what’s discussed, and the right wing end is free market dystopia, then the public will think the actual solution is somewhere in that range. If no one is talking about single payer, or whenever it’s brought up, people scoff at is as being this radical idea that could never possibly work (despite it working everywhere else in the world), then single payer health care is not even within the overton window of public thought. You very well can move the overton window by talking about things. It’s about moving or opening the window on what’s considered normal public discourse. Without Bernie (or Warren, reluctantly) talking about M4A, the overton window would still range from “modest improvements to the ACA” to “it should be legal to pay your doctor in sexual slavery from your children to treat your cancer” > [@QuickSilver](#): > > I also said [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22136306&postcount=483) earlier. You probably missed it. Do you think this makes you not a shitbag, or something? Yes, you asked what you could do to help encourage me to vote the way you want me to after you told me multiple times to just stay home. I already told you, several times in this thread, what would be a productive way of handling this. If I have to vote for Joe Biden, I’m already swallowing a bitter pill. I do not think Joe Biden will be a good president. I don’t want Joe Biden to be president. I don’t want to vote for Joe Biden. So it’s hard enough for me to suck that up and pull that lever. … So don’t make it any fucking harder by telling me I’m a “Petulant fucking cunt.” for not being enthusiastic to vote for Joe Biden. Don’t tell me that you don’t want me to vote for him, and that I should stay home. Don’t make me feel even worse about voting for him because to do so I have to be on the same side, and listen to the likes of scumbags like you insult me and even tell me to stay home instead of vote. This isn’t complicated. Don’t do your absolute best to alienate me from doing what you want me to do. You know when I said there was a 99% chance I’d vote for the democratic candidate and you called me a petulant cunt and told me to stay home and not vote? For example, don’t do that. This is really not a difficult one. There’s no secret, no required words. If someone is having already having a hard time doing something you want to do, but they’re going to do it, don’t do your best to be shitty to them and discourage them. Don’t be human garbage. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/427 "2020-02-14T18:55:05Z")
Why are you basing any part of your decision making process on something some stranger on the internet said to you? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/428 "2020-02-14T18:59:11Z")
> [@slumtrimpet](#): > > Maybe my reading comprehension needs work, but all I’ve seen in this thread is exactly that ‘encouraging sentiment’ from the Bernie supporters. All I’ve seen is that, yes, they will hold their nose and vote blue if they must. Even the OP has stated such. > > But I’ll tell you, the sneering and disparaging of ‘Bernie Bros’ is obnoxious. Even the doubting of their intentions is obnoxious.\*\* I supported Bernie in 2016 and held my nose to vote for Clinton\*\*. Then guess what? **You’re not a Bernie Bro**. > [@](#): > > She would have been the same old, same old but light years better than the orangewhatsis. I’m seriously starting to consider that perhaps the USA needs a kick in the ass, and 4 more years of the orangewhatsis might accomplish that- as in ‘it has to get really really awful before the electorate wakes up’. But I’m lucky, I don’t live there anymore. I do get to vote though. I guess that makes me a ‘Bernie Bro’ Nah. [It makes you Susan Sarandon.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/03/susan-sarandon-is-perfect-spokeswoman-for-neverhillary.html) Wait. We are still in the Pit, right? Yeah. That’s what it makes you. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/429 "2020-02-14T19:01:32Z")
As helpful as the enormous red letters you’re using to redefine terms that are in extremely wide use are, it remains the case that your definition is an ideosyncratic one. Presumably that would be true if you said it even larger and redder, but there’s only one way to find out! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/430 "2020-02-14T19:09:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I’m not impressed by your synopsis. Would it be better than what we currently have? Probably, maybe, depends on the specifics. Is it a conservative health care plan? Yes. > > Consider, for a moment, the roots of the ACA. When Democrats were talking about a single payer health care system back in the early 90s, the republicans proposed a market-based alternative that would keep the insurance companies intact and even prop them up. It came from the heritage think tank as a republican alternative to bringing us in line with the rest of the developed world. > > The Republicans managed to throw away even that level of reform so that nothing was done, but that was originally a conservative proposal to block real health reform to bring us in line with the rest of the world with a half-assed reform that kept the insurance companies in the way, fucking us over. > > By 2010, our failing health system in desperate need of some sort of reform, the democrats proposed their version of that heritage foundation plan, thinking that it might be palatable to republicans, given it was their own plan. But the overton window had shifted in the meantime. The republicans went so far right that their own plan was the MOST SOCIALIST COMMUNIST TAKEOVER OF HEALTH CARE EVER, and the democrats had chased them so far right that the most serious health care reform proposal they could come up with was a republican plan from the 90s. > > This is a good example of how the democratic party has become more conservative chasing the republican party as they fly right as hard as they can. > > Biden’s plan is just a little closer to having an ACA with a public option, which is still a half-assed solution. Most of the benefits of having a single payer health system are diminished by having a dual government/private health care system like that. > > We will still have the complex, adversarial billing that requires every doctors office to keep a staff of people whose only job is to jump through the right hoops and make sure insurance companies pay what they’re supposed to pay. We still have elevated prices on medical costs across the board, because the government has limited negotiating power and is concerned about the profits of insurance and medical providers. We have an incentive for people who oppose the public side of health care to defund it and otherwise make it work poorly so that they can point to it and say “see, that part of the system doesn’t work!” - which is some of what we got with an attempt to sabotage Obamacare by eliminating risk corridor guarantees, mandatory taxes, etc. Insurance companies still get to deny treatment to people who greatly need it and hope that those people die before they can sue the insurance company to collect what they’re owed. > > Biden’s plan is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic so that insurance companies can survive and profit a while longer before the whole system collapses. His plan would be considered a strange right wing plan in literally every other developed country in the world. > > **We have the rest of the world as a model.** Creating a complex, hybrid system designed to make sure that insurance companies stay in business and keep making money is unacceptable. It minimizes the benefits of a public system and keeps a lot of the draw backs. Okay, cool. How did the rest of the world go about dismantling their entrenched insurance-company-including healthcare infrastructures in order to get to the UHC systems they have today? A couple of examples should be enough to persuade me that Bernie could do it within the single term that he reportedly aspires to. TIA 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/431 "2020-02-14T19:11:52Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > As helpful as the enormous red letters you’re using to redefine terms that are in extremely wide use are, it remains the case that your definition is an ideosyncratic one. Presumably that would be true if you said it even larger and redder, but there’s only one way to find out! Your misspelling of “idiosyncratic” means that I get to declare that it’s objectively factual. So there. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/432 "2020-02-14T19:18:22Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Why are you basing any part of your decision making process on something some stranger on the internet said to you? Okay, so you have a decision before you between two options that you do not like. You have the option not to choose at all if you prefer. Picking either option feels unpleasant, because you don’t actually want either option. But you have an obligation to pick the lesser of two evils, right? But what if your willingness to pick between the lesser of two evils is creating the dichotomy that are progressively making the greater of two evils even worse? What if you pick the lesser of two evils every time, which only continues to make the options available to you more evil on average because you never have a choice of picking a not evil option? So, then, you see a not evil option before you, but it’s taken away from you by the machinations of the forces wanting to propagate the system of two evils. Then, those people say “okay, well, we know you wanted to have the not evil choice, but we took that away from you, but go ahead and choose between the two evils that we have decided remain” Your temptation would then be to say “fuck this, I’m not playing your bullshit game” - but everyone tells you no, one of the evils is SO evil that you have to vote against it. And they’re right, in this case, Trump is so abnormally evil that you feel like you probably have to play their game, to your own disgust, in this case. So you prepare to swallow your principles and do something that’s deeply uncomfortable - voluntarily voting for an evil. And then the people who want you to be with them on this one, nominally their allies - do they try to encourage you? Do they impress upon you how important it is that you vote with them, because one of the evils is so much greater? Do you try to support you and make you feel better about this decision you have to make which disgusts you? Or do they say “fuck you, you stupid little petulant cunt for even having this hesitation. You’re a full blown Trump supporting racist, obviously! Why don’t you fucking stay home, we don’t need you, you piece of shit” And if you hear the latter dozens or hundreds of times, do you truly think that’s not going to make it more difficult to make this decision that already feels like a compromise of your ethics? So, do I have the maturity and independence to overcome the fact that the people who want me to vote on their side are doing their best to insult me and discourage me? Yes, I do. But they’re trying their best to make my decision harder, to make the bitter pill even more bitter, doing their best to discourage me from actually making the choice they want me to make. And why? Is this a good strategic choice for them? No, it’s because they’re incredibly stupid and toxic and just want to take this chance to insult people. They’re so fucking stupid that they know how important it is to recruit your vote, and yet deliberately make it as hard as it can be for you, just because they’d rather get the transient pleasure of insulting you than the potential long term win of actually earning your vote. And then they call YOU a petulant child. So while I have the integrity to get over that, too, there are others that won’t. The toxic behavior towards people who are not democrats, who do not want to support someone like Joe Biden, in some cases actually does cause them to be unable to swallow that bitter pill when they also have to deal with the added bitterness of capitulating to the people who are being extremely toxic towards them. Being toxic to disenfranchise leftists who feel apathetic when the only choice they could support gets taken away from them loses votes for your side, votes that you would’ve won with non-toxic treatment. The stupidest irony of it all is that these are being toxic while claiming that it’s so important to defeat Trump that you have to compromise your principles can’t even manage to try to be decent to the people they’re talking about. They have to be toxic shitheads about it. So if it’s so important that I vote against Trump that I compromise my principles, certainly it should be important enough that you shouldn’t ACTIVELY DISCOURAGE ME FROM VOTING JUST SO YOU CAN BE TOXIC, right? So why be shitty to Bernie supporters? Why make the bitter pill you want them to take even more bitter? Why make it harder for them to vote the way you want them to vote? There is no advantage to this. You gain nothing. You are telling people it’s so important that everyone votes against Trump, and yet you can’t even put a fucking lid on your toxicity for the sake of getting someone to vote against Trump. So, you get people like Quicksilver, who, as a person who is 99% likely to vote for the democratic candidate, told me to stay home and not vote. And he even feels like he’s in the morally superior position somehow, even though he has done his absolute best to discourage a vote for the eventual democratic nominee from someone who is extremely likely to vote for them. And he says that I have the moral failing, even though I’m trying to talk myself into voting against Trump and he’s talking me out of it. He’s adding an extra barrier I have to overcome. There’s nothing to gain by alienating Bernie supporters and a lot to lose. So if you actually want to defeat Trump - which is the justification for all your toxicity - then you’d try to get people to want to vote against Trump, not to try to get them not to vote. This is what this thread is about. There is nothing to be gained by being dismissive or alienating or toxic towards Bernie supporters. There is a lot to lose. Why do it? Because you are irredeemably toxic human garbage who cares more about the satisfaction of insulting people than you care about beating Trump. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/433 "2020-02-14T19:19:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > You may be right in that implementing the ACA may have moved the Overton window to the left a bit, I’m not sure. My estimation is that it help fix the bleeding of our medical system just enough that it will take another 10 or 15 years to fall apart, and will only serve as a delay to real progress. It’s important to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient before proceeding with major reconstruction surgery. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > But I think you’re misunderstanding the overton window. The overton window is about public discourse and what the bounds are on what we’d consider normal political discourse. If the two parties portray it is the ACA and reforms to it being on the left end of what’s discussed, and the right wing end is free market dystopia, then the public will think the actual solution is somewhere in that range. If no one is talking about single payer, or whenever it’s brought up, people scoff at is as being this radical idea that could never possibly work (despite it working everywhere else in the world), then single payer health care is not even within the overton window of public thought. > > You very well can move the overton window by talking about things. It’s about moving or opening the window on what’s considered normal public discourse. Without Bernie (or Warren, reluctantly) talking about M4A, the overton window would still range from “modest improvements to the ACA” to “it should be legal to pay your doctor in sexual slavery from your children to treat your cancer” The Overton window is a mildly interesting philosophical discussion but it’s so highly speculative that I tire of it very quickly. I’ve told you what I think moves opinions in a tangible way - tangible successes. America has been talking about UHC for a long time. But it took unilateral action by an administration to make real progress in that direction. Talking about it loudly and sternly isn’t going to be enough. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > Do you think this makes you not a shitbag, or something? Yes, you asked what you could do to help encourage me to vote the way you want me to after you told me multiple times to just stay home. > > I already told you, several times in this thread, what would be a productive way of handling this. > > If I have to vote for Joe Biden, I’m already swallowing a bitter pill. I do not think Joe Biden will be a good president. I don’t want Joe Biden to be president. I don’t want to vote for Joe Biden. So it’s hard enough for me to suck that up and pull that lever. > > … So don’t make it any fucking harder by telling me I’m a “Petulant fucking cunt.” for not being enthusiastic to vote for Joe Biden. Don’t tell me that you don’t want me to vote for him, and that I should stay home. Don’t make me feel even worse about voting for him because to do so I have to be on the same side, and listen to the likes of scumbags like you insult me and even tell me to stay home instead of vote. > > This isn’t complicated. Don’t do your absolute best to alienate me from doing what you want me to do. > > You know when I said there was a 99% chance I’d vote for the democratic candidate and you called me a petulant cunt and told me to stay home and not vote? For example, don’t do that. > > This is really not a difficult one. There’s no secret, no required words. If someone is having already having a hard time doing something you want to do, but they’re going to do it, don’t do your best to be shitty to them and discourage them. Don’t be human garbage. OMG you’re a bore. Biden is very far from being my first choice too. But I’m not going to whine about it if that’s my only choice and I’m not going to hold the Democratic party hostage unless get my first choice. And neither will you, I’m 99% sure. And neither should anyone who is resolved to get rid of Trump. I’m done now. I just can’t anymore with this bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/434 "2020-02-14T19:29:39Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Okay, so you have a decision before you between two options that you do not like. You have the option not to choose at all if you prefer. Picking either option feels unpleasant, because you don’t actually want either option. But you have an obligation to pick the lesser of two evils, right? But what if your willingness to pick between the lesser of two evils is creating the dichotomy that are progressively making the greater of two evils even worse? What if you pick the lesser of two evils every time, which only continues to make the options available to you more evil on average because you never have a choice of picking a not evil option? That all makes lovely sense, except you’re GETTING one of those two evils, and your abstention means someone else makes that choice. Then you spend the next several years bitching about how the evil you didn’t choose is so fucking evil, and then complain when people get tired of your schtick. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/435 "2020-02-14T19:34:33Z")
I voted for Clinton, retard. So what’s my schtick? Do you think being toxic towards Bernie supporters who are trying to swallow the bitter pill of voting for a democrat they don’t actually like or believe in or want to be president makes it more or less likely that they’ll vote for them? And since the obvious answer is less likely, then why do it? Do you want to play this election on hard mode? Do you want to gatekeep voting democrat so fewer people do it? What’s the upside of doing your best to alienate potential democratic voters? ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/436 "2020-02-14T19:42:04Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Okay, so you have a decision before you between two options that you do not like. You have the option not to choose at all if you prefer. Picking either option feels unpleasant, because you don’t actually want either option. But you have an obligation to pick the lesser of two evils, right? But what if your willingness to pick between the lesser of two evils is creating the dichotomy that are progressively making the greater of two evils even worse? What if you pick the lesser of two evils every time, which only continues to make the options available to you more evil on average because you never have a choice of picking a not evil option? > > So, then, you see a not evil option before you, but it’s taken away from you by the machinations of the forces wanting to propagate the system of two evils. Then, those people say “okay, well, we know you wanted to have the not evil choice, but we took that away from you, but go ahead and choose between the two evils that we have decided remain” > > Your temptation would then be to say “fuck this, I’m not playing your bullshit game” - but everyone tells you no, one of the evils is SO evil that you have to vote against it. And they’re right, in this case, Trump is so abnormally evil that you feel like you probably have to play their game, to your own disgust, in this case. > > So you prepare to swallow your principles and do something that’s deeply uncomfortable - voluntarily voting for an evil. > > And then the people who want you to be with them on this one, nominally their allies - do they try to encourage you? Do they impress upon you how important it is that you vote with them, because one of the evils is so much greater? Do you try to support you and make you feel better about this decision you have to make which disgusts you? > > Or do they say “fuck you, you stupid little petulant cunt for even having this hesitation. You’re a full blown Trump supporting racist, obviously! Why don’t you fucking stay home, we don’t need you, you piece of shit” > > And if you hear the latter dozens or hundreds of times, do you truly think that’s not going to make it more difficult to make this decision that already feels like a compromise of your ethics? > > So, do I have the maturity and independence to overcome the fact that the people who want me to vote on their side are doing their best to insult me and discourage me? Yes, I do. But they’re trying their best to make my decision harder, to make the bitter pill even more bitter, doing their best to discourage me from actually making the choice they want me to make. > > And why? Is this a good strategic choice for them? No, it’s because they’re incredibly stupid and toxic and just want to take this chance to insult people. They’re so fucking stupid that they know how important it is to recruit your vote, and yet deliberately make it as hard as it can be for you, just because they’d rather get the transient pleasure of insulting you than the potential long term win of actually earning your vote. And then they call YOU a petulant child. > > So while I have the integrity to get over that, too, there are others that won’t. The toxic behavior towards people who are not democrats, who do not want to support someone like Joe Biden, in some cases actually does cause them to be unable to swallow that bitter pill when they also have to deal with the added bitterness of capitulating to the people who are being extremely toxic towards them. > > Being toxic to disenfranchise leftists who feel apathetic when the only choice they could support gets taken away from them loses votes for your side, votes that you would’ve won with non-toxic treatment. > > The stupidest irony of it all is that these are being toxic while claiming that it’s so important to defeat Trump that you have to compromise your principles can’t even manage to try to be decent to the people they’re talking about. They have to be toxic shitheads about it. So if it’s so important that I vote against Trump that I compromise my principles, certainly it should be important enough that you shouldn’t ACTIVELY DISCOURAGE ME FROM VOTING JUST SO YOU CAN BE TOXIC, right? > > So why be shitty to Bernie supporters? Why make the bitter pill you want them to take even more bitter? Why make it harder for them to vote the way you want them to vote? There is no advantage to this. You gain nothing. You are telling people it’s so important that everyone votes against Trump, and yet you can’t even put a fucking lid on your toxicity for the sake of getting someone to vote against Trump. > > So, you get people like Quicksilver, who, as a person who is 99% likely to vote for the democratic candidate, told me to stay home and not vote. And he even feels like he’s in the morally superior position somehow, even though he has done his absolute best to discourage a vote for the eventual democratic nominee from someone who is extremely likely to vote for them. And he says that I have the moral failing, even though I’m trying to talk myself into voting against Trump and he’s talking me out of it. He’s adding an extra barrier I have to overcome. > > There’s nothing to gain by alienating Bernie supporters and a lot to lose. So if you actually want to defeat Trump - which is the justification for all your toxicity - then you’d try to get people to want to vote against Trump, not to try to get them not to vote. > > This is what this thread is about. There is nothing to be gained by being dismissive or alienating or toxic towards Bernie supporters. There is a lot to lose. Why do it? Because you are irredeemably toxic human garbage who cares more about the satisfaction of insulting people than you care about beating Trump. You should try tuning out the internet, social media, message boards etc. and just do what you feel is the best thing for the country with the choices you have in front of you. You talk about hearing these objectionable things dozens or hundreds of times, but you do know that what you listen to, what you let affect you, what you let affect your own decision making process, are all choices that _you_ make right? People are awful on the internet. Everywhere. About all sort of things. That will never change. You don’t have to pay it any attention though, you don’t have to let it affect you. You control your own agency. If somebody else is an asshole, that should not make you hand over some part of control over your actions to them. I am planning on doing what I feel is right, and I don’t care how many awful mean memes I see from any direction on the subject. That power is available to all of us, we just have to decide to use it. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/437 "2020-02-14T19:44:40Z")
I don’t disagree with any of that - but if I don’t want Trump to be president - and I very much don’t - and I see idiots on here that are making it more likely that Trump is going to be elected by purposefully being a dick and discouraging potential anti-Trump voters, shouldn’t I call that out? That was the purpose of this thread. No one has been able to identify any sort of upside to taunting and being toxic to Bernie supporters, and the downsides are obvious. Obviously some people are irredeemably toxic, but if this thread could potentially make someone think twice about joining in on that counterproductive toxicity, then it could potentially do some good. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/438 "2020-02-14T19:52:33Z")
I get what you’re saying, but we already went through this in 2016. There are assholes that contribute to the overall toxicity of our electoral process, but there is also a very well funded and massive operation to promote this kind of toxicity and division. A lot of this awfulness is being created and stoked by that effort. What makes it work is that real actual people then absorb it, internalize it and share it. That makes it orders of magnitude worse. You and I have no control over this. What I realized I do control though, is whether I participate in it. I no longer share anything political, I won’t comment or argue, and if I have friends where 99% of the things they share and talk about are politics, then I employ the snooze feature. The only way we defeat this machine is to step outside of it and refuse to let it affect us. Whether you are sharing the awful stuff, or getting upset by the awful stuff, you are participating in the effort to undermine our democratic process. It’s hard, but tuning out the noise and stopping caring about it and letting it affect our own choices is the only way. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/439 "2020-02-14T19:56:13Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I don’t disagree with any of that - but if I don’t want Trump to be president - and I very much don’t - and I see idiots on here that are making it more likely that Trump is going to be elected by purposefully being a dick and discouraging potential anti-Trump voters, shouldn’t I call that out? That was the purpose of this thread. > > No one has been able to identify any sort of upside to taunting and being toxic to Bernie supporters, and the downsides are obvious. Obviously some people are irredeemably toxic, but if this thread could potentially make someone think twice about joining in on that counterproductive toxicity, then it could potentially do some good. There are obvious upsides - it can act as catharsis to the insulter, and a form of retribution for the part they played in getting Trump elected (“Bernie Bro” “Bernie or Bust” people are those people who didn’t vote for Clinton). Those are at LEAST as good of upsides as the upsides gained by voting for Sanders after he’s lost the primary, voting for Trump out of spite, or not voting at all. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/440 "2020-02-14T19:58:30Z")
So… you’re advocating for the strategy of attempting to alienate Bernie voters and make them stay home or vote for Trump because the thrill from insulting them is worth it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524.md?page=23)