# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/41 "2020-02-06T07:19:14Z")
(I also like the combination “grassroots movements start from the bottom up !” “what kind of top down establishment support y’all movements got ?” argument, it’s a p. spicy meat-a-ball) ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/42 "2020-02-06T07:20:15Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > There is not a single voter out there who might swing Trump, or might swing Dem, it’s down to arguments and the free marketplace of ideas… Utterly clueless. You’re out of your depth here. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/43 "2020-02-06T07:29:33Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Utterly clueless. You’re out of your depth here. [Uh-huh](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-divide-1994-2017/). Keep the hot takes coming. ---
**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 6, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/44 "2020-02-06T12:45:23Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Bernie supporters, a group of people who the only thing we’re grouping them by is their support for Bernie, should stop supporting Bernie and throw their support behind a woman instead, and if they don’t, that clearly demonstrates that they’re sexist? > > Who else wants to come out and endorse this view? I know it’s not been very long since you made this offer, but I’m wondering if you’ve had anybody take you up on it. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/45 "2020-02-06T12:59:51Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Regardless of Trump, Obama changed fuck all. Debate me with knives. I mean… ACA and gay marriage. But I’m sure those don’t count for some reason even though protection for pre-existing conditions and marriage equality wouldn’t have happened in a million years under a GOP president. ---
**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 6, 2020, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/46 "2020-02-06T13:16:54Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Oh, sorry, had missed your answer. Apologies. And yes, it helps, but that kind of thing is both more or less impossible to quantify and not morally worthy of being addressed to begin with. I mean, if the morons really let Trump win because Jew/gay/woman then they deserve whatever hellscape they get. I mean it sucks for we entire rest of the planet having to share it, but… > Ultimately that’s kind of my answer to the “on the next election, if it’s Macron or the Nazis, it sucks but we will have to re-elect Macron !” as well - like, if that’s the choice you spiteful morons will have boiled it down to, then fuck all o’ y’all and enjoy the radioactive lions eating your faces. I can’t help any of you, and at this point I won’t even \*want \*to. In a free democratic election, the people deserve the government they get. It has always been thus. But that is just an old aphorism. Washing your hands of it won’t solve the problem any more than sweeping racists or mad B-bros (no intended equation) under the rug. I get the temptation to want to pacify the bigoted assholes who happen to ostensibly be ‘on your side’ when there is so much at stake. But I think it behooves people to try to be less hypocritical about behaving as if the ends justifying the means. Once again, to the chagrin of some, I bring up the traditional Republicans and conservatives who justifiably (or not) got painted with the broad brush of Trump cultism and all that it entails. I caution my fellow liberals/progressives/Dems not to excuse the Bernie-or-Bust asshattery when it is revealed. Yes, Bernie Sanders would be infinitely better than Trump and possibly better than some Dem contenders. But if he is not the nominee, taking your bat and ball home makes you a what again? Correct: a petulant fucking twat! So stop pretending you’re helping the progressive cause and fuck your feelings.\* (\*Not directed at you, **K2**. Just staying on topic of the thread.) ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/47 "2020-02-06T14:11:12Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > No, but seriously, do you think there’s ONE voter out there whose thought process will be “Anything to get this country right… anything but a _Jew_” ? OK, I mean, this America. You guys are collectively the Michelangelos of brain death. So there probably \*is \*one out there. But I’m still tentatively hopeful that the people who think like that ? They already vote Trump, and furthermore they wouldn’t vote D if their entire life depended on it. Which, realistically speaking, it does. Ahem… WE get to trash our political system and vilify our government. YOU don’t, cheese-eating surrender monkey. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/48 "2020-02-06T14:35:41Z")
This. A million times this. I grew up near New York City, then lived in freakin’ Berkeley, California…and then a decade in Kansas, and half a decade in Wisconsin (not Madison). I agree with nearly every GOAL that Sanders espouses…BUT I am keenly aware of the realities of the voting public in this country, that my friends who stayed in New York and California JUST. DON’T. GET. (This was in reply to asahi’s post: “ Bernie believes that he can just transform everything, and so do his voters. If Bernie happens to become president, he’s going to have to work with Mitch McConnell – and he’s going to have to convince Republicans that they should be scared of losing their jobs if they don’t pass massive tax increases and end private insurance as we know it. People who hated Hillary and disappointed with Barack Obama just don’t get it - they are not the problem. It’s their idiot neighbors who are the problem. This country is hopelessly stupid. In the meantime, we’re all better off with incremental progress than regression at warp speed.”) ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/49 "2020-02-06T14:54:09Z")
I’m trying to quote #165, but it just won’t work. That article you cited just proved my point. Lots of platitudes and drama----very much like Bernie himself----but, again, the last thing he did for POC was fifty-odd years ago. “Chained himself to black women”? If he had done so, I’m sure a little birdie would have gotten that out to his worshipful groupies by now. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/50 "2020-02-06T14:57:45Z")
Kobal2 made good points about how Obama was less forceful than he could have been regarding closing the Gitmo detention center, maybe with Merrick Garland (though I don’t see what else he could have done), etc. But, that doesn’t mean a Sanders type could just ram through big changes. Some of the worst damage Trump has done is by appointing heads of federal agencies (etc.) who are literally opposed to the mandate of their agency. What’s the opposite of this? Simply appointing people who can DO THEIR FREAKING JOB. Trump is ruining everything by being shitty at everything, thus “accomplishing” what his followers say they want. This isn’t a template that a progressive can follow. You can’t accomplish progressive goals merely by being shitty at everything, but in the opposite direction. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/51 "2020-02-06T16:04:21Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Ahem… WE get to trash our political system and vilify our government. YOU don’t, cheese-eating surrender monkey. He’s right, though - Europe has completely eradicated left-wing antisemitism. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/52 "2020-02-06T16:08:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > He’s right, though - Europe has completely eradicated left-wing antisemitism. …you’re being sarcastic, right? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/53 "2020-02-06T16:12:39Z")
Yes. Yes I am. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/54 "2020-02-06T16:38:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > He’s right, though - Europe has completely eradicated left-wing antisemitism. Fair point 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/55 "2020-02-06T16:48:59Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Ahem… WE get to trash our political system and vilify our government. YOU don’t, cheese-eating surrender monkey. I’m sorry did you… did you just tell a French person to \*not \*be snooty and patronizing towards foreigners ? What fresh nonsense will you expect of me next, strict monogamy ?! ---
**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 6, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/56 "2020-02-06T17:02:09Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I’m sorry did you… did you just tell a French person to \*not \*be snooty and patronizing towards foreigners ? What fresh nonsense will you expect of me next, strict monogamy ?! God, no. But for chrissake, stop making [del]movies[/del], sorry,\* films\*. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/57 "2020-02-06T17:06:02Z")
> [@Plumpudding](#): > > Nah fuck you, you _are_ condescending prick, an asshole, and a corporate dick sucking third way right wing democrat. **All “moderate” (whatever the fuck that means) democrats are.** > > And seriously fuck you. You’re fucking up not only your own place but everyone else’s and you have been for a long fucking time. 90% of the world couldn’t care less about your geopolitical agendas, but you fucking force it down our throats, no matter where we live. And politicians in many, if not most places, also my place, follows along, with the obvious result of minor trumpists popping up like shrooms in a graveyard. Fuck you. > > And of course, fuck american republicans. Worst bunch since the optimates. Wait a fucking minute there. A lot of us USED TO BE moderate somewhere in the middle type Dems. We weren’t “far” anything or “extreme” anything — UNTIL THEY MOVED THE FUCKING GOALPOSTS. I lean toward left and liberal, but I sense that I fail your “purity test” too. You just better not throw your own vote away over ideological bullshit. ONCE WAS ENOUGH. ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/58 "2020-02-06T17:13:09Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Wait a fucking minute there. A lot of us USED TO BE moderate somewhere in the middle type Dems. We weren’t “far” anything or “extreme” anything — > > UNTIL THEY MOVED THE FUCKING GOALPOSTS. I lean toward left and liberal, but I sense that I fail your “purity test” too. > > You just better not throw your own vote away over ideological bullshit. ONCE WAS ENOUGH. Second that. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/59 "2020-02-06T17:26:01Z")
An exceptionally good, down-to-earth article, published a few days ago: [Why Democrats share the blame for the rise of Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/donald-trump-impeachment-trial-state-of-the-union) by Robert Reich _(Reich served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He was Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997. He was a member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board.)_ > [@](#): > > Democrats had occupied the White House for 16 of the 24 years before Trump’s election, and in that time scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. I take pride in being part of a Democratic administration during that time. > > But Democrats did nothing to change the vicious cycle of wealth and power that had rigged the economy for the benefit of those at the top and undermined the working class. > > In the first two years of the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. … > > Both stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. They failed to reform labor laws to allow workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down majority vote, or even to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated labor protections. Clinton deregulated Wall Street before the crash; Obama allowed the Street to water down attempts to re-regulate it after the crash. Obama protected Wall Street from the consequences of its gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout, but allowed millions of underwater homeowners to drown. > > Both Clinton and Obama turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns, and he never followed up on his re-election promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United vs FEC, the 2010 supreme court opinion opening wider the floodgates to big money in politics. > > Although Clinton and Obama faced increasingly hostile Republican congresses, they could have rallied the working class and built a coalition to grab back power from the emerging oligarchy. Yet they chose not to. Why? > > My answer is not just hypothetical, because I directly witnessed much of it: it was because Clinton, Obama and many congressional Democrats sought the votes of the “suburban swing voter” – so-called “soccer moms” in the 1990s and affluent politically independent professionals in the 2000s – who supposedly determine electoral outcomes, and turned their backs on the working class. They also drank from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans – big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy. > … > > The most powerful force in American politics today continues to be anti-establishment fury at a rigged system. There is no longer a left or right. There’s no longer a moderate “center”. There’s either Trump’s authoritarian populism or democratic – small “d” – populism. ---
**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 6, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524/60 "2020-02-06T17:35:44Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > An exceptionally good, down-to-earth article, published a few days ago: > > [Why Democrats share the blame for the rise of Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/donald-trump-impeachment-trial-state-of-the-union) > by Robert Reich > > _(Reich served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He was Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997. He was a member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board.)_ Why didn’t Obama pursue his post 2012 re-election promise to overturn Citizens United?? That has got to be one of the most disingenuous questions Robert Reich has ever asked. With what fucking congressional support was Obama going to get that passed when Republican congress members had already declared him a one term president and pretty much obstructed what color suit he would be permitted to wear. Honestly… Robert Reich can be such a wanker. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-keep-sneering-at-bernie-bros-it-worked-so-well-last-time/847524.md?page=4)