Well, it isn’t like I expect to say anything that you would take to heart, me being so busy sucking corporate dicks and all.
Then why did I ask?
I’m completely willing to have my mind changed and face criticism and examine my own behaviors. So, after you made such a dramatic statement, I wanted you to flesh it out so I could evaluate the merits of it. Instead, it sounds like it’s just hyperbole - trying to throw an insult that might actually get under my skin (because I seem to be advocating here for a group, and you tried to say that I was doing that group a grave disservice) rather than some sort of generic insult that would be easily shrugged off.
You acknowledge that the criticism of Bernie supporters is that they would rather stay home than compromise. And then the majority of your posts are obscenity-filled tirades about how compromise is unacceptable. And then you pile on this idea that Bernie supporters are under a barrage of criticism, which seems to go beyond a complaint of feelings being hurt (which is an issue that shouldn’t be brushed off) into conspiracy theory “they’re all coming to get us!” land. And even if your claims of insulting behavior toward Bernie supporters is true, and if you are at all representative of a good number of Bernie supporters, it seems to me to be well-earned criticism based on your posts here.
It is indeed a genuine criticism in that I really haven’t paid much attention to the criticism of Bernie supporters before. But after reading the vitriol and anger readily apparent in more than half your posts in this thread, you seem to have a demeanor that is closer in line with the deranged MAGA-bots who cuss that the media for not being on their side.
So anyway, how about you and me make a deal. If Bernie doesn’t win the nomination, you are relieved from the hassle of having to hold your nose and vote. If he does win the nomination, I will pledge not to cast a vote. Then we have made a promise to each other not to do any further damage than is currently the case. And then if one of us feel regrets about this deal in early November, either one of us can back out and head to the polling place. Deal?
This reasoning gets thrown around a lot and I don’t know if anybody has taken the time to explain it in a way that I could understand. If the difference between Sanders and Biden is a difference of a kind, rather than degrees, how does the ‘difference of a kind’ translate to voting for Trump? Are they voting for the ideology or for the ideologue? Is this a vote for the cult of personality? Pick the biggest shit disturber in the bunch and see how much damage he can do to the system. How is that distinguishable from people who just want to see it all burn?
I don’t really think I’ve done that. There are a variety of reasons people are criticizing Bernie supporters, and that is one of them. But there are others. Conservative democrats sneering at the naive progressives, people who see the enthuasiam of Bernie supporters against their own jaded worldview and making themselves feel better by calling it a cult, all sorts of reasons.
No, that’s not true. I don’t think I’ve said anything in the entire thread that could be interpreted as “compromise is unacceptable”, and definitely less than half of my posts were “obscensity-filled tirades”
No, I don’t think I’ve made that case either.
Those are two separate issues. Lots of people are throwing a lot of criticism and disgust at Bernie supporters. Separately, and not within the scope of this thread, there very well could be a conspiracy among democrats to deny Bernie the nomination. I don’t think I linked these two things.
Well, given that how you described what I said in this thread is simply inaccurate, then obviously your conclusion here doesn’t follow.
I wonder - does vitriol and obscenity negate any need to analyze what’s actually being said in a post? Could I write insighful posts that happened to insult a group or use a profane word and the net result is that my post is meaningless?
I really wonder if you’ve actually been reading my posts, because I’m not threatening not to vote for whoever the democrats run. As someone who definitely does not want Trump to win, I really fucking hate when establishment democrats do their best to try to turn Bernie voters away by insulting them and telling them not to be so enthusiastic and to grow up, or convincing them somehow that they don’t need their votes because they’re not “real democrats” and whatever else they want to throw at them.
My purpose in creating this thread was to call out that behavior as stupid and counter-productive. I said that by being as dismissive as possible towards Bernie supporters while also telling them “you have to vote my way, because Trump”, and rubbing that in, you are absolutely daring people not to vote for the democrat.
Or, to look at this from another direction: let’s say, for some reason, that you wanted to discourage Bernie voters from voting for another democrat. Wouldn’t your tactic be to say the shit that a lot of people in this thread said? Oh, grow up you cultists piece of shit, now you have to vote for whoever we tell you to vote for because otherwise you’re proudly supporting Donald Trump!!! It’s like an anti-sales pitch. It’s exactly what you’d want to do if you wanted to make sure these people rejected you and didn’t bother to vote.
And why? Do you want to run the election on hard mode for some reason? Do you want to make sure that new, politically active people are more likely not to be democrats, or more likely to become apathetic again?
I don’t understand the purpose of your bargain. You just seem to be coming up with an excuse not to vote for Bernie if he’s the candidate.
Show me on this doll where the corporate cocksucker touched you.
That’s cute, criticizing me for a lack of meaningful content.
You did when you responded to me talking about it.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t be shocked when nobody else does either.
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With Biden vs. Sanders, I’m talking about the difference between a modern liberal capitalist and not a capitalist at all. Biden says private health insurance is working fine for a lot of people; Sanders says it should not be allowed to exist, except for supplemental coverage the government chooses not to offer. The key thing, I think, is the ideology that leads to those conclusions. Biden’s position is based on his overall opinion that the superstructure of the United States isn’t fundamentally broken; it just needs some tweaking and some undoing of some Trump damage. Biden tells rich people nothing’s going to fundamentally change, don’t worry. Sanders fundamental motivating principle is that everything needs to change, because the super rich shouldn’t exist and they’re killing the rest of us. That’s what I mean when I say it’s a difference of kind: Sanders is explicitly intending to tear down the economic framework to get at the inequality it creates. Biden is explicitly telling those responsible for the inequality that he’s not trying to make enemies of them. And health care is one way that shows up.
Anyway, that was a long preamble to answering the question. The answer, I think, to who would vote for Sanders and then Trump is: Republicans or right-leaning independents whose party loyalty was not so strong that they couldn’t be prised away with the right message about their own economic interests, but was strong enough to at least center their worldview on the idea of voting for the Republican, even if he was actually the worst human being we’ve found yet. That means that they had to be at a minimum racism/sexism/everythingism-tolerant enough to stomach the things that were coming out of Trump’s mouth, certainly, but I don’t think they were motivated like that the way Trump’s base is. I think this group is one where the old classic “economic anxiety” actually existed. They heard someone in Sanders talking about the fundamental unfairness of the fact that they had to work for, pay rent or mortgages to, and pay premiums and fees and surcharges to, a bunch of corporate assholes who didn’t give a shit whether they lived or died. And they thought hey, that sounds right. I’m into that. And it doesn’t seem like liberals like this guy, and I like that!
Then Sanders bows out, and they’re left with Trump and Clinton. And of the two, Trump is the one who knows how to pretend to speak the language of the working class. He says he’s gonna keep plants open, bring back coal jobs, punish other countries for screwing us in trade, make manufacturing lit again, and all that stuff. If anything he said was true, he was actually looking out for these people. They obviously weren’t in love with him, since they supported Sanders, so they weren’t blind to his faults. But then they looked at Trump and they looked at Clinton, and in Clinton they saw the reasons they weren’t a Democrat, i.e., they saw a Democrat, and in Trump they saw whatever the fuck that is. So some of them bought into Trump.
So I think that’s the answer, more or less. The people in the Venn diagram who were primarily motivated by their own economic circumstances, who were not savvy enough to see Trump as literally 100% full of shit literally all of the time, and who were at least not driven off by all the nazi-baiting and every other aspect of his personality. It’s not so hard to get to, if you put yourself in the mindset of someone who 1. is predisposed to dislike Clinton; 2. is either a. not particularly exercised about what they call identity politics, or b. is predisposed toward antagonism toward it because, ohhhh let’s say for example, they’re a white male and feel hard-done-by yourself; 3. is genuinely hopeful for something to save you from bleak economic conditions; and 4. doesn’t pay enough attention to, or have any particular expectations, when it comes to how Trump comports himself day to day.
I think the vast majority of Sanders supporters would not entertain a vote for Trump because of the, uh, Hitler issues, so I don’t think the Sanders/Trump group is super important. But they exist, and I think that is instructive when you consider the Sanders/nobody voters, who I think are extremely important. When you consider facts like more people caucusing in Kansas for Sanders than Trump, and then Clinton only getting 35% of the vote in the general, you have to wonder how many of those people could possibly have been edgy, nihilist Twitter teens. How many Chapo Traphouse listeners can Kansas have? So who were the rest? I think it’s crazy not to believe there’s a good chance that Sanders would turn out all kinds of weird creatures that Democrats currently don’t believe exist, is the point. And the more of those there are, the less reasonable it is to look at one of them and say “what the fuck is your individual problem?” At a high enough percentage, it stops being their problem that they’re not getting in line behind you, surely.
Just having watched your stance on politics, and knowing nothing else about your stance on Bernie Bros, I really doubted this. I did a search with your name and the word bros. I found a few that give more evidence to my doubt. Here’s a couple.
12/10/19
2/1/20
Those quotes and others don’t give me the feeling that you don’t have an opinion about Bernie Bros. I don’t think your opinion of SenorBeef is as unbiased as you’re saying.
Practically, one should plan for contingencies. Given that Sanders is old with a bum ticker, if he were to die tomorrow who would his most hard core fans throw their support behind? If he were to get the nomination but dies after the convention, who would they support? And if I stopped paying attention to politics until Halloween because y’all are getting on my last nerve, who would you want me to vote for?
Holy shit, two posts in four, maybe five years of Bernie’s presidential aspirations being in the news! One of which was a joke!
I think you’ve actually proven my point.
Wow, you really need to recalibrate your sarcasm detector if the bit about the rabid baboons didn’t tip you off. I’m going back to ignoring this thread now.
“Guys, I was JOKING when I said all those terrible things!”
Get back on your cactus.
All that means is that the Democrats lose one vote either way. That’s a horrible deal. These deals are supposed to be trades.
Plus, well, due to the nature of the secret ballot, and the fact that you still need to go to vote for other offices, there’s no way to make sure the deal is honored, so it’s in both party’s best interest to renege on the deal. That’s true for ANY deal about voting.
I welcome the Thousand Year Reign of Emperor Sanders!
'Cause you might have not noticed but, ‘making the super rich not exist’ and ‘tearing down the economic framework of America’ ain’t part of the description of the job Bernie is seeking.
CMC fnord!
Tragic.
It has come to my attention that nobody is giving you any pets, and I’m sorry for that. Good job! More emperor jokes! You’re making fnord jokes! You have been noticed!
If you have a point about the job description precluding anti-capitalist principles, and aren’t just keeping the razor’s edge on that old quill of yours for the next time Trump drone strikes the wrong school, lets the wrong CEO write an executive order or commits some other high crime like saying Hillary has a big butt, I would be overcome with paroxysms of delight if you would make it.
I’ll remember who didn’t vote for the only possible alternative, given our current system, and pat them on the back for their ideological purity.
CMC fnord!
/sigh
We’re gonna lose again, aren’t we?
Right now most of the people I know who voted for Hillary are ready to hold their nose and vote for whoever but I think Trump probably picked up more voters than he lost over the last few years. How many voters have Democrats picked up? How many have they lost? How many of these are in swing states?