I’m sure the “you” he’s addressing are the people described in his first sentence.
Yes, Bernie still has money rolling in, and that’s really, really important. Not so much for this cycle, which is pretty much decided. But for the future…oh, my! (Please assume a George Takei impression-voice). Boycotting Hillary isn’t cutting of your nose to spite your face, it’s cutting off your dick to spite you wife, after she left you for the cabana boy!
The menshevik, Clinonista, third-legged dead Blue Dog Republican Lite movement was all about the money. As America was…was, mind you!..it was a tactical decision that I still loathe, even as I grudgingly accept the practicality of it. Corporate money ruled, there was no internet, no Facebook. Without big checks from fat cats, there would not have been even the pale and lifeless Democratic Party.
Bernie is rolling in bucks from small, individual donations! Your correspondent from the conservative wing of the extreme left would like to seize you by the lapels and shout it in your face. That is big, big, bigger than Godzilla’s pecker!
Item: when Jeb(!) was the presumptive front-runner, gonna sew it all up in a few days or weeks, remember? Why? Because he had all the corporado money. And that’s what wins elections, always has been, forever shall be!
Until it isn’t. And now, maybe it isn’t. New Hampshire, IIRC, but the point stands if I don’t. They poured millions…$40 million?..to nudge Jeb(!) just a hair up in the rankings, just to keep him afloat and…bupkis! Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing!
Maybe the Pillars of Heaven did not shake, but did you notice the quivering?
If the Dems are no longer dependent on corporate money, then they don’t have to suck it. Imagine what that could mean! Hell, I might even become a Democrat! Or maybe that’s just the coffee talking, I am prone to enthusiasms.
Can Hillary change her stripes? Heck, maybe she even wants to! We can assist by providing motivation. Oh, yeah! Gotta nickel that says pretty soon she will start to hint that the whole Clintonista thing was Bill’s idea! And Bill would back her up on that! He can’t seem to keep his zipper up, but when it comes to politics, the man knows his shit!
Bernie gave us this. And a further nickel says he’s just as surprised as the rest of us! And brothers and sisters, pals and gals, we have the opportunity to hand the Forces of Darkness a bitch-slapping they will never forget! Good Morning, wake up, here’s your coffee and your slap!
Bury the past, bury the hatchet, kick some ass! Power to the people! (Hmm, that’s a pretty good line, might make a good slogan. Make a better reality…)
Oh, almost forgot! Venceremos!
But he says he doesn’t want to get onboard with the “you” (me, as I took it, since he was addressing me), who, if it’s those people from the first sentence, have nothing to do with me – and I explicitly asked him to ‘get onboard’ (in the sense of supporting Hillary, should she be nominated) for totally different reasons…
So I’ll ask SenorBeef again – will you get onboard with me (not those folks), and support Hillary Clinton, should she be nominated, since it’s vital for the country that the Republican candidate be defeated (since they’d be so, so much more damaging than Hillary)?
What you’re forgetting is that it will disenfranchise you too. Don’t pretend you’re above this political theater if it comes down to only Trump and Hillary. You don’t get to retreat to a magical bubble where all of Sanders’ plans become law and laugh as you watch the rest of us suffer on earth. You’re part of this too. Care about Planned Parenthood? Its funding is gone if you don’t vote Clinton and Trump wins. Like what Sanders said about free college? How about higher costs and less ability to declare bankruptcy if Trump wins? You applaud Sanders when he said we should break up the big banks? If you don’t vote Clinton and Trump wins, guess who’s getting a seat at the table writing new protection laws for Wall Street? The big banks!
And all because you disagree with some of us in a sea of millions. I get it, its the primaries, people are passionate, stuff is said that we can’t take back. But if your goal is to elevate the progressive policies of people like Sanders vs. the establishment, think of what deserting Clinton would mean. Many of us are STILL pissed at Nader for helping to steal the 2000 election. Do you think we’ll give you a bigger seat at the table if you screw us now? If anything, we’ll try to push you out as much as possible, and then you can watch in horror as the Democrats fracture and infight like the GOP is doing now. You’re in this too, like it or not
No, I’m not pledging fealty to Hillary Clinton. Why should I? I’m not even a democrat. We don’t even know who the republican nominee will be. And I feel no obligation to pick either side.
I’m not on your team. I’m not on anyone’s team. I will use my judgment to satisfy my conscience at a time a decision has to be made.
That’s fine – I’ll ask again when the nominees are set. I hope that your decision will be based on what’s best for the country, and not based on some mean things that some supporters of the candidates said to you.
[QUOTE=YogSothoth]
Care about Planned Parenthood? Its funding is gone if you don’t vote Clinton and Trump wins. Like what Sanders said about free college? How about higher costs and less ability to declare bankruptcy if Trump wins? You applaud Sanders when he said we should break up the big banks? If you don’t vote Clinton and Trump wins, guess who’s getting a seat at the table writing new protection laws for Wall Street? The big banks!
[/quote]
Those seem the worst possible points of digression between Trump and Clinton. He hasn’t been rabid about Planned Parenthood, he loves bankruptcy and big banks took his yacht and a hotel from him.
I am, actually. I don’t have a team. My identity is not tied to a party or a particular brand of politics. I want to see the world as it is, and use my best judgment. That places me above all of the people who’ve chosen a team and make the facts fit their biases.
You actually picked some poor examples. Trump supported Planned Parenthood from what I recall, and Clinton is more beholden to banks than Trump is. Charles Koch is thinking about endorsing Clinton in her presidential run. He’s more scared of Trump.
This actually is not my goal. I’m not particularly invested in progressive politics as a whole.
Yes, actually. That’s the only way you actually CAN influence the parties to give you a seat at the table. If Trump wins 48-45-7, and the 7% is Jill Stein, then the democrats are going to change their platform to try to be inclusive towards the things that 7% wants, so they can win again.
“Shut up and vote democrat no matter what” is what makes the democrats uninterested in actually representing the wants of their constituents. If you give them unfaltering loyalty no matter what they do, what interest do they have in actually serving what you want? They’ve got your loyalty and your vote no matter how hard they screw you over.
Right, because what the major political parties want is to push out people who are otherwise inclined to support them.
So do I, so did I, that’s why I’m pulling on this end of the rope, and not the other one. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. What else have we got?
(Snipped for brevity and bolding, mine.)
If “We have to invade Iraq because of 9/11!” is the battle cry of low-IQ Fox News watchers, then surely “Clinton voted for it because she’s a war-monger” is the battle-cry of hysterical Clinton-haters.
And I was also against Iraq from the start, but I recognize that those who voted for the authorization for use of force weren’t blood thirsty, but because of intel that they were given that said that Iraq was an imminent threat and that we didn’t want another 9/11. That context is different than just Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and context is important.
I’m kind of amazed that you guys don’t see that you’re losing a young generation that wants to be politically active.
They voted for Obama because he promised hope and change and seemed like a different sort of politician - not at all business as usual. And they were disappointed, he mostly governed as though he were a firm part of the establishment. We can argue about Obama’s success as a president, but he certainly wasn’t the radically different candidate that a lot of his supporters hoped.
So this time around they turned to a guy who no one can doubt his credentials as something different, as anti-establishment. The guy became a senator outside of either of the major parties, and that’s pretty incredible. He has decades of proving that he is as dedicated a public servant as there can be. I don’t think anyone can question is sincerity and integrity.
People are clamoring for him because he’s what we hoped Obama would be, at least in terms of a sincere player who isn’t beholden to the plutocratic interests that have controlled our politics so thoroughly. They know that Bernie wouldn’t do a sudden 180 when he got in the white house.
To these people, Hillary Clinton is the worst candidate. She is the polar opposite in this regard. She’s a slimey politician who lies every day, who evades, who changes her opinions when her focus groups tell her so. She’s been in bed with the financial sector of our economy our whole career. She’s as bought as any politician can be. She is, through and through, a tool of the establishment.
So you have this growing, passionate group who’s dedicated to having anything other than the same old same old, and you’re saying “ok you silly kids, you had your fun, but now it’s time for you to fall in lockstep and the exact opposite of the thing that has made you so interested in politics and so passionate. It’s time to put away your silly notions about changing the way things are done in Washington. Clinton is going to happen. It’s time to bend over and take it”, and then you say THEY’RE the bad guys because they don’t feel an undying loyalty to a party that doesn’t represent them.
All the while, you’ve been sneering at them and questioning their motives, calling them “Bernie Bros”, treating them like idiot children. And then you demand their loyalty. And the best argument you’ve got is “you know how shitty we’ve been to you, and how much you dislike our candidate? Well the other one is probably worse. So haha, you’re stuck. Bend over and take it.”
Not only are you taking interested young politically passionate people and breaking their spirit, you’re making them disgusted at your party. And it’s exactly the wrong approach to take with Trump as the other guy. Because after months of belittling them and insulting them and telling them they’re obligated to now support you, they’re going to be pretty fucking ready to buck the establishment. And you know who’s left in the race who appeals to such voters?
You could’ve gotten any incredible boost from this influx of young, socially progressive, extremely motivated new voters. Instead you condescended to them and demanded fealty even though you had no intention of representing their interest. You call them “entitled millenials” when they even ask you why they should vote for your side if you don’t care about any of the issues they care about.
It’s not the people who refuse to vote for Hillary that are cutting off their nose to spite their face. It’s you, the party establishment, who ridiculed and belittled Bernie supporters and tried to convince them they ha no choice but to be loyal to you, and they’re wrong if they aren’t. It’s a completely self-inflicted wound, and you’re all too smug to see it.
As a member of that generation, I disagree almost entirely.
As others have pointed out, your examples are really bad. But this part is true. It’s not possible to be simply above it all if you have to interact with the world. It’s possible not to care, but it’s not possible to be unimpacted (which Firefox tells me is not a word, but which makes sense in this context even so).
I actually spun off the discussion I posted in #150 into another thread because I thought it was an idea worth examining on its own.
Some Hillary supporters have been assholes, but I don’t see how that means that her entire campaign, all her supporters, the Democratic party establishment in general, or any other very broad group, has mistreated Bernie supporters. The vast majority of Bernie supporters that I know (and I know a lot!) are upset he’s losing but still plan to support the Democratic nominee, because they believe that the Republican candidate would be so, so much more damaging for America than Hillary Clinton.
So, from what I can tell, SenorBeef, most Bernie supporters don’t agree with you, and most Hillary supporters haven’t mistreated Bernie supporters.
Sorry, in my FB feed and the comments section of “The Atlantic”, “The Nation”, WSJ, and MSNBC (among others), it’s the Bernie supporters who storm in and say “You are a low-info voter, voting for Shillary. She’s evil and vile, her butt stinks, etc., etc.” Heck, your words above are full of nonsense about focus groups and lying every day. Dear Lord.
When (some) Bernie supporters are debated or disagreed with, or the obvious outcome of voting a third party is pointed out, they go into high dudgeon about how they won’t be bullied into voting for anyone and only their politician is white as snow, and it’s more important for them to throw their vote away on Jill Stein, and Trump be damned. I have ideals too, but I’m a realist, and this garbage about “Well, the DNC should have put forth better candidates!!” is magical thinking. The political process hasn’t changed much in many years, and unless the “better candidate” can navigate that process and get more support, they will move off the stage. Just the way the real world works.
Since SenorBeef went to the trouble of starting another thread(linked in post 154) maybe the hijack can go there?
Point taken. There’s so much that Trump and Clinton differ on sometimes its hard to pick which ones I want to include in a post.
It’s funny - you’re so convinced that Clinton is good in every way and Trump is bad every way that you feel that when you list the differences, it’s automatically in Clinton’s favor. And then you pick issues that actually demonstrate that’s not true. But I’m quite certain it won’t cause you a moment of reflection, to think on what that means.
Yes, you should talk about how she only wants a small wall and America paying for it is fine. Big differences like that.