The annoyance you see is about the fact that, to Team Bernie, there’s no such thing as *losing *graciously. Or even admitting having lost.
I don’t have contempt for Bernie Sanders or his voters as a whole, which is something I mentioned down-thread.
What I do admittedly have a LOT of contempt for are those who want to keep fighting the good fight when they know it’s a lost cause and they know that the only possible immediate result is that it increases the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. I’m not going to sit here and listen to people try to make a legitimate case that there’s no difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the White House and that it’s better to sit out the election or to do the equivalent by voting out of protest for someone who probably isn’t even on the ballot in most states.
I know, I know – we should have given the radicals someone radical to vote for. Look, Bernie Sanders was given a fair chance. Actually, he was given more than a fair chance considering he’s not even a true democrat, yet was still allowed the opportunity to use the democratic party machine. He made a good go of it. There’s a very good chance that he’ll have a lot of his platform implemented if he and his voters remain with the democrats in November. He can either get a lot of what he wants – or none of it and insist on taking his ball and going home. We tried that with Ralph Nader. We got 8 years of George W Bush. Not much else needs to be said.
I’m sick and tired of hearing or reading about how Hillary isn’t a progressive and that she’s just another republican. That kind of rhetoric ranks right up there with Alex Jones’ and Glenn Beck’s load of bile. The reason that Hillary Clinton has unfavorable ratings is because she’s being viewed so negatively is because a generation of independent “the system’s rigged, the government sucks” voters have bought into the republican propaganda. Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Bengazi…all a bunch of right wing smears. And yet I read people on Huffington Post who call themselves progressives for Bernie writing things that are worse about her than anything Charles Krauthammer or Ann Coulter might put to press.
Contempt? Not for someone who decided that Bernie Sanders better represents what they want in a progressive. That’s legitimate disagreement in a democracy. But someone who insists on running over the cliff to prove a moot point? Yeah, I guess I do have some contempt for that, especially since I remember that progressives have tried that strategy before and I and millions of others had to live through the consequences of it. I don’t apologize.
Ahem, 2008. Leaders don’t give up before the game is over, and leaders don’t take victory laps before the game is over either. If Hillary is the presumptive nominee then it’s her behavior that needs scrutiny, not someone you think can’t win anyway.
To what does this refer?
Today it refers to two presumptive candidates who haven’t won yet.
The game *is *over. :rolleyes:
He can no longer win, but he can still damage her chances in the general, and he and his supporters are doing just that. Yes, that behavior needs scrutiny.
But what constitutes the “victory laps”?
How do you not have a valid ID in this day and age? I mean, I’m not even talking about elections. Get some sort of ID. You’ll find it enormously useful if you want to do most anything.
PopSci (Really? The spellchecker didn’t flag it? Who wrote it, an elderly nerd?) interviewed this Obama fellow about technology and I think this guy should be president.
Many people have ID’s even state issued ones with their pictures on them, they seem to be good for all types of stuff. Then some ass hats decide that’s not good enough for voting because people with them might vote Democrat.
What I notice is that Bernie fans think they should be able to bash Hillary and her supporters in very harsh terms, but then we should treat them with kid gloves to try to cajole them into our coalition. I honestly think sometimes that they think we see her as corrupt, venal, dishonest, bloodthirsty, in bed with Wall Street, etc., but just support her for pragmatic reasons or something, so we shouldn’t be offended when she is slurred that way, or when we are tagged as establishment stooges. Well, wrong.
(Also, what **asahi **and **Elvis **said.)
This speech touched on an element of elections that I’ve been trying to communicate for years. Down-ballot elections matter, probably more than the Presidential election
The President doesn’t have a whole lot to do with your property tax bill. The President doesn’t name your Chief of Police. The President doesn’t write and enforce local building codes. The President doesn’t fund local EMS services. The President doesn’t decide which roads are going to get repaired this budget year. The President doesn’t prosecute local corruption cases. The President doesn’t decide on your public school curriculum.
State and local politicians do these things, and I would hazard a guess that these things have a much more direct impact on your day-to-day life than most things the President does. They are worth, at a minimum, the same amount of your attention as the Presidential election.
In addition, they are the “farm team” for your candidates for Senate, Governor, and ultimately President. You don’t like the current slate of candidates? They didn’t appear fully-formed from out of the ether. They started somewhere, and if we elect decent people early on in the process, we increase the chances that we have decent people to vote for in the larger elections.
And, your vote counts more. You have a much greater impact on local elections. Your vote really matters.
So, while it’s possible that the “Bernie Bros” were the intended target of the President’s speech, I really do believe he was speaking to everyone who has thrown their hands up in the air and said, “they’re all terrible.”
I honestly have no idea what this means. There’s a difference between belittling someone’s supporters (which is what this thread is about) and campaigning for election.
Well, of course Bernie’s not going to admit having lost as long as he’s still winning states and delegates, and has not been mathematically eliminated. I think he and most of his supporters realize he doesn’t have a realistic path to the nomination. Just as it was when he started, it’s about influencing the conversation within the party.
And I think you should be not so quick to lump all Bernie supporters together. Bashing anyone in harsh terms, especially within the same party, is counterproductive. I submit that your complaint only applies to a small percentage of Bernie fans.
Well, I was giving you benefit of the doubt by assuming you saw those things too, but maybe you’re not that smart. Joke! That was a joke.
Look, I don’t ascribe motives to Hillary supporters that they don’t claim for themselves, and I’ve seen many, many posts here on this board where people basically said “Sure, I agree with Sanders on all these issues but I’m voting for Hillary because she’s got a better chance of winning.” That sounds like supporting her for pragmatic reasons - and there’s nothing wrong with choosing to use your vote that way. But I don’t criticize Hillary voters as a monolithic bloc and I’d appreciate a little acknowledgment that all of Bernie’s supporters are not 25 year old frat boys who’ve never followed politics before.
I wouldn’t call Clinton corrupt, venal or bloodthirsty. Dishonest and in bed with Wall Street, sure. I don’t know why that counts as “bashing” her nor do I see anything wrong with expressing that opinion. At the risk of damning with faint praise, she’s still way better than Trump.
People who devote themselves to politics enough to know who all the minor players are and where they stand on the issues are freaks. There are too many productive and constructive things to do besides pay attention to politics. I’m glad the masses don’t care.
If someone doesn’t want to get into the weeds of local politics, fine; they’re ceding some of their power to others who do have the time and energy to be engaged, but if you’re reasonably content with the status quo, no real harm done, since the results are reflective of what you want. Obama is talking about would-be activists who clamor for change and yet whose scope of activism starts and ends with nominating a single person for president.
Didn’t you once say you got disability benefits?
Don’t you need to provide at least a State ID to get them?
Good list. Another important one: the determination of electoral-district boundaries–usually by state legislatures or by commissions appointed by state legislatures. This has a huge impact on the makeup of Congress, and of course the makeup of Congress has a huge impact on what laws are passed.
So election of state legislators is far from being a dull irrelevancy.
You don’t form a core philosophy based on potential exceptions.
Right. He’s saying if you want to change things, then get in there where you can change things. It should go without saying, and did, that if you don’t mind how things are WRT some particular aspect of life then by all means go right ahead and let those who do care be in charge. Bringing that up would only dilute the message to that specific audience – remember, it’s commencement at Howard, this is the cream of African American academia, where there is an expectation of activism and of uplifting the community, and the temptation to limit it to simply “speaking truth” wthout taking the power.
Notably, early in the speech he brings up how his election did not usher in a ‘post-racial’ era and points out he did not promise that, others propagated that expectation. That his election was important and proved something but it did not finish the process. And then he reminded * the people he was addressing* that for them whatever inconvenience may exist these days for political participation is nothing compared to what it was in the past or what it would be to the underclass, and with their educations they are the ones in a position to get in there and do something.
Carlb, great post.
And I laughed (literally). But I really do think a lot of Bernie followers believe that in all sincerity.