What if he motivates people to turn out and vote for Trump?
The Republicans got sixty-three million votes in 2016. The Socialists got ninety-one thousand votes in 2016. And here we are four years later, nominating a Socialist to run against a Republican.
Haha very good point. Getting the youth vote to actually VOTE would be a game changer.
The democrats have to fix their message on socialism. Despite even what Bernie and AOC claim about themselves, they are not socialists. At least not the kind that should scare conservatives. They don’t want to take the Rich’s money and redistribute it to the poor. They DO want to tax the rich more heavily and use that money to improve society. But we need a better term for this. “Social programs” vs socialism.
If you asked me in 2015 whether Trump would ever get elected President, I would have laughed at you. Perhaps the old common sense wisdom about who is electable is mistaken.
THanks to Bloomberg’s disastrous first debate and his not too great second one either, Biden has come back to life. I don’t think South Carolina is necessarily going to reverse the momentum that Sanders has already established, but it keeps his campaign relevant, which could loom larger if Sanders somehow falters as the race continues.
How many votes did black candidates get in 2004?
They must bend the knee support Bernie.
Practically, because the Democrats would not survive if they ratfucked him, it would destroy the party.
Also morally, because he is a good (Neutral Good / Scrupulous in Paladium), popular Democrat with good policies and beating the Republican opponent in polls, like we haven’t had in decades.
Just tell me the convention isn’t in Chicago this year…
If by fix, you mean completely remove the term from their lexicon and rebrand their ideas and plans as something totally different then you are correct. If you mean to educate people to believe that socialism means what you think it means, then you are waking into the valley of disappointments and that way is decades long. There are far to many examples of failed ‘socialist’ states for your opponents to drag out of the history books. Examples that failed spectacularly.
The term is “social democracy”, like the systems in Sweden, Canada, and most of western Europe. The Republicans will of course use the term “socialism” and allude to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and the former Soviet Union as exemplars of Bernie’s policies. “Socialism” is still probably the most toxic word in American politics.
I would have laughed, too (and did). But the mistake here is not in underestimating Bernie’s popularity in a general election. The mistake here is underestimating the stupidity of the average voter. Trump had massive appeal to gullible dumbasses and bigots, who were more numerous than anyone imagined and were motivated to come out in droves, and to those committed to right-wing ideology who would cheerfully have voted for an orange marmoset if it has an “R” after its name. Bernie appeals to intellectuals who actually understand his policies, and a dedicated base that is very committed but in the great scheme of things not very large. I would posit that the former greatly outnumber the latter.
Former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson put it very well when he said “…* fundamentally I am very concerned about his ability to win in November. I think he is divisive. I don’t think he would grow the tent. And I think you have to do more than turn out what he has — which is a very committed base but is overall quite small in the overall scheme of the electorate*.”
Maybe I’m wrong and a lot more people than I think are committed to fairly radical change and/or are just sick of Trump. But Bernie is nevertheless going to have to move decisively and convincingly much more to the middle of the road for the general.
All such countries that I can think of were communist, not socialist. Social democracy is something entirely different – I linked to a description and example countries in the previous post. These are all successful countries because their economies are fundamentally capitalist with government intervention to ensure a just and adequate social infrastructure, such as health care and welfare and disability support. Canada, for instance, spends 11% of its GDP on income security compared to 7% for the US; 1.4% on housing and community services compared to 0.5% for the US; 1% on recreation and culture compared to 0.3% for the US.
They should go with voters’ second choice. It’s Bernie baby!
The idea that Trump won because the idiots and rubes turned out to vote for him is false. Trump got a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Mitt Romney. He got fewer votes in Wisconsin than Romney and approximately the same votes as Romney in all the rust belt states. Trump’s win was a result of former Obama voters NOT showing up in the same amount of numbers to support Hillary.
There is very little evidence that Bernie can cause a massive turnout for himself with simple socialist policies. Obama was unique because, let’s be honest, blacks turned out in droves for the opportunity to elect and re-elect the first black president. There is nothing remotely similar out there that would cause such a massive turnout.
Yes, there are people who would vote for Satan if he had an R next to his name and there are the young liberals who would vote for anyone with a D next to his name. Those young people who are all fired up about socialist Bernie would vote anyways and vote for anyone with a D next to his or her name. But the winner is who can convince white suburban women to skew their way. And nothing in Bernie’s platform, nothing at all, will cause them to vote for him.
But to the point of the thread: I don’t see any reason for weeping or teeth gnashing because the plurality winner will not necessarily be the nominee. Them’s the rules. If you want to be the nominee you need to get a majority of delegates. Full stop. If you come up short of that, the rules allow for horse trading. There’s nothing nefarious about this as it has been the well known rule since party politics began.
And this is a positive. If Bernie gets 40% but the remaining 60% are “Yes, we didn’t all vote for a particular candidate, but our vote is definitely not Bernie” then that 60% should overrule the 40% to get a more consensus nominee. That makes for a stronger party.
Yes, if Biden gets 25% that means that 75% did not vote for him, but if most of that 75% are “Biden wasn’t our first pick, but he is certainly a quality pick that we could support, and definitely anyone but Bernie” then those 75% would be satisfied with Biden and unify the party. The rules serve a purpose.
Clinton won a popular supermajority but lost because of electoral system bias for rural states. A candidate could take an electoral win with only 29% of the popular vote. Convince that would be a fair result.
Meanwhile, Mayor Pete has dropped out. So my decision on the Calif primary is simplified slightly. I still have a day to guess who best could beat the rigged general election.
You are assuming that Bernie is everyone else’s last choice. That is far from reality, as Bernie is the most popular second choice on average. Given this, if he has a plurality and is the most popular second choice, they have to give him the nomination.
GIVE the nod? Does the DNC leadership award nominations or is a majority of delegate and superdelegate votes needed? Is that in the convention rules somewhere? 
Once that first vote fails to reach a consensus, there will be backroom deals and discussions aplenty. There’s no single kingmaker, but essentially a deal will be reached by the inner circle of where the votes are going to get the person they want in there. If you think they’re just going to keep all their thoughts to themselves and vote their heart through the whole process, you’re kidding yourself. It will be a cutthroat political mess.
And even this assumes that, once the party bigwigs realize that nobody will get a majority on the first ballot, they don’t start the back room wheeling and dealing before the convention even begins, so they can have a winner on the first ballot and not have to worry about any voters saying, “The party did it again - I’m not voting in November, and so what if Trump is elected again? That means my candidate can be elected in 2024 rather than waiting until 2028.”