Give me reasons why you would not support Sanders as president. His SS expansion bill seems pretty good to me, his M4A bill seems pretty good to me, and I agree with pretty much every position he has. Such as criminals having the right to vote, and in prison. Or such as people being automatically registered to vote when they turn 18.
Now I understand if someone has issues with his specific healthcare proposal, maybe you think a system like Germany’s would work better in america, I don’t know you tell me. Any arguments about his viability as a democratic front runner I throw out the window. I wont entertain any notions of biden being a better front runner than sanders, we tried a center-right candidate in 2016 and she got obliterated. I want to know specifics about what you don’t support that bernie has proposed, and what other candidates propose that you believe is better. This isn’t about what you think is best for dem party, this is about what you thinks best for America. Specifics.
(I’m well aware most dopers are center-left, that’s why I want specifics not vague speculations about Americans feelings towards an old white male whos a self proclaimed democratic socialist)
I don’t think it constitutes “vague speculation” to believe that electability is a valid concern. I question if Sanders is electable. I might be willing to roll the dice on that factor if it weren’t for the fact that I also regard the current incumbent as the proverbial “clear and present danger” and not a typical Republican who can be “lived with”. On a lot of fronts this election is the “last shot before the buzzer” and I’m not inclined to take chances.
You’re right, he’s much worse. He wants to cut social security and medicare, hes pro-war by every stretch of the term, he’s voted for things that are anti-gay and unconstitutional, was supported mass incarceration and before any centrists point out so did bernie, well bernie was an independent and only supported as a compromise to protect women.
And yes, Clinton did get “obliterated”. How else do you describe her managing to fuck up the 2016 election and lose to trump, I describe it as obliteration. She got obliterated by a richer, whiter, more powerful demagog. It’s by all means, obliteration. Hence her political career being virtually non-existent now outside of what little work she does in her foundation and the few tweets she makes.
When Reagan beat Mondale in 1984 he had 58% of the popular vote and carried 49 states out 50. Reagan obliterated Mondale. When Trump beat Hillary he had 46% of the popular vote and carried 30 states. Hillary managed to get 48% of the popular vote and carried 20 states. It’s certainly a Trump victory but calling it an obliteration is a bit of a hyperbole. Unless we’re just going to call all victories an obliteration here on out.
First, a point which many seem to ignore: The President doesn’t pass legislation; Congress does. Some of the most controversial legislation has been passed when a centrist was in the White House, not a radical. Who improved relations with China? It was the anti-communist Nixon. Who achieved advances in civil rights? It was the Southern politico L.B. Johnson. If a large swathe of Congress and the American public gets behind UHC, free college, etc. it is more likely to happen with a moderate in the W.H. than a radical whom many Americans fear or despise.
OP doesn’t seem interested in debating policy specifics, nor the top three concerns for the Democratic primary season (electability, electability, and … I’m pulling a Rick Perry here, what was the third top concern? oh yes, Electability), perhaps OP wants to debate how good a President Sanders would actually be.
I’m not really sure how effective and competent a President Sanders would be. Let’s go down the checklist: (1) No foreign experience except cavorting with foreign communists in his youth. Check. (2) Alienates rather than might unify half the country. Check. (3) Will be 79 years old by Election Day 2020. Check. (4) His experience as an Administrator was 30 years ago as mayor of a town far far smaller than South Bend, Indiana. Check.
He’s been consistent on nearly every position he’s held since entering office. He’s virtually untouched by corporate money, pacs, hedge funds, etc… He’s proposed new ideas in our country, such as free college tuition, universal healthcare, so when you sit there are list of mundane reasons for why Sanders is not electable, please explain why nearly every democratic candidate is running on the positions he introduced in 2016?
I’ll tell you why, and you already know why. Because the American people overwhelmingly support Bernie Sander’s proposals. Do you really want to get into how electable Sanders is? I’m not going to have this debate if you want to bring up “he lost to hillary” while ignoring the fact every delegate appointed by the DNC voted for hillary, while every non appointed delegate voted Sanders. I also wont have the debate if you’re going to fall back on he’s not a democrat, you’re god damn right he’s not a democrat he’s a leftist, a real leftist. Not this center right corporate bs the democratic party embodies.
I’m aware dopers are centrists, and I love it that Bernie Sanders triggers centrist who want to pretend like they’re leftists. You’re no better than a republican if you think you can find the middle ground on every issue. Sorry but in real life, there are sides. You can either let those in power have their way, or you can practice dissidence. Obama spouted change, but he played the role that the democratic party plays. Center right bipartisanship pandering to republicans on nearly every issue. The democratic party if it wants to survive and not get eaten alive, needs to embrace the likes of Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ro Khanna, etc…
Let me make one other thing clear, if it wasn’t for Bernie Sanders, do you really believe corporate media would be even mentioning universal healthcare, free college tuition, or raising the minimum wage for the first time in a decade? I don’t, and I don’t think any rational person would either.
Well how will they do that? Biden certainly isn’t going to. Other candidate likes harris or booker aren’t going to head over to west virginia to pressure Joe Manchin into voting for his “stuff”. Bernie has already laid out he will go to the places that we have these kind of people in office at, then pressure them by getting their constituents to support bernie’s policies and bills.
Matter of fact, all virtually every other candidate besides a handful of them like Tulsi or yang are going to do is flipflop on this issues and propose half assed versions of them instead. Biden for example wants to cut SS and medicare, meanwhile he thinks it’s fine to keep feeding the military industrial complex by playing ball. So this notion someone else will get them passed, no, they wont. It wont be what bernie proposes, it’ll be a centrist bill that tries to walk that middle ground that realistically doesn’t exist and then do you know whats going to happen? Republicans will cuck the democrats like they have been doing. Paid to lose, and paid to concede.
I supported Sanders last time around in the primary because I agreed with his policy positions. I will not support him in the primary this time because I believe that he lacks the ability to beat Trump. If he were to win the Democratic nomination I would absolutely vote for him in the general, which I believe distinguishes me from your typical Sanders supporter. I don’t believe that Sanders supporters will be on board with a Democratic nominee that isn’t Sanders, and I hope that number is small enough to not tip the general in Trump’s electoral favor.
My sole negative with Sanders is his age. I think the US has done better as a whole when the age of the President trended younger, despite party affiliation.
I think Bernie is a little more of a pragmatist than moderates give him credit for, and…I think Biden is more of a progressive than Bernistas give him credit for. Biden is a lifelong centrist, but he has shown the ability to evolve and change.
I know consistency is attractive to people, but having the ability to shift politically and flip flopping are often good things, IMO, not bad. I’d rather have someone who is open to questioning his own beliefs from to time to time. I’d also rather have someone in office who can evaluate his/her situation and understand when he has the power to get something accomplished in its original form, and when he needs to compromise.
One of the reasons why we have the ACA now is that Obama had the ability to do this, and while ACA isn’t perhaps as great as it could have been, it’s absolutely been a god-send for those who couldn’t previously get insurance. Had Obama insisted on a public option in 2009, we wouldn’t have had ACA. The Republicans still would have found something to campaign on, would have taken over the congress, and we’d still be without it today. Instead, we have a piece of progressive legislation, however imperfect it might be, that millions of voters have used and insist on keeping, and will threaten to vote against Republicans if they take it away.
I used to believe that Bernie was a curmudgeon, but the more I’ve read about him, the more convinced I am that he’s not just an activist but also a good, pragmatic legislator. Even so, I think some of his ideas, like UHC and free college, are just not going to sell well in certain parts of the country - that’s one problem. I’m also less confident that Bernie is prepared for managing American foreign policy. He hardly ever talked about it in 2016, yet he wanted everyone to take him seriously as a presidential candidate, which struck me as odd to say the least.
While your other criticisms are fair, this one really isn’t. We could run Mitt Romney with a D in front of his name and he’d still “alienate half the country” - not because he’s a liberal, but because he’s a democrat. What, you think even the most milquetoast centrist candidate won’t get targeted by relentless bullshit smear campaigns that paint them as a literal satanist child rapist?
Maybe pizzagate is a low blow. Most people aren’t big fans of this stupid conspiracy theory. You know what probably isn’t a low blow? This shit. And this shit.
I will beat this drum until I’m blue in the face, but when we’re talking about “electability”, we shouldn’t be looking to the center, as the center basically doesn’t exist any more. The “swing voter” is largely a political artifact that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, there are quite a few million voters who stay home because they’re jaded and feel the system offers them nothing - a “radical” (read: someone willing to implement things most modern countries already have) will invigorate them and give them something to hope for. Biden will not.
This may be a good time to drop this Slate article, talking about exactly such people: “The Non-White Working Class”.
I don’t support Sanders because he hasn’t convinced me of his ability to run an administration, pass a legislative agenda and get elected in the first place. Supporting him isn’t my job but convincing me is his job. So far, he’s not doing a great job with me or most other Democrats, to look at recent polling. Nonsense like “you’re not a real liberal” or “blah blah cuck” probably isn’t going to do much to help so you should probably spend that energy telling Sanders to up his game and figure out where his disconnect is.
First, the caveat: if Sanders wins the nomination, I will almost certainly vote for him over Trump (and to be clear, the circumstances under which I’d vote for Trump are so extreme that, should they come to pass, democracy is pretty much fucked anyway).
However, while I agree with many of Sanders’ positions, there are several reasons why I would prefer the Democratic nominee to be someone else, some of which were suspiciously excluded in the OP but I’m going to mention anyway. In no particular order:
Party. He’s not a Democrat. I’m all for a ‘big tent’ but I don’t think it unreasonable to ask the person running for the nomination of a political party to be a member of that political party, and Sanders refuses to do so while still trying to win that position. It’s not a good message and Sanders hasn’t addressed it in any way that didn’t come across as wanting to have his cake and eat it too. That said, I’m not a Democrat either - but then I’m not running for office under their banner.
Age. For the same reason that I’d rather Biden and Warren weren’t running, I would prefer a younger candidate who doesn’t pose a health risk and is at least somewhat more connected to the concerns and values of post-Boomer generations.
Electability. As I’ve said elsewhere, should Sanders be nominated, the Republican narrative for the remainder of the election season would be “SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM etc”, and for a large percentage of the country the undefined spectre of “socialism” is a greater evil than atheist child-molesting lepers. I’ve heard the argument that the “socialist” thing is already baked into Bernie’s numbers but it really isn’t; the GOP haven’t even begun to unleash their smear machine on him. And it doesn’t matter that most people would agree with his specific policies; most people also would have agreed with Clinton’s policies but never even considered them because it was all about the emotive narratives, as all elections are. Policies don’t really win elections, alas.
His base. The “Bernie Bro” contingent (by which I mean the irrationally rabid core of his base) remind me of Ron Paui’s supporters - they are hardcore True Believers who spent the 2016 fucking things up while demanding that everyone bow down to Saint Bernie and claiming that the whole country were really behind them if only the DNC would let them show it and then petulantly whining about how everyone was being so mean and unfair. This was not Sanders’ fault, although his efforts to mitigate their effects were tepid at best, but nonetheless they’re already out in force and likely to fuck things up again. Also: you know that sense of entitlement that Sanders supporters repeatedly accused Clinton of, regarding the nomination? Here’s a mirror, guys.
Effectiveness. Sanders is a power in Congress. I think he (and Warren as well) could be far more effective at advancing their respective agendas in their current positions than they could from the White House. If he’s about the agenda rather than personal glory, he should strategically support someone else and force his supporters to do the same. But he and they won’t.
Effectiveness, Part 2: Were he to be elected, I am not convinced that Sanders could even get the Democrats in Congress to support him, let alone being able to pry some support out of Republicans. He’s a firebrand speaker and this appeals to certain people (see #4 above) but his prior interaction with the DNC suggests that he’s not the best at doing what needs to be done to achieve his goals, preferring instead to rail ineffectively against those who oppose him. We already know what it’s like to have a president like that, and it ain’t good.
That’s probably enough for now. I’m sure I’ll think of a few more, probably right after I post this.
Y’know how on Facebook your aunt Mildred posts all these things that say “I bet this won’t even get one like!” As if I am being shamed and bullied into liking the thing? This type of behavior always makes me go, “Nah, you be you, and I’ll be me.”
Well, I have the same reaction about the Cult of Bernie. He may have great ideas, but for me it gets lost in the pushy noise of his acolytes constantly harping on how the DNC robbed him last time, etc.
If he ends up as the nominee I will support him, but man, I’d like to see the cult dial back the wounded fervor.
Are you defining “appointed” as to include not just the Superdelegates but also those *elected *delegates who happened to come from among the established officials?