# Why don't you support Bernie Sanders? (if you don't) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 17, 2019, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632 "2019-06-17T02:58:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/421 "2019-09-10T10:37:20Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > More than just acceptable. Calling attention to the pejorative was essential to provide clarity and emphasis in that quote. _ **Whitewashing the word would whitewash the ugly racism that deployed the word.** _ This is the key point here. It’s not just a matter of shock value. This is a direct understanding of the thought processes of southerners at the time. “I may not have it good, but at least the negroes had it worse”. It’s not tactless to say it like that. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/422 "2019-09-10T14:28:20Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > . > Sanders has not in recent years demonstrated much understanding of how racial factors are independent but synergistic elements of disadvantage with economic factors in this country. That ancient blurb is even about that time as it impacted whites. There is no shortage of problems that he has. Use of that word in that way then is not one of them. IMHO. Frankly, that makes it worse. Someone from the whitest state, with poor understanding of racial issues, shouldn’t be using the word as a prop for his class struggle arguments. It’s super fucking cringey. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/423 "2019-09-10T14:39:58Z")
It may be slightly off-topic here, but socialist supporters of Bernie Sanders may be happy the hear that [the Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is not fond of post-rational American capitalism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60FrsWm9OAc) Yes, the publisher is RT … but their news is better than most of the U.S.A. media with its focus on nonsense and gibberish. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/424 "2019-09-10T14:44:04Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’m not so sure that this is true. > > The best executives are not making huge numbers of decisions quickly and personally handling every unexpected problem. Their talent is in developing excellent teams working under them and managing them well. Included in that is developing the big picture goals and in defining the broad set of tactics to be used by that team that delivers those outcomes. In the case of a president the other key skill is in being able to the effective communicator to the public on a variety of subjects. > > An executive who micromanages and is having to constantly make decisions is bad at the job.. Of course presidents delegate – both information-gathering, and minor decisions. But the job at this point is so large that there are a lot of decisions related to it that aren’t minor. While any remotely sensible president of course has teams of advisors to do the research and explore and explain the various options, the POTUS is supposed to be the one who decides among those options, and isn’t supposed to delegate the actual decisions on major matters. The classic line “the buck stops here” is classic for a reason. > [@kirkrapine](#): > > Twain did not use the n-word for “shock value,” he used it because his characters – white and black – would have. He used it also to make a point: that those of his characters who were using it were ignorant and prejudiced. And he makes very specifically the point being discussed in this thread: he puts the word in the mouth of Huck’s father, who is a child abuser, a drunk, broke, out of work and unwilling to work, and is portrayed in general as a useless and actively harmful character; but who explicitly prides himself on being far better than anyone who’s black. Whether it was politic for Biden to use the word’s another question. The point being made is reasonable and accurate, and the use of the word hammers home the point; but it may also hammer other impacts Biden presumably didn’t intend. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/425 "2019-09-10T15:01:50Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > But the job at this point is so large that there are a lot of decisions related to it that aren’t minor. While any remotely sensible president of course has teams of advisors to do the research and explore and explain the various options, the POTUS is supposed to be the one who decides among those options, and isn’t supposed to delegate the actual decisions on major matters. The classic line “the buck stops here” is classic for a reason. Yes, the idea that the President can just “phone it in” from the golf course is absurd. (Of course when the President behaves like a petulant six-year old, we should be grateful for any time wasted at golf.) A book I highly recommend for a look at Presidential work is _The Price of Loyalty_. Pres. Ford, not an expert at economics by any stretch, asked his two top economics advisers into the Oval Office and invited them to debate each other! Occasionally Ford would ask a question. The book’s author contrasts this with G.W. Bush, whose eyes would glaze over if Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil let his briefing go over ten minutes. (Of course, Bush was almost a literate intellectual compared with the present incumbent.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/426 "2019-09-10T17:50:40Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > No, it isn’t. Advanced age diminishes mental acuity. E.g., Trump exhibits signs of Alzheimer’s – his aides have observed Alzheimer’s symptomatic “sundowning.” And there is no reason why a Dem would be immune. Sure it does- _on a person by person basis._ Some people are sharp until well until their 90’s. Bernie by no means is my fave, but he looks and sounds quite sharp. OTOH, I have met many 20 yo where their “mental acuity” is very doubtful. Note that no Republican is attacking trump on that basis, only the dems attack each other, giving trump a clear shot at winning. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/427 "2019-09-10T17:51:55Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Whether it was politic for Biden to use the word’s another question. The point being made is reasonable and accurate, and the use of the word hammers home the point; but it may also hammer other impacts Biden presumably didn’t intend. Not Biden- \*Sanders. \* ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/428 "2019-09-10T17:53:25Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It may be slightly off-topic here, but socialist supporters of Bernie Sanders may be happy the hear that [the Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is not fond of post-rational American capitalism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60FrsWm9OAc) > > Yes, the publisher is RT … but their news is better than most of the U.S.A. media with its focus on nonsense and gibberish. A Russian propaganda outlet with a segment on “the coming collapse of the American Economic System” is being compared to what, exactly, and coming out favorably? Is this cage match of reliability pitting RT against TMZ? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/429 "2019-09-10T19:05:06Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > A Russian propaganda outlet with a segment on “the coming collapse of the American Economic System” is being compared to what, exactly, and coming out favorably? Is this cage match of reliability pitting RT against TMZ? Forget the scary caption. The content is interesting; and I thought Bernie supporters might want to watch it. Yes RT is full of propaganda, but so are Fox and MSNBC. CNN is full of nothing. Right now the stock market is near its all-time high, yet every time there’s a down-tick day the main-stream media goes into overdrive prattling as though a crash were in progress. Et cetera. So … No apology for the link. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/430 "2019-09-10T23:50:52Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Frankly, that makes it worse. Someone from the whitest state, with poor understanding of racial issues, shouldn’t be using the word as a prop for his class struggle arguments. It’s super fucking cringey. We can disagree there. But while it is an analysis of how white “haves” mollified white “have-nots” by putting an other as lesser entities, and is not about the the Black perspective of that experience at all, it must be noted how timely that is. It is of course the same exact play that Trumpism does to win the support of non-college educated whites today, with a variety of others filling that blank. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Of course presidents delegate – both information-gathering, and minor decisions. > > But the job at this point is so large that there are a lot of decisions related to it that aren’t minor. While any remotely sensible president of course has teams of advisors to do the research and explore and explain the various options, the POTUS is supposed to be the one who decides among those options, and isn’t supposed to delegate the actual decisions on major matters. The classic line “the buck stops here” is classic for a reason … I can agree there. But how many of them are previously unexpected problems that need to be decided upon on a moment’s notice? Which was the specific skill you posited declines with age. Again Sanders may not have either skill … but I don’t think he did at _any_ age. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/431 "2019-09-11T00:59:18Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Forget the scary caption. The content is interesting; and I thought Bernie supporters might want to watch it. > > Yes RT is full of propaganda, but so are Fox and MSNBC. CNN is full of nothing. Right now the stock market is near its all-time high, yet every time there’s a down-tick day the main-stream media goes into overdrive prattling as though a crash were in progress. Et cetera. > > So … No apology for the link. Marxist economist goes on RT! Drop everything and watch, Jill Stein voters! ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/432 "2019-09-11T01:17:43Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![kirkrapine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@kirkrapine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirkrapine)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/433 "2019-09-11T02:16:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Don’t forget that Bob Dylan used the n-word (See? I’m even afraid to write it out here for clarity) in one of his songs. Gasp!! Boycott his music! Force him to melt down his Nobel Prize and give the proceeds to the NAACP. (No, not _that_ NAACP. The Numskulls Association for Absurd Correctness Political.) > > More than just acceptable. Calling attention to the pejorative was essential to provide clarity and emphasis in that quote. _ **Whitewashing the word would whitewash the ugly racism that deployed the word.** _ > > There’s a Wikiquote page with this George Wallace quote: > _I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again._ > Are the Wiki editors also to blame, for not replacing the word, e.g. with the (nonsensical-in-context) ‘out-blacked’? Or ‘out-African-Americaned?’ > > **Yet Sanders’ use of the term is essentially the same as Wiki’s:** Wiki is quoting Wallace, Sanders quotes a generic racist. I once heard that quoted with “out-segged” substituted for “out-niggered.” Don’t know which is authentic, but I tend toward the latter. ---
**Author:** ![kirkrapine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@kirkrapine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirkrapine)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/434 "2019-09-11T02:26:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It may be slightly off-topic here, but socialist supporters of Bernie Sanders may be happy the hear that [the Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is not fond of post-rational American capitalism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60FrsWm9OAc) > > Yes, the publisher is RT … but their news is better than most of the U.S.A. media with its focus on nonsense and gibberish. What does that have to do with Sanders? There are plenty of lefty academics, we knew that. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/435 "2019-09-11T12:45:24Z")
Indeed. > [@CarnalK](#): > > Uh, huh. Why don’t you try it at work tomorrow? In fact, don’t even make up your own sentence or take credit for it. Walk up to someone you are friendly with and ask him how they feel about that Sanders quote. No saying “n-word”, quote it completely. Shouldn’t be a problem, as it is perfectly acceptable. If you get negative feedback, remind them that Twain used that word a hundred and thirty years ago with no complaints. I will appreciate you reporting back your results. Ha, exactly. > [@DSeid](#): > > Applying 2019 standards to something written in 1997 is a bit silly. > > I am unconvinced that “outrage on Twitter” means anything, let alone any real measure of “many people.” I agree with your last sentence, but 1997? Really? I became a teenager in the 1980s and would not have dreamed of saying or writing that word then. His analysis isn’t wrong, but he should have reworded it, perhaps using the phrase “crude, dehumanizing racial epithets” or something like that. > [@CarnalK](#): > > Frankly, that makes it worse. Someone from the whitest state, with poor understanding of racial issues, shouldn’t be using the word as a prop for his class struggle arguments. It’s super fucking cringey. This. Similarly cringey whenever he tries to address racial issues in front of black audiences. It’s not that he’s a virulent racist, he just has spent his whole life around white people and it shows. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/436 "2019-09-11T14:41:37Z")
But Spike Lee loves him, so it’s OK. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/437 "2019-09-11T14:57:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not Biden- \*Sanders. > \* Whoops, sorry! Thanks for correction. > [@DSeid](#): > > I can agree there. But how many of them are previously unexpected problems that need to be decided upon on a moment’s notice? Which was the specific skill you posited declines with age. For one, while previously unexpected problems that need to be decided on a moment’s notice are rare and a particular presidency may not even have any, if and when they do come up they’re massively important. For another, that’s not the only skill I said declines with age. I also said: > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It’s also a matter of endurance/stamina [. . .] > > The Presidency, if done at all properly, is very much a full time job, requiring not only responses well thought out over a period of time, but large numbers of such within any given week on a very wide variety of subjects [. . .] > > Not all of them are capable of juggling a dozen major decisions at the same time, and doing so day after day after day for four years, [. . .] the ability in many people diminishes with age. Very few people have the same total energy available to draw on at 80 as they did when they were 40; or the same recovery time from unusual demands on it. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/438 "2019-09-11T15:01:54Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > An old 1997 book by Bernie Sanders is causing a lot of outrage on twitter due to the use of the n-word. A revised edition in 2015 which included an audiobook kept it in (and if you listen to it the narrator says the word boldly). Sanders supporters and spokeswoman are arguing that the intent was not discriminatory but trying to apply historical context however it’s raised a debate nonetheless. Many people are not happy that he used that word and many people are not happy that he seemingly was putting white southerners racist attitudes down to economic anxiety rather than bigotry (‘they were given’ implies they were told by some superior to think that way). The fact that Sanders puts the N-word in quotation marks in that passage, I think, is what’s important. There is a big difference between N-word and “N-Word.” People being upset about this makes as little sense as being upset at the movie \*\*\*42 \*\*\*(about Jackie Robinson) for featuring countless N-words. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/439 "2019-09-11T20:23:10Z")
[Here’s](https://observer.com/2016/03/how-bernie-gets-things-done-in-congress-without-being-bought-off/?fbclid=IwAR0Ln7gZpRxhZ0AYZ5bbfwugSRqlp8C4Rf3EdE9fYeNNBIzjTrRSz-1CI9I)a good article from 2016 debunking the criticism that Sanders has been an “ineffective” or “gadfly” legislator. Juicy bits: Dubbed the ‘amendment king,’ Mr. Sanders passed more amendments than any other member of Congress during his 16 years in the House of Representatives—despite Republicans holding a majority between 1994 and 2006. He kicked off his political career with an amendment to start a National Program of Cancer registries, which is now maintained by all 50 states. In 2001, he successfully passed an amendment to the general appropriations bill which banned the importation of goods made with child labor, and passed an amendment to increase funding by $100 million for community health centers. Amid years of partisan politics where each party has obstructed the other from passing meaningful legislation, Mr. Sanders worked across the aisle with his conservative counterparts—with Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve for the first time in 2010 and with John McCain in 2014 to co-write the bill to reform the Veterans Affairs Administration. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-support-bernie-sanders-if-you-dont/835632/440 "2019-09-11T20:59:25Z")
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