There have been just two white boomers haven’t there?
I’d turn OP’s question around: Why WOULD anyone support Bernie Sanders?
(1) Are his economic plans good ideas? I doubt it, but this question is almost completely irrelevant anyway! We elect a man, not a plan. The plans would need Congressional approval, but cooperation from Congress would be less likely, not more likely, with a radical in the Oval Office.
(2) Is Sanders correct that we need a “political revolution”? Perhaps. But again, putting the revolutionary in the Oval Office would just throw sand into the gears of what’s left of governmental competence. Unless Sanders emulates Trump and assumes dictatorial power with executive orders and tweets. Is that what Bernie Bros are hoping for?
(3) How well would Sanders serve as Chief of State and Commander-in-Chief? Very badly. The day-to-day squabbling over details of domestic agenda is not why we need a President. Instead we want a man who can act smartly and decisively when he gets an urgent call from CinC SAC, or from the leader of South Korea, Taiwan or Russia at 3 o’clock in the morning. Is Bernie that man? In his 2016 campaign his webpage didn’t even have a section on foreign policy!
(4) Should the Democratic Party select a Democrat to be the Democratic nominee for President? I think so. But Sanders is a prima donna that thinks he makes a statement by keeping “(I)” next to his name.
(5) Does Bernie have relevant experience? Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States; Kamala Harris was Attorney General of the largest state; Liz Warren was a Harvard law professor, headed an important oversight panel, and designed major legislation; Cory Booker was Mayor of New Jersey’s largest city; other candidates were Governors. Besides the over-rated job of Senator, what is Bernie’s experience? Thirty-eight years ago he was elected Mayor of Burlington? True, Burlington is the largest town in Vermont — but it ranks #50 on a list of states’ largest cities, by population!
(6) Is Bernie young enough to be President? Is “seventy the new sixty”? Sure; we get that. Is eighty the new sixty? No.
(7) Is Bernie a likeable guy? Sure! I like him. Should we elect Steve Martin? He’s even more likeable than Sanders.
(8) Will a Sanders’ candidacy soothe Americans worried about financial future? A trillion-plus for debt relief, trillions more for free colleges, free healthcare, all paid for by … by whom? The Chinese government who’ve been trading their dollars for gold bullion? The one silver lining in the dismal financial future of many Rust Belt workers is good private health insurance, so Bernie will … take that away!
(9) Is Bernie likely to beat Trump? If Bernie is the candidate expect a barrage of ads lumping him with Stalin, Mao and Fidel Castro. Sanders will get irate and wave his arms but will still keep repeating that he’s a socialist and revolutionary. He’ll try to appeal to intellect, but intellect isn’t what distinguishes undecided voters.
Why don’t I support Sanders? 
Why WOULD anyone support him?
uhm…
Biden served in the Senate thrice as long as Sanders, and chaired two of the Senate’s most important Committees. (Sanders did Chair Veteran’s Affairs).
But more importantly, attending the White House Situation Room during situations, and so on is surely excellent experience for the top job. Obama lavished huge praise, claiming Biden was very important to his Presidency, and even awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
I am NOT much of a Biden fan — though I find him, like Sanders, to be quite likeable — but if your claim is that Sanders’ experience is in the same league as Biden’s experience … we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Oh i was sure Biden had more experience…I just thought it was funny.
Many won’t leave their house to vote for someone other than Bernie, which could also lead to the Democrats losing the House.
I doubt that. In 2016 the Kremlin convinced the bernie-Bros that Clinton was just as bad as Trump. Now they know better. trump is evil incarnate.
"Many won’t leave their house to vote for someone other than Bernie, which could also lead to the Democrats losing the House. "
Yes. Although voter interest has picked up quite a bit since the 2016 debacle, we can still predict with great confidence who will win the 2020 election! The winner in a landslide will be the same “candidate” who won the 2016 election (44%, 27%, 26%, 3%). The winner was Didnt_Bother_to_Vote, way ahead of the also-rans Clinton, Trump, and Other).
Generation Z, so eager to blame the Boomers for their problems, were the age cohort least interested in voting at 43%. 73% of the key Boomer cohort did vote.
Perhaps the U.S.A. gets the “democracy” it deserves.
“Perhaps”???
Run a corrupt two-party system and one gets what they paid for.
Perhaps you haven’t seen the UK recently?:dubious: How about a corrupt multi-party system? :rolleyes:
Am I supposed to make sense of their system??? Parliament can be suspended. Multi-party…no confidence votes…
Conservative studies found M4A saving the US 2-5 trillion dollars.
SS expansion bill under sanders would combine the two trusts, tax capital gains after
250k as income, and measure inflation via CPI-E to better represent the costs for med. Oh and it increases the benefits for the low income earners.
We could list off dozens if not hundreds of bills by Bernie that would be good for the economy. If you want to argue about supply side economics or a trickledown economy then take it to a separate thread, I’m sure theres plenty of dopers willing to educate you on that.
Yes, just like trump ignored congress and eliminated veteran student debts, if congress is unwilling to do their job then we should immediately eliminate student and medical debt. But considering the house has already been proposing things like H.R.1384, I’m fairly certain within a sanders presidency we can get these bills through congress once the corrupt corporatists on both sides are voted out.
If you consider decreasing the rate at which we increase the military budget then yeah he’d be a terrible commander in chief. Considering he’s probably going to pull trillions out the military industrial complex over the next 8 years, and probably eliminate aid to israel, end the funding of the yemen genocide, and prevent the central intelligence agency from propping up dictators and overthrowing regimes south of the border. If in your opinion all of this bad, then yes he’ll be the worst president you’ve ever seen.
Not sure what this is suppose to mean. Is Bernie the democrats best chance to beat trump? By a long shot. Is Bernie the person the establishment wants to lead their party? Hell no. That independent tag is symbolic of him not playing ball with the centrist and right wingers in this country, or the multi billion dollar corporations that legally bribe our politicians for their own personal gain. I’ve seen this argument from centrists on here before, “Hes an independent we dont want him as a democrat”, well hes already here and he’s shifted the entire party to the left, if you dont like it then go vote for biden or some other dying establishment candidate.
Donald Trump has more experience than all of these people combined in his pinky finger alone. Perhaps, we should all vote for Trump in 2020 because unlike all of those people you mentioned, he’s actually been president. :dubious:
If you think someone can be too old to be president, then you must also concede you can be too old to vote. How about we take everybody who’s over the age of 35’s right to vote away? That sounds pretty good to me.
This is a really absurd argument. We can spend 2 trillion dollars to give money to the richest people in human history, and hope they invest it, expand businesses, create jobs. But we can’t bail out millions of students who want to work, contribute to the economy, and create growth? I mean obviously those kids are just going to sit with their thumbs up their asses and contribute no growth right?
How are we going to pay 2-5 trillion less for healthcare? I’ll tell you how, first, we pay 2-5 trillion less, then all those people who otherwise would not be working, not be consuming, will be able to stay productive, and keep buying things.
The notion that bailing out students, or eliminating medical debt, or transitioning into a more affordable and greater access healthcare system would NOT stimulate the economy is beyond absurd and something you only hear from the most delusional of trump supporters. And none of what i said even mentions the fact we have more wealth sitting in the pockets of a handful of people than majority of the population, nor does it mention the fact we have trillions being sucked up by the military industrial complex, and billions sucked into the private prison and insurance industries.
Obama would have beaten trump, correct? So why did hillary lose? Bad campaigning? Maybe, Poor history? Maybe… But you know what the final nail in the coffin was? Low informed leftists who spited Hillary and voted Trump or some independent, the bernie or bust people, those kind of people. In a couple of recent studies it’s been established that Bernie on a more consistent basis pulls more trump supporters to his vote, than any other candidate. There are more low informed voters who would side with the nuances of Bernie’s populism than any centrist candidate, and even some more left leaning candidates like Warren. Bernie is the dems best chance to beat trump, however he is not the best candidate f or their interests. That would likely be joe biden.
If I don’t kow-tow to the Bernie Bros, that means I must be a trickle-down supply-sider? :smack: This is the sort of jumping to false conclusions that probably caused some Bernie Bros to stay home or vote for Trump.
But you conveniently edited out the important part of my point #1, placed first because of its importance. Let me show it to you again:
We can discuss policy details in other threads. But at least understand that I favor UHC paid for by the government. I disliked Obamacare because it didn’t go far enough. But some smarter people explained that single-payer was the end-goal but that only a gradual approach could work politically in American. (I probably favor higher capital gains taxes and/or Warren’s wealth tax as well. I don’t oppose progressive policies; to the contrary I want an Administration that can enact such policies and make them succeed. Review point #1.)
To suddenly abolish private health insurance would be too disruptive in the short term. As mentioned above in bold, his plan “is almost completely irrelevant anyway” except for one thing: Many millions of American voters like their private health insurance. “Elect me and your excellent insurance disappears; instead confront a disruptive transition with chaos that lasts months or years” may not work out so well as a campaign slogan.
Google “Is it the President or Congress who decides the military budget?” Or, again, review the important part of #1 you edited out.
I hope the Democrats gain control and I hope they make reductions in America’s excessive military spending. I’d like to see whole teams of Congresspeople and experts work on that problem. But the one special man sitting in the Oval Office? He’s not there to fine-tune budgets; he’s there to answer that 3 am phone call.
As a Baby Boomer myself, let me agree that oldsters, who may lack a personal stake in the future, should be denied the vote! I’d make the cut-off 65 or so rather than 35. File this under “Constitutional Amendments that are NOT going to happen.”
The last part of this confuses me. Are you saying that Biden would be a better President than Sanders, at least for most Democrats, but that we need to nominate Sanders to dodge the “Low informed leftists who spited Hillary and voted Trump or some independent …” ?
I’ve said that Electability is the most important criterion. I’d be a vociferous Bernie Bro myself if I were certain he’d be most electable.
What I’d like to see is a poll which asks people whom they prefer, but before and after they view some sample advertisements of a type they’re likely to see next summer, ads that link Sanders to communists and will need only slight faking.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Sanders is electable. File my post under “Worries about Sanders from another random guy on the Internet.” I admit that one recent poll shows essentially a three-way tie for “Most likely to beat Trump”: Sanders, Biden and … Michelle Obama!
This is the very carefully worded way Bernie bros talk about their game of chicken, or maybe we should just flatly call it extortion. “Be a real shame if something happened to this nice election of yours. Just nominate Bernie and no one gets hurt.“ Fuck that shit. I’d rather take the risk that Trump wins reelection than let the Bernie crowd pull a coup like that over a party they don’t even belong to.
Many?
Nah. A very small number of whackadoodles and far far offset by those swingables (and maybe even some D demographics with variable turnout) who, given Trump, would vote for almost any other Dem but who given a choice between Sanders and Trump would stay home. And impacting House races? The gains in the House were not on the backs of the Bernie or Bust crowd.
The argument of “Support Bernie or I’ll stay home!” is, of all the possible arguments for him, the very weakest of them all.
To Septimus’s post #374: Bernie’s Medicare for All bill implements the changes over 4 years by lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 in the first year, 45 in the second year, 35 in the third year, then everyone else after that. I’m on lunch at work, so I haven’t had a chance to read this yet, but here is an article about his electability. I don’t know if it brings up Biden and Warren too.
Proven wrong last election.
I do think a Democratic Administration is more likely to succeed (with the public, Congress, other leaders at home and around the world, and yes, even in the pursuit of a liberal agenda) with a moderate leftist in the White House rather than a more extreme leftist. The bounce from one extreme to the complete opposite extreme will rightfully lead people around the world to shake their heads at the collapse of U.S. stability.
BUT if it is true that Bernie is the most electable of the batch, then fine! Beating Trump is most important. Go, Bernie!
Just remember: When war hero Kerry ran against the AWOL malingerer Bush, the GOP lie machine was able to convince gullible Americans that Kerry was the unworthy soldier. :smack: Voter interviews showed that those lies were decisive. I am desperately afraid that the Propaganda Machine will make mincemeat of Sanders.
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It is true that in 2016 Bernie polled better at beating trump than Clinton. However, that was after years of attacks on Clinton by the Bernie Bros, the GOp and the kremlin, while the Kremlin actually helped Sanders. *
You are correct, if the kremlin and the GOP turn on sanders it will be very bad, indeed.
However, currently, Biden polls the best chance of beating trump. Mind you Sanders (and Warren) also show pretty good too in that match.
*
- this is why most people ignored that stat.*