I’d vote for a pet rock over Trump in the general, but I don’t think he’s our best bet to beat that asshole.
UHC? Great. How?
Free college? Great. How? It also concerns me that the quality of a higher education might go down. Let’s start with supplementing trade school tuition and see how that goes.
And it was years ago, but I read in the Rolling Stone that Bernie wants to get rid of inheritance. The monies you have when you die get reverted (or taxed in such a way) that the government ends up with most if not all of it. I suppose that would help pay for UHC, or college, but just doesn’t seem quite right.
Thanks to the universities’ leftist indoctrination of two generations of Americans, and thanks to Bernie Sanders, the Democratic party is now in all but name a socialist party. In fact, it is actually to the left of many European socialist parties.
For example, if Clinton wins, the government will now tell companies how much they must pay employees: “If you believe that companies should share profits with their workers, not paid executive bonuses, join us,” she brazenly announced.
Vice President Mike Pence says in a CNBC interview that Joe Biden is “advocating a socialist agenda” along with other Democratic candidates vying to take on President Trump.
The republican party will attack what the democrats do as “socialism” no matter what. They did it to Clinton (a centrist capitalist), they’re doing it to Joe Biden (an even more centrist capitalist who has denounced socialism in strong terms), why should it matter that Sanders can then turn around and say, for example, “You call everything good the government could to socialism to scare people, so I’ll wear that label with pride”?
For a non-trivial percentage of the country, the previous democratic nominee and current democratic forerunner were seen as atheist child-molesting lepers. Okay, the lepers part is news to me, but y’know what most of those people who hate socialism have in common? They’re republicans.
Y’know, the same demographic where a majority stake didn’t think Obama was from the US. 2/3rds either think he wasn’t or “aren’t sure”. These are not the people we need to spend a whole lot of time appealing to.
Again, most of these are fair criticisms, but nine times out of ten, when people worry about what the republicans could throw at Sanders, they’re already throwing it at current democrats.
I would vote for a fresh steaming pile of dog poop if it had a D after it in order to vote against Herr Donald. However, I would hold my nose just as much to vote for Bernie. For one thing, he’s too damn old and looks it. For another, he isn’t a Democrat. Why should the party nominate an outsider? He’s a self-described socialist, which is fine by me but to a great many voters it’s a third rail and the kiss of death. We’re going to see ads with hammers and sickles over his face should he win the nomination. Finally, his supporters piss the fuck off of me. They’re one of the reasons Hillary lost. “Boo-hoo. My candidate got fewer votes in the primaries and didn’t get the nomination. I think I’ll stay home and let the sociopath win the presidency.” If that’s their attitude, fuck them and the horses they rode in on. The Berniebots are every bit as delusional as the MAGAbots.
I don’t know why you’d think I’d think you were being a “dick” for saying that. It’s a fair point.
It’s true that Republicans will lie about what the Democrats stand for. It is also true, however, that in Sanders’ case they have a benefit of him self-identifying as “socialist”. And while you and I know the difference between socialism, democratic socialism and social democracy, most Americans don’t know or, really, care. But they will care about someone who is willing to stamp him- or herself with that label, and that difference will cost votes.
Gyrate, it’s a perverse twist on “I know he isn’t, I want to make him have to deny it”. The idea being that the street-level voter will find it suspicious that someone doesn’t deny it. Then again people voted for Trump and with anything he’s accused of he will admit, deny, or pretend to not know what you’re talking about within 5 minutes of the same conversation.
One would have thought that long ago we had busted up good and hard the idea that there would always be an obvious candidate “whose turn it is”. It’s never your turn, nobody deserves it, nobody has earned it until they earn it. (And dear Sec. Clinton: you failed twice after starting as the frontrunner. Own it.)
I said earlier before they both dove in that I would have preferred BOTH Sanders and Biden to ride into the sunset as Elder Statesmen reminding the party of what went right or wrong in the past, being voices to hit at Trump from left and center, and mentoring the new generation of the leftist and centrist wings respectively. But instead they are being put forth as front runners. We’ll see how that turns out, I know already I’m against Trump no matter what, no matter who.
Except that I do not believe Sanders is a power in Congress. He is a power outside of Congress. His accomplishments are meager, and I don’t think anyone in either party particularly cares to work with Sanders. He’s the top Dem on the Budget Committee, and even as a low-level DC insider, I’ve never heard of him involved in any significant talks on any budget related matter, from tax reform to the debt limit to the sequestration cuts that are coming up in a handful of months.
I would add that he did move big parts of the Democratic Party to the left, but now as I look out at the Democratic field, I see two dozen candidates whose position on things are within a fairly modest band (except for Gravel). Better to elect someone in the general policy window who also hasn’t been collecting Social Security for two decades and has more political skills to get things done.
I think I’m kind of biased because I think “socialism” is both good and necessary, and also carry a deep, burning hatred for a solid half of the American electorate. But I’d like to think that voters who actually care about what a candidate stands for, rather than a pithy soundbite, will be able to see past the label to realize that what Sanders is calling for is more or less just “what most modern nations have”. And those who can’t or won’t… Well, what’s the difference for them between “my go-to news sources and noted straight-talker and president Donald Trump call Biden a commie” and “Sanders calls himself a commie”? They’re not interested in the facts to begin with.
Again, I’m probably biased on this, but I just don’t get it. Who are the people who are so caught up with the label over the substance who won’t be swayed by a concerted propaganda campaign (which we can expect no matter who runs, because that’s just how things are)? Like, are they just very particular kinds of brainless idiots, or what?
I don’t support Bernie Sanders because I think 90% of what he proposes is both unworkable and unlikely to be adopted into law by the Congress.
Presidents do three things: they conduct foreign policy, they choose Supreme Court justices (and other federal judges), and they bring in the department heads to run the Administration. I think that Sen. Sanders would be out of his depth with foreign policy, and I think his nominees for the Supreme Court would likely be much too liberal for my taste (I think the Court needs a couple good moderates to balance out the wings). The one thing I think he’d be likely to do is bring decent people in to run the government.
Finally, I am tired of old, “white” men carrying the torch for the political parties. It’s hard for the Democratic Party to hold itself up as the champion of groups who are discriminated against if it goes back to running candidates from the old power structure (Joe Biden, I’m looking at you, too). The party needs to run someone who is younger and who can energize the party as a whole, not just the trend-loving youth who love to show up for Bernie because the things he says sound cool.
Pretty much. He’s an ideas guy and can get people fired up about his ideas. However, I don’t have any confidence in his ability to actually implement his ideas. I have even less confidence in his foreign policy acumen which I feel will be extremely important post-Trump.
I also agree with him not being a Democrat. Which is sort of amusing because people keep telling me about his “consistent ideals” yet he chose (twice now) to suddenly run as a Democrat for the sake of pure political convenience.
He does have an outsized number of truly obnoxious supporters which might not be his fault, per se, but it does make me a lot less interested to engage with his sphere of supporters or listen to them.
Like everyone else, I’ll vote for a racoon in a hat should that be my Democratic choice opposing Trump. But I see no reason to give Sanders my primary support over the other 20-odd choices.
Call me ageist, but I am tired of this trend of 70-80 year old presidential candidates. We need young blood.
I get the impression that Sanders would welch on things like NATO commitments, but due to a misplaced sense of idealism. If Russia invaded Poland while Bernie was president, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit to see Sanders pull a “war is never the right choice” card and bail out.
Condensing all of what has been said above to the most simple: because even assuming he could win I don’t think he’d be a very good one (at best ineffective) and not as good as many other options running on the D side. Of course though I’d support him for president as the far superior option to Trump.
The question itself though is odd. The question in politics is not why not support, but why to support, why is this person the best possible of the choices we have. Of those running there are only a few who I do not see as likely better choices than him.
While I realize “better than Trump” is a very low bar, I hardly think Sanders could possibly do worse. He’s not exactly bullish on NATO, but “He’ll welch on our commitments” seems kind of out there.
