The same as he does with any candidate. He’ll call him names (socialist/communist), laugh at his wacky policy ideas, tell everyone how great the economy is, etc. His supporters will eat it up. Sanders supporters will celebrate victory. Everybody in between won’t really care, because they’ve already heard all of this before.
The problem is that Bernie has no intention of trying to unite anyone. He won’t compromise, won’t concede that not everybody thinks his ideas are sensational, won’t even pretend that he’s going to try to work in a bipartisan fashion. That’ strategy works for people that love everything about him. It’s a turn-off for everyone else.
A problem with this construction is that Bernie is on the record (on video) praising the USSR’s system.
Attempts to say the USSR and communism are two different things won’t convince many voters, however linguistically-erudite the attempt. Voters are already looking at video from Bernie’s 1988 trip to the USSR, and more of them will be looking at it if he becomes the Democratic candidate.
The take of another American who visited the USSR at about the same time:
The term “useful idiot” has been applied to Bernie’s enthusiasm about a dying communist system. His fans will have difficulty in countering this view.
I will vote for bernie. Not my first choice, however.
My main two complaints is that we wont leash his rabid followers and that I hate the name of his health Plan. (it has nothing whatsoever to do with Medicare).
I just think there is a danger of telling ourselves stories about the world these days, especially about the invincibility of dt.
Plenty of people here don’t think that it matters that there is an election going on, lasting over 9 months, where things “happen.” I guess the future got cancelled.
Bernie is dong things that unite the vast majority of real voters. I haven’t heard him turn anybody away.
He’s not kowtowing to the other party? And saying it out loud? in this era? The only people talking about bipartisanship are right wing concern trolls.
A few months ago I would never have imagined I’d be at this point. Early voting for Super Tuesday started today here in Texas. I went today and pulled the lever for Bernie, on the theory that if he doesn’t get the nomination that the Democratic Party will likely tear itself apart at the convention. There’s a lot of reasons to go with someone other than Bernie. If, however, he gets a plurality of the primary delegates and gets screwed over at the convention (which seems like the most likely scenario according to Nate Silver)* I believe that could be enough to trigger Republican control of government for at least a generation. So I went for Bernie to try to get him as close to that majority as possible.
Yes, I know Silver explicitly states he is not predicting the outcome of a brokered convention. But it seems obvious to me that Bernie would likely get screwed over in such a scenario if he has something like 40% of the pledged delegates. If he’s up in the high 40s his chances seem better.
There weren’t any actual quotes by Bernie in that op-ed that I could see - just this guy’s opinion of Bernie.
Maybe he’s right… But there were much, much more damning videos of Trump out there in 2016 than what’s described about Bernie. And even more than that, there are countless videos of Trump praising authoritarians and being openly bamboozled by them from just the last few years. It’s hard to imagine that there are any voters out there who truly care about having a president who isn’t bamboozled by authoritarians, but would vote for Trump.
I’m sure they’ll try and weaponize this stuff against Bernie. I’m just skeptical that it will be effective - not after Trump has basically obliterated the idea that a president needs to be a serious and thoughtful person. Voters who actually care about this kind of thing already oppose Trump.
Okay, Bernie might have been wrong in the 80s. But he was right about Iraq in 2003. He’s right about health care. He’s right about the overwhelming influence of the rich and corporations. On the other hand, Trump has been wrong for his entire presidency, about Russia, the Middle East, and just about everything else.
Sorry, but Bernie ran as a candidate, for presidential elector, for the Socialist Workers Party, which is, survey says, communist.
Someone might be thinking that, well, Trump can lie, so why can’t we? It did get him 46 percent. The answer comes from the famous Adlai Stevenson misquote: “Governor, every thinking person would be voting for you”. He retorted, “Madam, that is not enough. I need a majority.” I think getting a majority requires not having to convince elderly Pennsylvanians that Lenin was a fine chap and only Stalin was the bad one.
Here’s the full (52-minute) press conference Bernie gave about his USSR trip:
The Washington Post, writing about the same post-USSR news conference (and other Bernie connections with communist regimes), offers some quotes in this article:
The people who believe Trump is NOT bamboozled by authoritarians would never consider voting for anyone but Trump (as you intimated). They are self-deceiving cultists who genuinely think Trump is a competent adult. (!)
The problem is that there are people who voted for Trump who never really bought into the Trump Cult. Maybe they’re lifelong Republicans, or maybe they’re people who just wanted to see the system shook up. Those people might consider voting for the Dem candidate so as to get rid of Trump (with whom they’re not in love).
The ‘Bernie praises the USSR/Communists/Fidel Castro/Daniel Ortega’ stuff won’t help get their votes. It will freak them out. They may not actually vote for Trump in reaction to the ‘Communist’ news about BS----but their non-votes, or votes for 3rd-party candidates, will, in effect, be votes for Trump.
Trump was also wrong before he was president. He was wrong about the Central Park Five. He was wrong about where Obama was born. He was wrong about a Muslim Gold Star mother not being allowed to speak. He was probably even wrong about Megyn Kelly having her period that day. And he won.
Combine the power of incumbency with DJT’s outstanding abilities as a negative campaigner, and any Democratic is going to be an underdog once Trump gets done with them. But why make it easy for him to paint opponents as just as bad as he is?
All candidates have weaknesses. But the current top 3 (Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg) have extraordinary negatives. I personally think that Pete is less of a risk, and the female candidates would have the best chance in November.
Trump supporters are proud of their guy for the same reason (not kowtowing to the other party). The problem is that we all just end up in a tug-o-war that nobody wins… ever.
Republicans haven’t always won. We’re 3 years past an 8-year run of a Democratic president, and a little over a year past a Democratic recovery in the House.
Look around you. Nobody is “winning”. We’re all just yelling at each other about why our side is right.
