Man, I hope you didn’t think that was going to make anyone more inclined to vote for Sanders.
That’s some pretty bold claims about Bernie being a sexist. But let’s assume everything you said is true, does that in anyway shape or form take away from the bills hes proposed? Such as M4A or SS expansion, or making stock buy backs illegal? OR what about the proposals he’s made, such as legalizing drugs, raising minimum wage, free college tuition?
Attacking Bernie isn’t going to get you very far, just like running on attacking Trump didn’t get hillary very far.
I grew up in a conservative household and have voted for more Republicans than I have democrats (2-1). I’ve talked to a lot of people of different ideologies, I spend most of my time talking to people in fact. I hold libertarian positions, conservative positions, liberal positions, and progressive positions. I’ve also been offered to help work on the Trump campaign if that floats your boat. How I got into that position is irrelevant to this topic but if you want to address me personally, you might want to find out who I am before making assumptions about me.
I rarely ever talk to people who agree with me on most things. In fact, most of the “leftists” I do talk to I disagree with almost as much as I disagree with right wingers. So if we’re talking about me personally, well theres a lot you don’t know if you think I’m in a bubble where I’ve invested my self into a sanders cult of personality. I think Bernie isn’t aggressive enough, I think he tries to take the high road too much. I think he should have never endorsed clinton, and I think he should still legalize all drugs. I also think claiming democratic socialism was a stupid move that triggered the establishment into shitting on him. There are issues I think he should have went with the grain, and issues I think he should have went against the grain. He’s by no means a perfect candidate, and if theres legit criticisms about his policies or positions I listen. Such as the crime bill for example, he voted for it as a compromise for the womens violence act or whatever was included, I don’t think he should have. I disagree with bernie on that.
You will vote for Bernie Sanders and you will like it.
No not at all my intention. I never try to debate dopers unless I’m triggered into it. I only come here to be informed, this is one of the few topics where I feel the need to respond to people and put in my own opinion. 99.999999% of the time I come here to read other peoples post and just listen to what people have to say. I made this topic out of spite for the backlash I often find on here towards sanders, and the centrist bias dopers clearly have. I am extremely against you guys trying to find a middle ground on every issue. (I’m over generalizing here based on my experience)
Also was hoping somebody would pull up one of his proposals and be like, well we could do A B or C differently and it would be more effective, or something along those lines if you understand. But this topic kinda spiraled into a debate about sanders as a candidate, which i sorta expected, but was hoping it wouldn’t completely turn into. But as usual, nobody wants to argue against sanders policies or proposals, they’re too populist. Instead they argue against the man himself, too old, too white, too heterosexual, too male.
Why on Earth should stock buy backs be illegal?
Why? The question was why we don’t support Sanders, not to try to fix Sanders’ proposals or debate this with his fans. Unless Bernie Sanders is reading the SDMB, it does me no good to sit around hashing over how to improve his proposals.
The topic is “Why don’t you support Sanders” as a candidate and you were hoping we wouldn’t discuss Sanders as a candidate? The first sentence of your OP was Give me reasons why you would not support Sanders as president. And saying “And those things won’t count” doesn’t actually change anything – if people don’t like him for reasons A, B or C you can either accept that (and try to address it if you’re so inclined) or stick your fingers in your ears and ignore it but you’re not going to make people not feel that way by saying “Nuh-uh! Doesn’t count!”
Haha you got me, I guessed I expected more substance than speculation from dopers. Might just be the group I reeled in with my post.
iirc wages have stagnated(declined) since 1970s when Reagan legalized them.
If I’m missing something please let me know, I’m also not saying stock buy backs are the ultimate factor, but they’re a significant factor.
Bernie seems to have the best mix of policies to appeal to a wide range of progressives, including the anti-war voters that Democrats mostly seem not to recognize. I think he is likely to win the nomination. He may be the single most electable candidate if polling is to be believed.
But he’s old. He’s so old. I’m scared of him having a stroke or something.
Ok, look, I personally thought the Democrats did something stupid in guaranteeing Hillary Clinton the nomination in 2016. Mostly because I saw she had some pretty unelectable qualities. But to continue to believe that somehow Bernie Sanders was more popular than Hillary Clinton simply ignores the actual facts. Bernie Sanders was a populist candidate who generated a lot of interest. But in the end, he was beaten because the Democratic Party’s voters preferred the more “centrist” candidate. So your statement about “the American people appearing to want Bernie instead” is just unreal nonsense.
I also note that you didn’t address my thoughts on why I wouldn’t support Bernie Sanders. I’m a centrist; you NEED my support for Bernie if you want him elected. You might try addressing my concerns, rather than acting like anything the least bit “centrist” is just selling out. That approach will not convince me to support your candidate, even against someone like the President. :dubious:
This thread strikes me as increasingly absurd.
@ Mr. Obama — Did we understand correctly that if Biden or Harris is the D nominee, you won’t vote for him/her? That you will vote for Green Party or some such? Because “moderate D’s are the same as R’s …”?
Some of us prefer 60-year old candidates to 70-year old candidates NOT because of any over-generalization about age/policy correlation, but because the older politician is … OLD! More prone to reduced mental acuity or even brain degradation (Reagan was mentally incompetent for much of his 2nd term). More prone to disabling accidents or diseases. More easily fatigued, and so on. When the DCI wakes up the Prez at 3 a.m. to announce bombs are falling on Jerusalem we don’t want a shocked Potus to suffer cardiac arrest. I’m almost 70 myself, and I sure wouldn’t be scampering up the steps of Air Force One two at a time!
Exactly half the U.S. Prezzes were less than 55 years old when first inaugurated.
Is 70 the new 60? Maybe. But Ike was only 62 when inaugurated and some thought he was old. The four oldest at 1st Inauguration — Buchanan (almost 65), W.H. Harrison (68), Reagan (almost 70), Trump (almost 71) — read almost like a who’s-who of incompetent Prezzes. Even Liz Warren would smash the records set by Reagan and Trump to become oldest Prez elected.
And Sanders would be almost 80 when first Inaugurated. Seventy-Nine. With an N. Sure, he’s still a fervent socialist, and we admire him for that! But seventy-Nine is NOT the prime of life.
(Obviously the same arguments apply against the aging Biden. Even Liz Warren — whose 70th birthday is next week (June 22) — is a “spring chicken” compared with Biden and Bernie! 
)
OK. I won’t alter the quote to emphasize the operative word here. But I’ve chosen it for the post title.
Ah, that old familiar refrain…
Yes, that sounds familiar.
How’s attacking the Democratic Party been working out for you?
Yes, if you literally ignore all the substantive responses in this thread, there’s no substance.
You asked the question. We answered it. Just because you don’t like the answers doesn’t make us wrong.
I think the message that moderate Democrats cannot win votes from socialists, populists, nor the anti-war vote is strategically necessary. If the party of “the left” does not nominate someone who can pull in that broad category called “the left” then they can’t win.
Both Brad DeLong and Peter Daou have been making this point lately. The moderates need the progressives, and need to concede to the progressives, and even need to let the Bernie types lead, in order not to lose to the hard right.
Oh, the Democrats absolutely need progressive candidates and progressive voters, and one of Bernie’s greatest achievements is forcing the party to move to the left in order to reach out to them (although it’s not doing remotely enough). And if the Democratic Party actually cares about winning more, it will have to keep reaching out to them at all levels of government.
But that’s not the same as needing Bernie as President. As already discussed, Sanders hasn’t even used his current seniority in Congress to drive his agenda; instead, it’s taken Warren and AOC to actually start driving that change. The metaphor holds: Sanders is the Prophet, not the Messiah. Prophets may speak the uncomfortable truths people need to hear, but they’re not very good at running things.
On the contrary he further expands the progressive wing as it grows. I love the hesitance to change, hope you don’t consider yourself a liberal.
I don’t recall saying anyone was wrong. I think because of the framework of this thread may have skewed your perception of what has been said here. Not going to continue to speculate on what you’re thinking, quote me next time.
Let’s elected biden to run the progressive agenda instead.
Awesome. Sounds like he should be 10-15 points ahead in the primary polls then. I’d vote for him but doesn’t seem like he needs it.
I will take this non sequitur to mean that you concede the point I made, since you haven’t bothered to rebut what I actually said and have ignored my earlier statement that I’d prefer Biden weren’t running either.
But running on attacking Hillary got Trump elected.
I’m pretty dubious about the argument that what the Democrats need to do is to chase the Republicans further and further right. But saying that we need a candidate who can pull in those of the Left who didn’t show up last time to get out of their chairs and off their high horses and come in and vote doesn’t mean that we need to pick Bernie.
I voted for Sanders last time in the primaries, in large part because I was terrified that Clinton would lose; the Republicans had been running against her ever since Bill was president, and had succeeded over the years in getting an awful lot of people to automatically run in the other direction when they heard her name. (I voted for Clinton in November, of course.) But I’m unlikely to vote for Sanders in the primaries this time (though I’ll vote for him in November if he wins the nomination, of course) for several reasons: partly because I think that he, like Clinton, has accumulated too many weak spots/baggage over the years and will be an easy target for the Republicans; partly because of his age – I’m 68, and even at 68 very few people can get as much work done in a day as they could ten or twenty years previously, and being POTUS is physically very stressing, at least if it’s taken seriously (unlike by Trump) as it ought to be --; partly because he doesn’t, as has been said, have a very good track record at actually getting his policies into practice. He has, recently, been quite good at getting them talked about – but bear in mind he’s been in Congress since 1991; and during most of that time most people hadn’t heard of him, so I don’t know that he was all that good even at getting them talked about by people who weren’t already ready to hear them. I grant that some of the work that’s lead to an electorate in the 20teens being receptive to his opinions has been done by Sanders over that nearly 30 years; but a lot of it has also been done by other people. He’s helped build that wave, yes; but he didn’t build it on his own, and it’s also because of other people’s work that he can ride it.
I’m hoping that by the time NY holds a primary somebody will stand out from the current pack. Last time I really wanted Warren to run; but she’s acquired additional baggage of her own in the meantime; plus of course an additional four years of age. And we could really use her in the Senate.
B.O.,
You make comparisons to Europe’s parties of the Left.
You realize they also have a rise of nationalist and fascist parties of the Right. Their systems are different but at the point that it comes to choosing who governs the Left there will join with those more in the center if it keeps the fascists out of control. They don’t say let us, a minority, have the control or we’ll let the fascists rule and that’ll larn you.
Fight for the nomination. Defend your ideas. But I believe anyone who lets their idea of the perfect be an excuse for letting true evil win (just so they can claim no responsibility for the deficiencies of the imperfect) is making a mistake.
But you do you.