"Feel the Bern": The BERNIE SANDERS Thread - Part 1

[Chance Jackson]

Also, if he thinks staying in the race will somehow give him an opportunity to affect the platform, he is delusional. If anything, he is making enemies within the party. They would be much more inclined to work with him if he ended this nonsense. Picking at the party is hardly going to give them any desire to give him a stage at the convention.

Making enemies within the party? Didn't the majority of supers pledge their support to Hillary before even the first debate?

 

[Matt]

Ah well, I just hope Bernie can keep doing good since he pushed a lot of things forwards that would have gotten lost in the dust.

The thing is though,he is preventing himself from doing that at this point. If he dropped out 2 weeks ago (or even a month and a half ago, when he lost the race), he would've been able to really push his platform and even position himself as a viable cabinet appointee or VP pick or even an influential party elder. But the longer he stays in, the more he undercuts his platform and makes it more about him than his message. Right now he is coming off as an egotistical old coot who cannot accept that he lost and is willing to take the whole party down with him if he doesn't get his way. At this point, he is essentially saying "if I can't win, I will do my damnedest to tear Hillary down and make things easier for Trump."

It both undercuts his message from a public perception standpoint and from a pragmatic standpoint. If he wants to change the party he needs to build bridges and leverage his goodwill. Instead he is just burning it all to the ground. By the time this ends, Bernie Sanders will be exactly where he was when it started: an outcast in the Senate who no one wants to work with because they see him as a crazy, stubborn old man.

 

[Chance Jackson]

Personally, I like super delegates. Parties are a private institution, not a government actor.

The large parties are tied to the hilt of government they might as well be considered akin to the Federal Reserve or Post Office more so than a mom and pop store

 

[Matt]

The large parties are tied to the hilt of government they might as well be considered akin to the Federal Reserve or Post Office more so than a mom and pop store

Yeah, except your analogy is flawed. They aren't akin to the post office and federal reserve as they do not receive federal funding. A better analogy would be that they are akin to the AFL-CIO or NRA. They are private institutions that unify to exercise political power.

 

[Chance Jackson]

Yeah, except your analogy is flawed. They aren't akin to the post office and federal reserve as they do not receive federal funding. A better analogy would be that they are akin to the AFL-CIO or NRA. They are private institutions that unify to exercise political power.

Their members are pretty much the only ones with political power

 

[Matt]

Their members are pretty much the only ones with political power

Nonsense. Ross Perot proved the error in that thinking along ago. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven how cynically disingenuous that world view is. With the rise in social media and the digital era, we are seeing a new form of inexpensive grassroots activism and fundraising. Third party candidates and independents are slowly moving toward a prominent role in our government.

 

[DDS]

Personally, I like super delegates. Parties are a private institution, not a government actor. It makes sense that party leadership and elders have some say in the candidate. Beyond that, they don't really go against the will of the people. Look how quickly they jumped to Obama in 2008, once it became clear what the people wanted. I see them as a safety net, however, from the party being hijacked by someone like Donald Trump. I am betting the Republican Party is wishing that they had some sort of similar safety precaution in place.

All of this is totally reasonable, and I'm aware they've never really crossed the will of the people. That's why I don't really fear or hate them like so many progressives do.

 

[DDS]

https://www.change.org/p/entire-us-...-nation-must-rise-up-and-open-revolution?recr

Check out these crybabies being mad online and calling for "revolution" over more people voting for Hillary than Bernie.

 

[craigdbfan]

Bernie has been the one getting the revolution thing in their heads. He's used the word several times.

 

[DDS]

Bernie has been the one getting the revolution thing in their heads. He's used the word several times.

Yeah but I really don't think this bizzare change.org petition is really what he meant.

 

[craigdbfan]

Petitions are useless anyway.

 

[DDS]

Petitions are useless anyway.

By god, there IS something we agree on after all.

 

[Matt]

Yeah but I really don't think this bizzare change.org petition is really what he meant.

But this is what happens when you light a powder keg. Sanders knew exactly what he was doing when he provoked class warfare and used incendiary terms like "revolution." Make no mistake...this was his end game.

I posted this last October. Its scary how accurate it has become, as Sanders continues to fall further away from the nomination and his supporters become more and more desperate.

The rise to prominence of Bernie Sanders scares me a bit. The man is a quack. Make no mistake about it, he is a total, complete, nutjob quack. He is the liberal Ron Paul, whose ideas sound great on paper but have no way of being practically implemented.

For all of his great ideas (which admittedly appeal to me quite a bit as his ideas a liberal's wet dream), he has yet to give a practical means of implementing them outside of "tax the one percent!" The one percenters should absolutely be paying more. But even if we tax them at a rate of 40-60 %, how much revenue will that really generate? It will not provide free education, free healthcare, reduction of the national deficit, etc, all at the same time.

Plus there is the matter of Congress. Even if Democrats won back Congress, we would be looking at deadlock the likes of which have never been seen. It would make Obama's presidency look like a beacon of presidential and congressional cooperation.

Anyone who rationally thinks about Sanders's platform/candidacy can see just how impractical it is. Yet he continues to surge. Well, I am not sure that "surge" is the right word. I think he has captivated a very vocal and loud minority, but I don't think said minority is very prominent or will carry the day when it comes to vote (much like the Ron Paul movement). But I digress, this movement is concerning.

As I said, anyone who really thinks about it can see just how impractical a lot of what he says is. Yet people DESPERATELY want to believe. And this is not the same as Obama's promises of "hope" and "change" and other intangibles. This is someone offering the disillusioned and poor the keys to the vault, so to speak.

And people are buying it. Not just dumb kids who do not know any better. Rational people are buying this, despite no logical means of implementation. Why? Because they are desperate. It is a sad statement of how desperate people in this country have become. They want to believe this nonsense. They are so desperate that they will buy any possibility of change that someone is selling them.

This is dangerous. Sanders is essentially invoking class warfare with no real exit strategy (so to speak). What happens when he loses? The millions who are desperate for his victory will feel as though they have once again been cheated out of their utopia by the one percenters and their lap dogs. Look at how people are angrily pounding their fists and claiming "MEDIA CONSPIRACY!" when one simply does not exist (see the aforementioned Salon article).

I think Sanders means well. But this is a lunatic, holding a match to a powder keg, promising things that cannot be accomplished (at least not overnight) to desperate people. This is very dangerous. It is actually quite similar to the behavior of Donald Trump.

Mind you, Clinton is no better. She is more of the same. The country desperately needs a transformative leader. There is a great deal of social and economic inequity plaguing our country. But promising desperate people EVERYTHING, with no real means to implement it is a dangerous and reckless thing to do. We need someone capable of implementing change in a tempered manner, over time. That is neither Sanders nor Clinton. Hell, that is no one in this race.

When I posted that, many folks on this very board who are now calling for Bernie to drop out and saying things very similar to post (I won't name names) basically called me an establishment lackey, said I was arrogantly projecting my opinion, etc. Hate to say I told you so...but as that petition and the behavior of his campaign and supporters in recent weeks have shown...I told ya so.

 

[chaseter]

Hey, I was the first on here to compare him to Ron Paul and said he wouldn't get the nom last summer. I deserve an award!

 

[Hypestyle]

Sanders needs to stay in the race until the end. At the very least, he can bring his positions to the convention, regardless of the conclusion. The Democratic Party has never progressed long-term from being less inclusive. The opposition party has based their national contests on being more exclusive than not.
Sanders-supporters are well advised to turn their interests to local and regional campaigns- from local government to state legislatures to public-college trustee races, local school boards (and state boards of education), elected judge seats and the other roles that scarcely get much high profile attention. The "religious right" got their base going by strategically targeting these and other roles back in the late 60s/early 70s, eventually becoming a substantive voting bloc with the influence to shape various levels of government.

 

[Marvolo]

Sanders staying in until the convention is the worst thing he could do. The convention isnt a soapbox for Sanders own personal use. It isnt his stage to push his positions. Its about picking a candidate. Clinton is going to be that candidate. Sanders needs to get over it swallow his pride and stop helping Trump and hurting Hillary. Which is the only thing he is actually accomplishing if he stays in the race until the convention.

 

[DDS]

Sanders needs to stay in the race until the end. At the very least, he can bring his positions to the convention, regardless of the conclusion. The Democratic Party has never progressed long-term from being less inclusive. The opposition party has based their national contests on being more exclusive than not.
Sanders-supporters are well advised to turn their interests to local and regional campaigns- from local government to state legislatures to public-college trustee races, local school boards (and state boards of education), elected judge seats and the other roles that scarcely get much high profile attention. The "religious right" got their base going by strategically targeting these and other roles back in the late 60s/early 70s, eventually becoming a substantive voting bloc with the influence to shape various levels of government.

I believe he could still do those things as just Senator Sanders instead of Hillary's opponent. He should drop out once Hillary wins another contest, because then she will have 26/50 states on top of her pledged delegate and popular vote count.

Him begging for super delegates at the end would be an embarrassment.

 

[Hypestyle]

leaving the remaining primary states without a 'major' candidate to vote for would be disingenuous for the DNC. If I lived in KY, W.Va, or California, I'd be like, "dang-- what about me?"

The convention is a 'sandbox' for the DNC writ large, not just one person or the "favored" candidate by some. It should be thankful that Sanders and Martin O'Malley (though really, there should have been several more candidates) were in the race. If Clinton "by herself only" were in the race going back to 2015, that would have been embarrassing. At the national level, party leadership ought to be mindful that it needs to start cultivating more "talent", and hopefully multicultural/multigender talent, from assorted regions of the country.

Trump's campaign attacks will be what they will be-- this is known upfront-- counter them with substantive facts. The final election is in November, not June. The assumption that Sanders lingering candidacy, by default, smears Clinton's credibility in the general election only emboldens people who feel that Democrats really don't have anything of substance to say. There has to be a deeper narrative from DNC candidates than simply "we're not Republicans".

 

[craigdbfan]

Stay all the way up until the convention Bernie! Make them feel the Bern!

 

[redhawk23]

Yeah, except your analogy is flawed. They aren't akin to the post office and federal reserve as they do not receive federal funding. A better analogy would be that they are akin to the AFL-CIO or NRA. They are private institutions that unify to exercise political power.

The problem is primary elections are indeed largely publicly funded. They can't really use that excuse.

 

[Chance Jackson]

Nonsense. Ross Perot proved the error in that thinking along ago. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven how cynically disingenuous that world view is. With the rise in social media and the digital era, we are seeing a new form of inexpensive grassroots activism and fundraising. Third party candidates and independents are slowly moving toward a prominent role in our government.

What did ross perot really accomplish?

The internet is changing things but we aren't there yet

 

[TheCommissioner]

from POTUS, speaking at Howard University commencement today

""You can be completely right, but you still are going to have to engage folks who disagree with you," the president added. "If you think the only way forward is to be as uncompromising as possible, you will feel good about yourself, you will enjoy a certain moral purity, but you're not going to get what you want."

 

[DDS]

I got in an argument with my Bernie or Bust sister yesterday, and I finally realized what talking politics to people like that is like. It's like trying to talk skeptically about God to an evangelist.

She is vowing to write Bernie's name in even if he's not the nominee in November. I kept trying to tell her that only helps Trump. These people don't give a ****. They will follow their leader to the ends of the Earth, and Hillary is their devil.

 

[chaseter]

Hillary is the Devil though.

 

[enterthemadness]

I got in an argument with my Bernie or Bust sister yesterday, and I finally realized what talking politics to people like that is like. It's like trying to talk skeptically about God to an evangelist.

She is vowing to write Bernie's name in even if he's not the nominee in November. I kept trying to tell her that only helps Trump. These people don't give a ****. They will follow their leader to the ends of the Earth, and Hillary is their devil.

And? She is entitled to her vote.