What if Hillary doesn't get a "Bernie Bounce"?

[DS0816]

Then f-ck Bernie Sanders to hell and back.

He's already gotta be one of the sorest losers I've ever seen, and the way he's built up this fantasy around his militant supporters who are unable to take no for an answer is just crazy. And it's also why the Republicans are in such a mess: The base has been reassured time and time again that impossible things can be accomplished. The Democratic Party does not need that, or the right will keep winning and winning and winning some more.

Long story short, this guy has hugely worn out his welcome.

This, 100%. The type of partisanship he's encouraging reminds me of the tea party. In the long run, if infusing the progressive wing with an inability to compromise and a divorcement from facts is his main contribution once all the dust is cleared, he will have left the Democratic Party worse off because of it. He's not the right person to implement any of his proposed policies, and many of them should be left on the cutting room floor to begin with.

For a lot of Sanders supporters, "the Democratic Party" can go stuff itself - from their perspective, they've been screwed for decades (if not their whole lifetime by the Democratic Party. Their quite rational goal is what the see as a better nation or government, or at least a better nation and government for themselves and people like them.

"The Democratic Party" has burned much its credibility over the Clinton and Obama terms. The whine that something is "bad for the Party" when The Party's chief function seems to be servicing the 1% will have exactly as much impact on the election as Hillary attacking Trump for supporting the 2nd amendment.

Then maybe Bernie's loser supporters should have gotten off their fat asses and voted in 2010 and 2014. But nahhhh they were mostly only 14 at the time or too busy complaining that no one is giving them free education.

Wow!

You really come across as a fool.

The 18 to 29 voters are the first to back Democrats … and you are ignorant by writing that statement. They are the voting-age base of the Democratic Party.

The two oldest voting-age groups, 45 to 64 and 65+, had a larger turnout in size voting the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination than they do in participating in a general election: a 3-to-2 advantage; normally, in generals, they are approximately 50 percent. (The presidential elections don't tend to see a combined 60 percent, or slightly above that, as the size of the vote from those aged 45 to 64 and 65+.)

Their level of participation counts. It's part of the record. But, they don't reflect the general-election turnout. And they didn't serve this 2016 Democratic presidential outcome, so far, very encouragingly. In fact, the 45 to 64 and 65+ voters nationally carried in the 2012 presidential election for losing Republican Mitt Romney. That is not the type of 2016 Democratic presidential primaries outcome that should have Hillary Clinton, and her sycophantic supporters, especially you, feeling like they have bragging rights.

[Virginiá]

You say you "have faith that this party is heading in a better direction", but Sanders supporters look at the party and see Obama's Attorney General, headed back to a corner office in the same law firm he worked for before becoming AG, and which has as clients some of the very people he ought to have been prosecuting for lawbreaking (and didn't). They see Secretary Clinton, and her massive collection of what are, at the very least, amazingly terrible optics and tone-deaf responses.

This kind of stuff has always happened, even before the party took a right turn. I see the kind of party you want, but it's unrealistic to expect everything to change so quickly.

The reason I said I have faith is that my generation (Millennials) and possibly the generation after that has been framed around the ideas of inequality and anti-corruption views. Once politics begins to be dominated by such values, changes will come. I'm sure of it. There is already a lot of pressure from outside groups and voters to change the way things are done. We are 1 justice away from being able to reverse CU - A spot that will be filled within the next 2 years.

I'm not saying I have faith in the government and current crop of politicians so much as the people who will make things tick in the future. Things could change for the better before then, but I'm focused on the long-term potential. I think I understand why you see things this way, but I also think the system can and will be improved. I'm not going to day-to-day thinking the worst of everything.

You say that the electorate isn't taking responsibility, while the electorate is putting unheard-of levels of support, including money in the range that was previously believed to be impossible without corporate, blunder, and billionaire support, into Sanders campaign. And rather than adopting their fundraising model with glee, the response of the DNC is to ignore them, and pray that they'll go away. And that's when, from the perspective of Sanders' supporters, they're not busy trying to rig the election against them.

It takes a rather extraordinary candidate to to be able to raise that much money from small donors - Especially on such a small average donation amount as Sanders is bringing in. Not all presidential candidates can do this and it would be silly to think that every 4 years Democrats could put up a Sanders-esque candidate that can appeal to a larger slice of the electorate. I'm sure there are lots of potential candidates out there, but who are they? No one knew Sanders could make this happen.

And it's not like the Democratic party is avoiding small donor fundraising. Dean pioneered the idea, Obama implemented it with wild success (mainly because he was the kind of candidate who people wanted to donate lots of money to), and now Sanders has done even better. The problem is, as I said, is that not all candidates have such deep appeal that they can bring in that kind of money.

Plus, it's not exactly a given that Sanders or another appealing candidate can raise all the money via small donors that it would take to run a highly effective general election campaign from start to finish. Just because Sanders did so well up to this point doesn't mean that he could have kept going as strong month after month up to November.

We need campaign finance reform before we start placing these expectations on our candidates. It's either that or risk a significant cash disadvantage against Republicans every time we can't find a rockstar candidate, which will likely be more often than not.

The DNC is perceived as the classic self-licking ice-cream cone. And there's enough truth in that depiction to be problematic. Promises of incremental change have led to the brink of disaster, and like it or not, a good chunk of voters will not accept them any longer. And I can't even say that they're wrong to reject them, given how hard the DNC seems to want to fight against change, or its supposed goals. (It's practical goal appears to be, "how much can we sell out our constituents this time?")

That's a bit cynical, don't you think? You're acting like Democrats haven't done for or fought for anything for the people. I get you don't like the way things are now, but give them some credit.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Then f-ck Bernie Sanders to hell and back.

He's already gotta be one of the sorest losers I've ever seen, and the way he's built up this fantasy around his militant supporters who are unable to take no for an answer is just crazy. And it's also why the Republicans are in such a mess: The base has been reassured time and time again that impossible things can be accomplished. The Democratic Party does not need that, or the right will keep winning and winning and winning some more.

Long story short, this guy has hugely worn out his welcome.

This, 100%. The type of partisanship he's encouraging reminds me of the tea party. In the long run, if infusing the progressive wing with an inability to compromise and a divorcement from facts is his main contribution once all the dust is cleared, he will have left the Democratic Party worse off because of it. He's not the right person to implement any of his proposed policies, and many of them should be left on the cutting room floor to begin with.

It's not "partisanship."

It's platform.

It's leadership.

There are people who support Hillary Clinton who have never understood why there is such support for Bernie Sanders.

They are out of touch.

On the contrary, I'd reckon most Hillary supporters are quite aware of why his support is so widespread since their overrarching goals are for the most part similarly aligned. Remember how much Bernie and Hillary agreed on in the early debates? Getting special interest money out of the election process? Most Hillary supporters want that. Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy? Most Hillary supporters want that as well. More accountability from the financial service sector? Ditto.

Where they disagree on is methods. Bernie plans to strongarm dramatic structural changes overnight with no regard to whether the system can handle such a rapid shift. Hillary intends to work within the system to implement changes at at more stable pace. Herein lies my main problem with Bernie: he's constructed a narrative that the vast majority want a revolution, and opposition to his policies is due to corruption rather than authentic ideological differences on what is reasonable to implement. That has in turn, created a base of supporters whom cannot view any disagreement as legitimate, but rather as the handiwork of self-serving sell outs.

He's a demagogue who speaks in terms of moral absolutes and false dichotomies, advocating for simple solutions to complex problems by scapegoating easy targets as the source of all the country's woes. He's cultivated a cult of personality that has allowed his claims to go unexamined by his most committed supporters. He's tricked young voters that are new to political engagement into believing that his policies are the only means of achieving progressive goals.

It's great that he's encouraging Millenials to become more politically active and is highlighting the issues they find important, and good for him for making election reform a central subject of his platform. I just wish he wasn't such a narcissistic firebrand who could potentially seal the progressive wing into an ideological echo chamber and aggravate Millenial apathy due to the idea that their votes won't matter because the system will override their choice anyway. I'm certainly seeing an increase voter engagement due to his presence, but I'm not observing an uptick in knowledge of how the process actually works, which motivates them to turn to more simplistic answers like "the system is too corrupt for Bernie to win."

He lost because more people voted for Hillary Clinton and he needs to acknowledge that eventually.

[DS0816]

Then f-ck Bernie Sanders to hell and back.

He's already gotta be one of the sorest losers I've ever seen, and the way he's built up this fantasy around his militant supporters who are unable to take no for an answer is just crazy. And it's also why the Republicans are in such a mess: The base has been reassured time and time again that impossible things can be accomplished. The Democratic Party does not need that, or the right will keep winning and winning and winning some more.

Long story short, this guy has hugely worn out his welcome.

This, 100%. The type of partisanship he's encouraging reminds me of the tea party. In the long run, if infusing the progressive wing with an inability to compromise and a divorcement from facts is his main contribution once all the dust is cleared, he will have left the Democratic Party worse off because of it. He's not the right person to implement any of his proposed policies, and many of them should be left on the cutting room floor to begin with.

It's not "partisanship."

It's platform.

It's leadership.

There are people who support Hillary Clinton who have never understood why there is such support for Bernie Sanders.

They are out of touch.

On the contrary, I'd reckon most Hillary supporters are quite aware of why his support is so widespread since their overrarching goals are for the most part similarly aligned. Remember how much Bernie and Hillary agreed on in the early debates? Getting special interest money out of the election process? Most Hillary supporters want that. Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy? Most Hillary supporters want that as well. More accountability from the financial service sector? Ditto.

Where they disagree on is methods. Bernie plans to strongarm dramatic structural changes overnight with no regard to whether the system can handle such a rapid shift. Hillary intends to work within the system to implement changes at at more stable pace. Herein lies my main problem with Bernie: he's constructed a narrative that the vast majority want a revolution, and opposition to his policies is due to corruption rather than authentic ideological differences on what is reasonable to implement. That has in turn, created a base of supporters whom cannot view any disagreement as legitimate, but rather as the handiwork of self-serving sell outs.

He's a demagogue who speaks in terms of moral absolutes and false dichotomies, advocating for simple solutions to complex problems by scapegoating easy targets as the source of all the country's woes. He's cultivated a cult of personality that has allowed his claims to go unexamined by his most committed supporters. He's tricked young voters that are new to political engagement into believing that his policies are the only means of achieving progressive goals.

It's great that he's encouraging Millenials to become more politically active and is highlighting the issues they find important, and good for him for making election reform a central subject of his platform. I just wish he wasn't such a narcissistic firebrand who could potentially seal the progressive wing into an ideological echo chamber and aggravate Millenial apathy due to the idea that their votes won't matter because the system will override their choice anyway. I'm certainly seeing an increase voter engagement due to his presence, but I'm not observing an uptick in knowledge of how the process actually works, which motivates them to turn to more simplistic answers like "the system is too corrupt for Bernie to win."

He lost because more people voted for Hillary Clinton and he needs to acknowledge that eventually.

Thanks for sharing what you figure to be your observations about Hillary Clinton's primaries voters having any sort of understanding why people aren't into Hillary but are strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Perhaps you will also observe that when a candidate takes hundreds of thousands in money from Wall Street and financial institutions, they expect something in return which works to their advantage (and not to yours).

[Hermit For Peace]

Thanks for sharing what you figure to be your observations about Hillary Clinton's primaries voters having any sort of understanding why people aren't into Hillary but are strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Perhaps you will also observe that when a candidate takes hundreds of thousands in money from Wall Street and financial institutions, they expect something in return which works to their advantage (and not to yours).

Did you watch the debate between Bernie and Hillary when he was asked to name just ONE instance where Hillary compromised her vote or her action because of Wall Street or big money's influence on her.

He couldn't come up with one instance at all.

So you see, you seem to be reading something into a situation that just isn't there.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Thanks for sharing what you figure to be your observations about Hillary Clinton's primaries voters having any sort of understanding why people aren't into Hillary but are strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Perhaps you will also observe that when a candidate takes hundreds of thousands in money from Wall Street and financial institutions, they expect something in return which works to their advantage (and not to yours).

Did you watch the debate between Bernie and Hillary when he was asked to name just ONE instance where Hillary compromised her vote or her action because of Wall Street or big money's influence on her.

He couldn't come up with one instance at all.

So you see, you seem to be reading something into a situation that just isn't there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12mJ-U76nfg

[RaphaelDLG]

Thanks for sharing what you figure to be your observations about Hillary Clinton's primaries voters having any sort of understanding why people aren't into Hillary but are strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Perhaps you will also observe that when a candidate takes hundreds of thousands in money from Wall Street and financial institutions, they expect something in return which works to their advantage (and not to yours).

Did you watch the debate between Bernie and Hillary when he was asked to name just ONE instance where Hillary compromised her vote or her action because of Wall Street or big money's influence on her.

He couldn't come up with one instance at all.

So you see, you seem to be reading something into a situation that just isn't there.

Bernie is a weak-ass debater.  He should have known that he had to prepare better for HRC.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

So I'm basically in alignment with the pro Bernie argument here, but I'll point out one fresh thing.

It matters that Sanders is running against Sec. Clinton

The Clinton political universe (Pres. Clinton, Sec. Clinton, the army of advisers etc) embodies pretty much all of what progs, independents, labor folks, and general anti-establishment types hate about the Democratic Party as it stands today.

Who took the party rightward? Why, that would be Bill and the Democratic Leadership Council.

Who signed NAFTA? Bill. Who voted for PNTR, and helped craft the TPP? Secretary Clinton.

(btw, TPP is a basically unforgivable sin on the part of the Obama administration. And not a single Republican forced them to do it)

Who are extremely affluent limousine liberals that prevent the party from relating to normal Americans? Mmmm, I think the Chappaqua mansion and yearly appearances at the Davos Economic Forum wouldn't distance anyone from the plebs.  

Who takes corporate money? Man, I could run a flush national campaign off of the money that large institutions have given the Clintons * personally * (see affluent above).

Who is loved by Dems but hated by the rest of the country? (lolllll)

Who has a poisonous, insider culture? Have we talked about the massive universe of staffers that live on Planet Clinton and nowhere else? I have it from a pretty good source that the story about Bill Clinton buying the inner circle the same model of a very expensive watch is 100% true.

Plus, to the above, you have DWS reminding everybody every minute of every day that the Clintons have connections.  

I for one think that this race would be so much different if, say, Biden were the Establishment pick (net worth, 500k). Or someone who had voted against NAFTA. Or anyone who didn't check every single box that would piss anti-establishment folks off.


Re: Bernie being selfish. I have literally been saying it since NV that he's in it to change the party platform and next nominating process, not in some delusion that he can be nominated.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Thanks for sharing what you figure to be your observations about Hillary Clinton's primaries voters having any sort of understanding why people aren't into Hillary but are strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Perhaps you will also observe that when a candidate takes hundreds of thousands in money from Wall Street and financial institutions, they expect something in return which works to their advantage (and not to yours).

Did you watch the debate between Bernie and Hillary when he was asked to name just ONE instance where Hillary compromised her vote or her action because of Wall Street or big money's influence on her.

He couldn't come up with one instance at all.

So you see, you seem to be reading something into a situation that just isn't there.

Bernie is a weak-ass debater.  He should have known that he had to prepare better for HRC.

yep.