Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign megathread

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All of these arguments about 2008 being less competitive than 2016 are missing the point. We couldn’t have known earlier in those years what the outcome would be for sure. People assumed that 2008 would be a close race up until the recession, and many assumed that Clinton would win easily in 2016. The point is that Sanders did try to convince his supporters to back Clinton, and was largely successful. Blaming him for what a very small percentage of his supporters did is disingenuous, and just comes across as another excuse to attack Bernie, blame him for everything, and retain old grudges. He’s claimed that he will support any of the Democratic candidates, so how about we focus on this year, and not attack him as divisive unless he clearly walks back on that.

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All of these arguments about 2008 being less competitive than 2016 are missing the point. We couldn’t have known earlier in those years what the outcome would be for sure. People assumed that 2008 would be a close race up until the recession, and many assumed that Clinton would win easily in 2016. The point is that Sanders did try to convince his supporters to back Clinton, and was largely successful. Blaming him for what a very small percentage of his supporters did is disingenuous, and just comes across as another excuse to attack Bernie, blame him for everything, and retain old grudges. He’s claimed that he will support any of the Democratic candidates, so how about we focus on this year, and not attack him as divisive unless he clearly walks back on that.

I'm sympathetic to what you're saying, NV, and while I wish I could agree (God knows I don't want to rehash 2016 til the day I die), I just can't.  For one, blaming Sanders for his role in the 2016 defeat isn't the same as "blaming him for everything."  There's plenty of blame to go around, and just because he wasn't solely responsible for Democrats' losses doesn't mean he's blameless.  And two, it makes no sense to just "focus on this year" and ignore the recent past as we evaluate the candidates.  Would you say we do that for all the other candidates too?  Do we ignore Biden's tenure as vice president or Senator?  Should we forget about O'Rourke's Senate race last year?  Is Harris's time as California's AG off limits?  Should we ignore everythign Trump did prior to this year?  I assume not, so why are supposed to give Sanders a pass?

If we’re going to argue that Sanders could have done even more to help Clinton, yeah, it’s hard to disagree with that. However, many act as though he’s the primary culprit, when he did make an effort to help Clinton and campaign with her. Maybe he could have done even more events, maybe her campaign didn’t want him to do that many events with her, maybe it still wouldn’t have been enough. We’ll never know. And as I said, if Sanders goes back on his vow to stay positive, people have every right to call him out for it. I don’t think going negative at times during the primary last year is comparable to legislative records, but either way, I would feel differently about Biden if he more seriously acknowledged his mistakes and how he would govern differently as president. Sanders has acknowledged some of the issues that existed in his previous campaign, and talked about what he plans to do differently.

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All of these arguments about 2008 being less competitive than 2016 are missing the point. We couldn’t have known earlier in those years what the outcome would be for sure. People assumed that 2008 would be a close race up until the recession, and many assumed that Clinton would win easily in 2016. The point is that Sanders did try to convince his supporters to back Clinton, and was largely successful. Blaming him for what a very small percentage of his supporters did is disingenuous, and just comes across as another excuse to attack Bernie, blame him for everything, and retain old grudges. He’s claimed that he will support any of the Democratic candidates, so how about we focus on this year, and not attack him as divisive unless he clearly walks back on that.

This is totally disingenuous. The real problem was that Sanders stayed in the race far, far too late, and for totally bogus reasons that were obvious lies and that exacerbated serious divides within the party. That doesn't even necessarily mean lots of Sanders supporters defected or sat out the race in the general election, but the promotion of the perception that Clinton was "unclean" or "unfit" from Sanders resonated as much with swing voters as with the left and was the real damage Sanders did, which he could have easily prevented by dropping out after Super Tuesday when he clearly could no longer win the nomination. He had no business being in the race (and gave really foolish reasons for staying in), and it was sad, pathetic and ultimately a major cause of Trump's victory. And nothing he's said has indicated that he won't do it again; a pledge to support the ultimate nominee doesn't create any reason to expect more from him than the tepid and weak support he did ultimately give Clinton far too late in the process or prevent him from making the dumb argument that he made in 2016 that the nominee wasn't decided until the convention (edit: it's possible it won't be, especially in the multi-cornered election this year, but that's beside the point). And he's given exactly zero reasons for people who didn't vote for him in the primaries to trust him; he's just as much of a disloyal, self-serving snake as he was then.

(This does not exonerate Clinton's bad behavior on roughly the same issue in 2008 - but at least in 2008 she had a theoretical chance much later than Sanders did in 2016, and could have still won had superdelegate defections not overwhelmed her. It was a poor strategy on her part, and I did not support Clinton in 2008 in the primaries, but she made very clear her turnaround after the primaries were over and was unabashed and bold in her support for Obama, a stark contrast with Sanders. In any event, Clinton is not running in 2020.)

You can call Sanders' reasons bogus, but he was certainly not mathematically eliminated on Super Tuesday. Maybe you can make a case for the end of April, but even so, it's common for candidates to stay in, even when there's virtually no hope for them to actually win. I fail to see how Sanders, who has actively tried to support many other Democrats running since 2016, is any more self-serving than any candidate who runs for president and tries to win. I disagree that he's given zero reasons to trust him, but in the eyes of those who dislike him, there's probably nothing he could do to earn their trust. The campaign Clinton ran in 2008 was much nastier and more negative than Sanders' in 2016 (and I'm not just talking about her decision to stay in the race until the end), and Democrats were willing to forgive and forget.

And when did Sanders call Clinton "unclean"? Sure, he criticized the paid speeches (a valid criticism, in my opinion), and perhaps he went negative a bit too much. To say that his campaign is the reason she lost is misguided, however, since one of the things that hurt her the most near the end is something Sanders specifically refused to comment on ("I'm tired of hearing about her damn emails!") And the argument that Clinton whole-heartedly supported Obama in 2008, while Sanders's support for Clinton in 2016 was only tepid is totally subjective, as is the idea that Sanders only ever acts in self interest.

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Serious question: what does a primary where Sanders loses but the DNC isn't "screwing" Bernie look like to you?

The DNC as an organ is largely powerless when it comes to these matters but it's hard to argue in good faith that a candidate whose mere presence in the campaign has led to senior party officials (including the top Democratic parliamentarians in both houses of Congress) attending private events to co-ordinate efforts to sabotage their candidacy is not having the decks stacked against the, from the start:

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We can argue back and forth about whether or not it's fair that elements of the party apparatus coalescing around other candidates (and that's an interesting and important discussion I'm willing to have in good faith!) but that's not what I was pointing out.

I'm more interested in the fact that, whenever pressed on the fact that Bernie is sewing disunity towards the party, there's tons of pushback denying that that's even happening, citing a dumb and meaningless pledge he signed (before all other candidates!!) or some lame-ass deflection to PUMAs from a decade ago. But it's happening and this is a clear example.

And yes yes I'm going to get people and/or ferns crying to me about "but Bernie is being attacked and that's unfair!" and I don't really care because that's beside the point. We can have that argument one people admit that Bernie is actively partaking in stoking antipathy towards the party and this isn't the first time he's done so.

But I was told that Bernie doesn't actively stoke anti-party rhetoric?

"Establishment" =/= party.

Within this discussion that's a dumb and pedantic distinction and you know it.

Many of us would say that he's pointing out disunity rather than sewing it. There's been frustration with the Democratic Party leaders for some time, and despite many wanting to believe that everyone was happy with the party before Sanders came along, consider that he began gaining steam not because of attacks on Hillary, but because of people liking his message. It was refreshing for many to hear a Democratic candidate embrace left-wing policies, rather than running to the center and hearing the same old shtick about how "incremental change" was the only way to get anything done. We had just witnessed 2014, in which many Democrats ran away from Obama as "too far left", thinking that was the only way to win, and got massacred all the same. Many people feel as though Sanders criticizing the direction of the party and its elders is justified, especially if they make it clear that they don't want him to be the nominee. Many feel as though the party leaders aren't listening to voters.

Has Sanders ever made an attack that's gone too far? Sure, I won't defend literally every statement he's made, but if party leaders do try to stop him, and are willing to coalesce around literally any other candidate, they're only proving him right, and making him appear justified to be distrustful. Obviously, you disagree, but that's how it looks to a lot of Democrats.

We're not going to agree on who's "at fault" for the disunity, but pointing fingers isn't going to solve the problem; it's just going to result in us eating each other alive even more, which is exactly what Trump wants.

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I personally support Sanders's position, but the way he worded it was probably not the best. It just lends itself to attack ads.

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Twitter's not good for your health, man.

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Yeah, the man in the picture sure looks unhappy and is if he was forced to take the picture.

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Is Bernie still running? I only hear about Biden these days.

Don't worry he's still in the race. Bernie is just gasping about the poor performance of Jeremy Corbyn in the European election, knowing it will have a mark on his electorally.

Megacoattails go international. Feel like we need a new word for this.

Trans-Atlantic coattails?

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https://twitter.com/tommyxtopher/status/1134207499287105537

This is "lashing out"? lol, people will really grasp at nothing to trash Bernie.

Welcome to Atlas!

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I think Sanders usually gets way too much flack for simply rocking the boat and not thinking the current Democratic leadership is perfect, but I do hope that he personally does not believe that about Warren and clarifies his position, because that's simply inexcusable.

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Blunt forgiveness might be too much, but saying "eh, they chose to go to college, it's their problem" is just neglectful, and enables the absurd cost (which is continually greater) of tuition. At the very least, Sanders and Warren continually bring up an issue that most politicians are more than happy to ignore.

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I wouldn't say he "won", but I think it was a pretty standard/average performance on his part. Probably won't change his numbers much.

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Some of the quotes of the people in his anti-endorsement list are downright hilarious. SDS is alive and well.