2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGreg Palast: How California is being stolen from Sanders right now
http://www.gregpalast.com/california-stolen-sanders-right-nowspecial-bulletin-greg-palast/"Most of this procedural nonsense, like the need to surrender an NPP ballot with an envelope and request a crossover ballot well, frankly, Bernies campaign has known about that all year."
msongs
(67,199 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Were those states also stolen by Hillary?
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)If nothing else, this primary has exposed the depth of corruption intrinsic to our election process. The people do not elect, just rubber stamp.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Implying no states were stolen because all states were not stolen is silly.
LexVegas
(6,005 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)TeddyR
(2,493 posts)I don't like the complaining/conspiracy theories about why he lost. Too WorldNetDaily for me.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)know about it. What, in your opinion, should a candidate say or do about these? Is it the proper thing to be quiet? To be a "good sport?" Which just means lose gracefully and go crawl in a ditch? That certainly makes you the "better" person. What does it do about the problem? What does it do about local or national awareness? How does it prevent it from happening next time?
I know its easy to score points by painting the Bernie campaign as sore losers, but it seems to be done, almost without fail, as a substitution for substantive consideration or reasoning about the concerns and allegations of the campaign, and rather than to scrutinize and dismantle the arguments, the focus tends to be entirely on mocking the campaign. That's not surprising. It's right out of the playbook. Anyone reading from it is just doing what they are supposed to do.
But anybody just getting caught up in that rhetoric should seriously consider whether they've even bothered to listen to the arguments, and maybe they should consider, instead of attempting to quell dissent, and poopooing distrust with derision, helping to erode that distrust by focusing in earnest on poking holes in the logic of the allegations themselves, rather than people making them.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)So far over 3.7 million MORE citizens have voted for her than Bernie--and unlike Bernie totals there are no spoiler conservatives in that total who actually intend to vote for Trump. They all chose her for president.
Hillary is winning because more people voted for her than Bernie.
FiveThirtyEight says that the table was actually more tilted for Bernie, not her. If all those dreadfully undemocratic caucus states had already changed to far more representative primaries, Sanders would have ended very far behind.
Both Indiana and another state actually held unbinding primaries after their caucuses. Bernie had won the caucuses, but Hillary "won" both primaries by large margins because far more people voted.
That was the Catch 22, but it was working for Bernie and against democracy.
The good news is, democracy won.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)votes, and I wouldn't dispute that. How the party establishment lined up and pushed, and shilled, yes even lied about Bernie's past and his record, and loved to count those super-delegates early on in the primary, and sell a meme of Bernie being for angry white men, when he overwhelming took the youth vote(which says something about how unlikely that characterization is), and how the media was complicit in all of it, is my biggest gripe, but that didn't come out of left field, so I certainly wasn't surprised when the DNC pulled down the veil a little bit.
The other shady shit, if in fact there was any, sounds like it was at the margins compared to the manufactured narratives or silences that helped to propel Clinton to the GE. I would not be surprised if that stuff happened, and I think its worth looking at, given that people at all levels of the establishment were "doing their part," but if it did, it just came down to padding, or slightly tipping. Maybe it helped with the narratives, or maybe people are being a little too hyper-paranoid. But I understand why they would be.
By the way, I'll just point out again, that I am in agreement with you about caucuses. When I first heard about them I think a state tipped to Bernie, and I was like, what the hell is that crazy shit? You vote and then somebody else has to show up some day in the future or your vote doesn't count? They are far less egregious than our super-delegate system in my opinion, but both should go. I was really anxious to see what would happen if Bernie got the popular vote and the Supers refused to switch to him. If you think the divisiveness is bad now, the DNC would have taken us nuclear with that move. And no, I don't think they would have switched to him, at least not quite enough of them.. He is the very reason there's such a thing as super-delegates.
As far as democracy winning goes, we appear to have very different lenses through which we see our government. I envy yours, because you apparently believe it isn't broken. I very much believe that money and capitalism have fracked the fuck out of its foundation.
I'll say this though. I hope you're right and I'm wrong.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)of, by, and for the people, who are all equal and endowed with inalienable rights, is broken.
Our government IS under attack by ultraconservatives, funded by hundreds of billionaires and megamillionaires, who do not believe in those principles and have been engaged in a highly organized and funded effort for over 40 years to take it over. Before he became a Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Powell was one of those who drew up careful plans for the eventual takeover of our nation by the right and its transformation from its liberal founding principles into one in which economic, political, and social inequality are built into the system, including rewriting the Bill of Rights.
How do ultraconservatives destroy a government, JCanete? They cause people to not believe in it any more and thus to believe that it must be replaced with something else. THAT is the origin of the very pervasive notion that it is broken and must be replaced with something "better". This scarily wide-spread idea is the result of over 40 years of both lies that the government is failing and of destruction from within government by anti-government officials, who for instance de-fund programs and pass laws so they cannot work, then tell people they can't work and never will. And, of course, through massive monetary corruption.
The fact is, that our government, as governments go, is magnificent. Formed before the Industrial Revolution came to America, it has been a strong, wonderfully stable structure that has nonetheless been able to meet and survive tremendous changes by changing with the people it belongs to and serves. It's faults are our faults, which is why it gets better when we get better and gets worse when we backslide.
After all these years of destruction and backsliding, a lot of repair is needed even while we move ahead again. But it is far from broken. It IS in grave danger, however.
I would be very surprised if the ultraconservatives who formed, funded, and directed the right-wing anti-government Tea Party have not been taking copious notes of Bernie's success in mobilizing an anti-establishment "populist" movement on the left. If they could join both those on the right and those on the left who have been successfully persuaded to believe our government is broken, does not serve the people, and must be rebuilt--starting with getting all the Democrats out of office--they could achieve a majority.
And then they would start "rebuilding," or "revolution," as you might prefer, only in a very different direction those who empowered it imagined.
Not that you would hear anyone explain it that way, of course. It would be wrapped in the highest principles.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)doesn't mean that I think that its foundation isn't what we work with to rebuild it. I'm not advocating throwing out the constitution or the bill of rights. I believe in those. After all, it is within the system that Bernie Sanders is attempting to change the most corrupt aspects of it. He is adhering to, not bucking those first principles.
But you, in my opinion have a strange disconnect about the influence of money on governance. Apparently it only corrupts republicans. Apparently when big money goes to democrats, well that's just big money being silly because democrats are a different breed of human being. You don't think that there would be a concerted effort to infiltrate both parties by industry heavyweights, and that money could do it? I mean, in an astonishing fit of honesty Al Gore said he went with the corn lobby and pandered ethanol because he needed to do it to get elected even though he already knew that that was the wrong direction. You don't think that sort of thing is rampant?
The truth is, and deep down you must know this, if you can't get big money to back you in an election you usually don't have a prayer. The Sanders campaign was a fluke of timing and discontent, but those of us at the bottom can't keep funding this one or future campaigns. Which means that the politicians who succeed in either party have to be one of three things, with rare exception: closely aligned in belief with the industries that support them; willing to compromise their principles in exchange for power or the chance to do some good on different issues; or infiltrators suckering big money into supporting them and as soon as they get in they are going to do all the good things. How likely do you really, in your heart of hearts, think C is?
And what about the media? Thankfully we're moving to the internet, (but so is the money in the form of widely disseminated hit-pieces, etc.), but you don't think that MSNBC and ABC and CBS and CNN have corporate agendas along with FOX news? If not, why? What makes them better? Tell me true, would you ever expect MSNBC to do an expose on GE? And that's just an extreme case. Who are GE's friends and affiliates? Which companies have the same interests? Would you want to go hard at Disney, if you knew Disney might go hard right back at you? See, this is why when MSNBC appears to support the more corporate friendly candidate that many of us smirk, because of course they would. And that's why when people like Krugman(who has already evolved over time from a much more conservative believer in free markets) blast that Bernie's policies are impractical, we're skeptical of the source. Mind you, its not necessarily that he's lying, even though some of his rhetoric does seem a little recycled, but that he's the kind of personality that companies are comfortable with. He doesn't have revolutionary ideas about changing the status quo. He's for tweaking a system that needs an overhaul. He's safe. I prefer Reich, or Richard Wolfe myself, but the networks don't.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Stopping them is where we concentrate our initial efforts. Plus, the Republicans are far, far more corrupted and in the pockets of big money.
We already have large numbers of Democrats in office who want money out of politics, many of whom fought strenuously against it, and who will be glad to support making it illegal again 100% -- just as soon as they know it won't cost them their own jobs. Yes, that last is corrupt, an abrogation of principle, but it's far different from entering government as a first step to becoming wealthy, which the typical Republican is doing these days and sees nothing wrong with since most of them believe that a hierarchical class- and wealth-based system is natural and inevitable.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)That's life.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)in the billionaire class. Fees for top status-symbol speakers have zoomed to 6 figures just the way prices for top status-symbol art have soared to 8 figures and more, but for many of these people and their organizations it's all chump change.
That's how she can become wealthy in a very few years after decades of not bothering to chase money and not having any to speak of. Just accept a dozen entirely legal speaking engagements that require maybe a half day's investment, including handshaking but excluding travel, and there's your first million.
Your notion that only Bernie and his followers feel this concentration of wealth in the hands of a few needs to be fixed is 100% wrong, btw. Involved liberals always fought it. Even many conservatives now realize they have created a serious problem, though it is still basically the liberals and others on the left who recognize that it is actually an enormous problem that we must fix if our democracy is to survive.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)aren't going to tackle it head on, making the public very aware of it and your efforts to fight it, particularly its influence in politics, then you aren't going to change it. Even if you course correct a little, say for the sake of not letting the nation implode, you aren't actually fixing the problem, you're just finding a proper balance of injustice to acceptance that doesn't cause a revolution.
As to Clinton and her speaking fees, I'll just say I hope you're right. I've got no reason to believe you're right and that there isn't some quid pro quo implicit in some of these payments, but it absolutely could be the case. But with Clinton, I also have to hope that she's going to get into Washington and then do something other than what she has been saying she's going to do, which is basically nothing. I have to hope that her triangulations are a matter of getting elected, and that once there, then the principled champion of the poor and the middle class is going to pop out of the trojan horse. She's given me no reason to believe that's what I'm going to get. I'd have to take that entirely on faith.
tritsofme
(17,325 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Whining "not fair" every time it happens is pathetic.
scscholar
(2,902 posts)That is, 1 7,000,000,000 in Hillary's favor.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Not even a meme. Politics 101.
G_j
(40,366 posts)been very busy and have not been following any news.
I will say that Greg Palast knows his stuff. I wouldn't just write him off, so I'll read what he has to say.
merrily
(45,251 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Outside of that nice try.
ecstatic
(32,567 posts)Native
(5,935 posts)People may have had to do their homework and Bernie's campaign could have had more ground forces out to educate supporters in order for some independents' votes to be counted, but at least the opportunity to cast a vote was available.
Somehow I don't think this would have been anywhere near the issue it was if the situation had been reversed. Hillary's ground operation would have had this resolved and people would have known what to do ahead of time.
There are always rules. Some are clear, others are confusing, and some are down right convoluted, but they are there. If people choose not to do their homework (voters and the campaigns themselves), then there will obviously be consequences.
That said, the process of voting in this country needs to be majorly overhauled.
qdouble
(891 posts)scscholar
(2,902 posts)Why try to mislead people here about that?
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)scscholar
(2,902 posts)I don't appreciate your implication. How is making fun of the Sanders support hysteria an attack on the Party? It is supporting the Party.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)realmirage
(2,117 posts)Some of the people here sewing discord are not Sanders supporters. We all know that. Just who are they? Well, we can guess