Die-hard Bernie-ites are demonstrating how out of touch they are with true progressivism.

[RBInMaine]

It is great that Bernie's campaign did much better than expected, but in the end he got millions fewer votes and hundreds fewer pledged delegates. The "revolution" did not bring him a primary victory. That is the absolute reality, and as hard as it is, that is politics. Someone wins, and someone loses.

Now some die-hard Bernie supporters, no doubt a small minority, are having a very hard time dealing with reality and letting go. Sour grapes abound. The anti-Hillary attacks continue, even to the point of comparing Hillary to the mega-nut who is Trump. They are claiming a monopoly on the mantle of progressivism with an extremist, purist notion of progressivism and a standard that not even Bernie himself could pass. This has become a kind of progressive elitism, where these die-hards are accusing Hillary supporters of "not understanding the working class." How ridiculous. As if the many millions of Hillary's supporters are all a bunch of Wall Street millionaires living high off the hog. SHAME on that vile talk!

Progressive means actual PROGRESS. Hillary and her supporters generally agree with Bernie's goals, but her PROGRESSIVE plans are more grounded in DOABILITY. For example, free tuition sounds great, but for anyone, including rich kids? And how would you actually pay for that? How will you get that through Congress? And Bernie wants states to pick up a third of the cost. How many red states with red governors and legislatures will do that? Hm? Tell me how FAILING to get this and so many others things done is "progressive"? And with all respect, how much, after all his years in Congress, has Bernie actually ACCOMPLISHED? He has some accomplishments, but not too many.

The actual "revolution" remains to be seen. MANY of the "revolutionites" apparently went to the big fun rallies but didn't actually turn out to vote. Gee, perhaps that's the first step. Next, a REAL political movement is MANY YEARS LONG and will require tremendous and sustained dedication, energy, funding, and so many activities such as establishing a real alternative media, consolidation in common cause of progressive organizations across the nation, recruiting and helping candidates at all levels for all offices everywhere, dramatically increasing turnout in ALL election cycles, and much more. Will this actually happen? Will all those folks from the Bernie rallies show they are ready for a REAL movement like this that will actually have a chance to make REAL "progress"? We shall see folks. We shall see.

[bravenak]

1. Hillary supporters are the working class

They live in a bubble

[RBInMaine]

3. Hillary supporters live in REALITY, a notion far removed from some of the "revolutionaries."

[bravenak]

34. So true

I have tried to explain the process to them myself

[Hortensis]

6. So true! Noably, ONLY 15% TOTAL Dems told Bloomberg

pollsters that they had "unfavorable" feelings toward Hillary. That includes all those who feel merely various degrees of dislike or discomfort toward her as a result of 25 years of character assassination and disapproval of anything she's done to provide ammunition.

Subtract all those and you get the rather irrational die-hards toward her and/or the party and "bubble people." And only some of those ever really cared about Bernie's proposed policy changes, except as they saw them affecting themselves.

For many in this tiny and increasingly isolated group, Sanders' movement has been mostly just a vehicle for the expression of inchoate discontent and resentment, and enabler of a focused hostility they now can't let go of.

[bravenak]

35. Most of those that hated her always hated her

And so that was taught to our youth, that kind of animosity that is undeserved

[Hortensis]

36. Yes, and it's really about them, not her.

She's just a handy figure offered up to them when they wanted one.

[bravenak]

40. People need a villain

[Hortensis]

41. Want. They need not to indulge

the worst facets of their character, which is bad for them. Whole belief systems get built around these lies, and I'm sure many of them will never find their ways back to the people they could have been.

[bravenak]

42. The worst one will get very quiet for a long time

Then they will find a new villian and say the exact same thing about them.

[Hortensis]

43. Some are just cynically malicious.

But others have indulged themselves so far down the rabbit hole they'll never find their way back to the light. They truly convince themselves they are being decent and responsible. I expect many will still be muttering about their Hillary and other obsessions long after their caretakers have any idea what the mutters are about.

Here in Georgia tons of them are "good" Christians who never tie the prohibitions about bearing false witness and lying lips being an abomination to themselves. Oh, well. Bless their hearts...

[Android3.14]

8. Oops. I do believe we just saw a classic example of a Freudian slip

"Hillary supporters are the working class. They live in a bubble" - bravenak

I always kinda suspected...

[rjsquirrel]

12. "They"

refers to Sanders diehards. It was clear to me.


And yes Hillary won working-class voters. The only explanations I've heard from Sanders folks for that are: 1) voters are stupid and 2) the system was rigged.

Both explanations are patently the things losing campaigns say to convince a few followers to stay loyal. The first is the classic "false consciousness" argument (read your Marx); it gives lie to the whole pretense to be defending "democracy."

The second is a truism if you believe you are fighting the "establishment," in which case in a general sense yes, "the system" is what you set out to change, but that doesn't mean you were "cheated." No system tolerates its own destruction. The rules exist to prevent insurgencies and you knew that going in. If you believe you were actively cheated out of a win you otherwise would have had, then you have to actually prove it. Otherwise it's conspiracy theory, and frankly no method of outright intentional fraud produces winning margins of millions of votes. Far too many people would need to be in on it for it to be safe. Let alone effective.

Option 3 is that you ran a hell of an insurgent campaign but came up short because smart voters decided smashing "the establishment" (which you've avoided out of ideological purity for decades) in favor of pie in the sky promises that were obviously not achievable was actually a bad idea. The failure to recognize and correct for your supporters' aggressiveness and blindness to their own privilege was also a problem. People of color and women saw that clearly. Actual voters don't like being called stupid. They vote against you just for saying so.

Sucks to be a revolutionary. Name the last time America voted in a leftist "revolution," however.

The country is center left to center right depending on era and national mood. The democratic party is center left. Susan Sarandon and Cornell West represent fringe marginal views. Most Americans think those people are nuts. Embracing the far left is bad strategy. Embracing loony public figures who can't even articulate your platform without sounding silly too.

Bernie should have moved toward the center if he really wanted to win. But that would have cost him his hard left ideological support. So the problem with leftist revolutionary sorts is that they prize ideological purity over pragmatism (more so even than the far right) and it looks silly to most people old enough to have been through an election cycle or two.

Also you cannot build a movement around the charisma of one candidate. Let alone a grumpy one.

Poiitics 101.

[TheCowsCameHome]

17. Yes, her supporters do live in a bubble.

They will never get out of it, either. lol.

[baldguy]

2. You have a much kinder assessment of Bernie & his fans than I do.

[hobbit709]

4. ...

[ucrdem]

5. Sen. Sanders has good positions on some issues but "Bernie" the candidate was a strange brew.

Oddly enough he's keeping his divisive campaign up and running which makes me think that's the real Sanders. Which, I must admit, is what I've always thought.

[seabeckind]

7. Closing another factory here in Indiana.

Moving the labor part of it to Mexico.

Another one announced the closing a couple months ago. Moving the labor part to Mexico.

Both factories are very profitable but I guess not profitable enough for the investors.

Tell me what we should do about it.

We have lots of time. Over 60,000 factories have closed since 2000. Hel, even walmart is cutting jobs.

Maybe you can tell me how we stop this incrementally, don't go too fast, you're rocking the boat.

Need to be a team player.

[Octafish]

13. That's ''Progress.''

Wait for TPP to kick in and we'll progress all the way to the Middle Ages.

[ismnotwasm]

18. Here is a question

Reading through Sanders platform--it is pretty fabulous--I find very little he could change right away and wholesale. How would he have gotten things done without being incremental?

[seabeckind]

26. Much of the factory closings

were a result of a lack of enforcement of anti-trust regulations.

If the president reverses that Reagan direction (reinforced by Mr Clinton) using EOs (which is the way Reagan did the deed), how can that be done incrementally?

There are many things that are either, do it or not.

The no we can'ts depend on your buying the bullshit.

You might brush up on the big Merger and Acquisition strategy that resulted in the oligopoly we have in this country.

Eg, Carrier was bought by a money company, not a furnace company. They did nothing except leverage a buyout. Now they are closing the US plant.

Where's the "no you can't" crowd?

[joshcryer]

9. RBInMaine, can you please...

...just please stop.

[Fuddnik]

10. Yeah, this shit is getting really smelly.

[Else You Are Mad]

11. wow, really?

This post is more of a way to shoehorn Clinton into being a progressive more than anything else. I am sorry, there is not one 'true' progressive that would agree with your post.

Political ideals are not meant to be based on 'doability' --they are bases on ultimate goals and deeply held beliefs. If you think otherwise, maybe you should reexamine your own.

[seabeckind]

27. What he said. n/t

[Gothmog]

14. Sanders was never a threat and so had a free ride with no attacks

Sanders and his supporters are not being realistic

[eastwestdem]

44. Exactly!! nt

[uponit7771]

15. +1, I don't see how Sanders is progressing anything practical and not admitting Clinton won is bad

... character no matter how its spun.

He went into his stump speech rant after stoking attention from the MSM yesterday...

WTF!?

[Doctor_J]

16. You DINOS say the strangest things

The US didn't get Medicare and the VRA and the CRA by begging the opponents for crumbs and incremental steps. It required a leader who knew what needed to be done, and had the willpower to see it through. That's progress, and that's progressivism.

Currently, Mrs Clinton believes in a very conservative set of principles- escalation of the wars in the middle east, more violence in Israel, more dark money in our elections, more profits for insurance companies instead of healthcare, more trade deals that make corporations immune to our laws, etc. These are all directly opposite of the progress that the US needs. Thus she and her supporters are not in any way progressive.

[ismnotwasm]

19. I am a "Democrat in Name Only"?

That's not very nice.

[GulfCoast66]

32. Haven't you heard

The powers that be have awarded Doctor J the right to decide who and who is not a real member of the Democratic Party!

[blackspade]

20. More of this devisive bullshit.

Typical of the die hard sore winner crowd.

[randome]

21. Some people actually ENJOY being preached to every Sunday.

Even though the message is one you've heard over and over and over again. I don't get it. I don't like being talked AT instead of WITH. It's a waste of time and energy.

Sanders will have the same effect he's had in the Senate: some small changes and that's it. Too bad.

[MaeScott]

22. Brockettes tap tap tap tapping the script away

Pretending they are progressives. Blue dogs perhaps

[Herman4747]

23. What kind of "progress" will Hillary make with...

regards to foreign policy? What precisely have we seen so far? Is Hillary's good buddy, the war criminal Henry Kissinger, most pleased with at least some of what Hillary has done?

Will she appoint liberal judges who will approve the break-up of the "too-big-to-fail" banks paying her off? Or will other judges instead be appointed?

You emphasize "doability." Do you truly think that any of Hillary's proposals have a greater chance of getting through the Republican-controlled House, and then surviving a filibuster in the Senate?

Bernie makes his proposals not with the notion that they will be immediately passed, but that they represent a desirable long-term goal. Do you not think that health care coverage for all is a desirable long-term goal?

Extending health care coverage was proposed by President Truman in 1945. Yet nothing happened until around 1964 -- the stars have to align perfectly in Congress and the Presidency for something decent to pass. Yet the very fact that President Truman had advocated for more health care coverage made it easier for Medicare, the extension of health care coverage, to come about later.

Final question for now: Do you forecast that Hillary's presidency will be an improvement or Obama's, or will it instead be a step back?

[DonCoquixote]

29. a lot of stuff was never "doable"

Like Women's Suffrage, the end of Jim Crow Laws, Social Security, the Voting Rights Act, and Gay Marriage. If not being "doable" was a criteria, half the stuff we Democrats are still sunning ourselves over would have been DEAD ON ARRIVAL. There is a need for pragmatism, but part of that pragmatism includes the fact that if you let the right wing scare you into limiting your idea before you even enter the room, you allow them to determine your future.

[GeorgeGist]

24. Why so bitter?

[krawhitham]

25. 2. (of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.

[pangaia]

28. Oh, god in heaven, not another one !!!

[VulgarPoet]

30. Another goddamned "supporters" thread. nt

[QC]

31. Why do you post the very same things over and over and over

while your state is in the grip of a fascist lunatic like Paul LePage?

Why are you not using your enormous political gifts to get rid of that person instead of squandering such monumental expertise on us stupid BernieBros?

[MattSh]

33. ...

[HumanityExperiment]

37. Is this a progressive / liberal stance

[JCanete]

38. Some of us might take incrementalism, if it was in the right direction, and by the way, it doesn't

actually work to try to teflon your candidate from complaints that she isn't for the working class by saying working class people voted for her. People vote against their best interests all the time. You think poor white people who got out the vote for W were doing themselves a favor? Use issues, not voter base. I know that's going to be difficult, given your chosen candidate, but this other shit doesn't fly.

[coyote]

39. The denial that you are a moderate republican

Must be eating your soul.