In the end, Bernie Sanders was right, and what the Democrats need to learn from his campaign.

[Yavin4]

Last edited Thu Dec 1, 2016, 04:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Big unabashed, progressive, policy proposals are what the people want to hear. The era of the DLC, 3rd way, going for the moderate voter is dead and over.

Unambiguous big policy proposals on health care, education, taxes, financial reform, social justice, criminal reform, etc. That's what will resonate with the people.

More importantly, this platform solves the whole "reach out to the White working class" issue. If you clearly state that we will enact policies that will directly improve your life on earth and you still vote against them, then you are an unrepentant bigot and we will move on without you.

--On Edit--

I supported Hillary throughout the primary and the general, and I thought that she ran a good campaign. However, the people want big ideas and proposals. What are you for? Not just the other candidate is a nightmare. Offering big ideas is the key to getting people excited about your campaign.

[BobbyDrake]

1. Except "Most progressive platform" in decades and the "revolution" failed to show up.

So now, this advice is completely bogus. Moderate voters still outnumber far-left progressives and play a bigger role in the election.

You also don't here moderates bitching about not getting their unicorn and sitting out the election, or lighting votes on fire by casting them for Jill Stein or writing in the losing primary candidate either.

[leftofcool]

5. The revolution was DOA

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

126. lol, the revolution is JUST GETTING STARTED!

... as Bernie leads us out of the wilderness.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

[democrank]

7. Just what we need....more unicorn talk.

What percentage of Bernie supporters didn`t vote for Hillary? Your emphatic declarations tell me you must have the answer.

[white_wolf]

18. We tried the moderate position this time around and lost.

We need to try something else. Though,I'll freely admit that Sanders probably should not run in 2020.The party REALLY needs some young blood. Clinton, Sanders,Biden,etc.are all getting up there in years.

[JudyM]

109. Check your ageism. Sanders' ideas are not old fashioned and he appears to be in great shape.

[white_wolf]

112. His ideas are amazing. I voted for him and donated to his campaign.

I think Sanders would have been an amazing president. However, I do really think the party needs to start looking to its future. We don't seem to have many rising stars.

[JudyM]

116. Sanders' star has just begun to rise, now that he has national visibility. He will continue to find

and promote others, as well, without a doubt. But he is here on the world stage now and we shouldn't be selling him short for future impact on the basis of his age. That ain't right.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

131. You got that right!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

127. Yes Judy... Bernie is young at heart! Gotta love him!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

[yodermon]

9. if "Failed to show up" means getting the 4th most Democratic primary votes in the history of

Democratic Primaries, after having close to zero national name recognition, and becoming literally the most popular policitician in the country, then sure.

If moderate mainstream corporate Democrats wish to cede the populist mantle to Trumphumpers and continue business as usual, and crap all over Bernie and his supporters and his message please proceed. Easy to blame Stein voters or bernie bros who sat out the election, but that is a narrow segment of the population. Better to realize that Bernie's message resonated with a large swath of the population, and try to capture & amplify it instead of scapegoating and focusing on personalities. JMHO.

[BobbyDrake]

13. THE PRIMARY WAS NOT THE GENERAL ELECTION.

Bernie's supporters were the ones expecting a coronation, not Hillary's. That whole narrative was nothing but childish projection from people who don't understand how voting or a 51% majority functions, apparently.

[JudyM]

22. Absolutely. They are unable to see the full picture.

[uponit7771]

25. The "swath" wasn't big enough to win a primary, and that "swath" said fuck you to America...

... so I'm not to hip on that "swath" right now.

To intimate at that any dem candidate proffered was not worth voting for over some other even generic GOPr is some bull fuckin shit.

[yodermon]

37. the swath is a TREND, which mainstream Dems are ignoring for some reason

It boggles the mind.

Your characterization of what happened is insane. Vast majority of Bernie voters, myself included, voted for Hillary. How is that "fuck you america". Those who voted for Stein and/or sat out the election are a DISTRACTION yet you keep harping on them because they stroke your sense of needing a scapegoat. GTF over it and focus the populist MESSAGE that was more popular than Trump's.
Are you actually willing to cede this populist groundswell to Donald Fucking TRUMP??? On the altar of the corporate DNC??? shame.

[uponit7771]

39. This is false on its face by so many empirical indicators, Sanders swath was not even as diverse

... as HRC's primary voters on its face so his primary voters were NOT a trend at all.

Im focusing on the voters in the primaries

No, I'm not a LIV

[JHan]

51. I am not interested in a populist message that is a lie..

or offers false hope.

Hillary needed a strong overall message to pierce through the noise but I am not interested in slogans - and there are many people out there like me.

[uponit7771]

64. +1, more people like you and me than those who believed in unicorn solutions

[sfwriter]

80. You are right about the distraction...

I look at the blue areas that went red and purple, and that is a larger population than former Bernie supporters who disliked Clinton. Its a bigger problem of strategy and messaging. Indignant STEIN VOTERS ELECTED TRUMP and WHY SHOULD I PANDER TO WHITE RACISTS posts telegraph a sense close minded entitlement that I saw as central all through the election.

Like you, I too voted for Hillary. Now I'd like to figure out how she lost the election and not repeat that behavior.

[BlueProgressive]

94. #1, don't nominate a candidate who spends a year

(rightly or wrongly) under investigation by the FBI, with its never-ending negative stories.

(I think that used to be one of the Ten Commandments of Basic Politics 101, which the majority of the party's primary voters saw fit to break this year. It's also filed under 'Common Sense 101')


#2, see #1.


Without that, she would have won outright. One can "blame Comey", but the buck stops with the candidate, who made that whole line of attack possible.

[dionysus]

56. Every time gop-lite dems lose, they lash out and blame mainstream liberals, who

They now call far left. If we ran an FDR clone they'd call him an unelectable far leftist.... sad.

[disillusioned73]

101. Bingo..

Bango.. some folks will never learn - they'd rather loose to a "Fascist" than allow the "Socialist" in office.. simply put, Corporatists prefer fascism.. what a suprise

[Tarheel_Dem]

49. Thank you.

[dionysus]

59. You clappin in my ear teyin to make me deaf? That's it! Put up yer dukes!

Time for some kickboxin!

<-kickboxin'

How ya been?

[Tarheel_Dem]

60. Hey dion. You're back! And in fightin' form I see. I've missed you.

[dionysus]

61. I moved home to help dad the last few years when he was dying of cancer. My heart just

Wasn't into posting. I hardly looned at a web page for almost a year....

Im slowly makin a comeback!

[Tarheel_Dem]

62. Sorry about your dad. Been there, done that with both parents. It takes time.

[dionysus]

55. What youre calling "far left" used to be mainstream liberal. You guys keep moving

The party to the right and keep complaining when people vote for real republicans over "republican lite" democrats.

[TheBlackAdder]

76. Take away late voter registration, selective co-opting, faux DNC scandals, etc...

.


The Democratic Party was to accept people, have them register at the last minute to onboard as many new people into the party, but many states actually wanted to play a closed-loop system and shut out people eagerly wanting to join the Democrats.

Clinton would go to one state and say how she was against Sanders' positions, go to a state that leaned his way and she co-opted his positions to neutralize any differences between candidates, then went to coal country and reversed her positions--selectively pandering to each state, as the primary rolled along.

The DNC reading of voter databases was debunked by me months ago, ad no data center on the planet protects information by firewall only. There are userid, session tokens and database record level security which is common practice, not even best practice protocols.

The constant presentation of superdelegates, to say Sanders will never win contributed.


I could go on with a whole bunch of other things, but it will probably drive a flag campaign against me.


====


Too many people are still myopic in their views as to what happened, but suffice it to say, not selecting Tim Kaine sealed this election loss, as I just wrote on another OP. Had Sanders been onboarded, nothing would have prevented her win--nothing!

There would have been a lot of Independents, left-leaning Republicans, Never-Trumpers, and some Bernie or Busters.


.

[BobbyDrake]

111. Pack a bag then. nt

[Oakenshield]

130. There it is.

I was wondering how long it'd be until I'd see that old toxic right wing meme of "America, love it or leave it!".

[putitinD]

2. In the end? Bernie was right about everything from the very beginning!

[potone]

10. Yes, he was.

But we were told over and over again that he was "un-electable" unlike Hillary. Well, now we see how well that turned out. It should have been obvious from the size of his rallies relative to hers.

[Garrett78]

12. Rally size and hypothetical match-up polling mean next to nothing.

As Eichenwald of Newsweek pointed out, the opposition research on Sanders was devastating. Republicans would have torn him to bits.

The final vote totals for Clinton vs. Trump won't be all that different from the final vote totals for Obama vs. Romney.

[yodermon]

17. Yeah at least Bernie didn't brag about grabbing women by the p***y

Oh wait.

Trump has proven that oppo research means NOTHING.

[Garrett78]

87. It meant nothing to Trump supporters.

That doesn't mean oppo research wouldn't prove devastating for others.

[JudyM]

23. Neither does "it's her turn."

[Fla Dem]

24. You know I never heard anyone use that as a rallying cry for HRC. Nor did I ever hear HRC say it.

The only time I heard that expression was when she was being chastise by her opponents and using it as a derogatory statement.

[JudyM]

36. You can't be serious! She was denied in'08, etc etc...

[Fla Dem]

43. So what, show me where she used it as a reason for voting for her?

Last edited Thu Dec 1, 2016, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)

When did she say "It's my turn"?. If you can give me a citation for when she said it, I will gladly say I was wrong.

[JudyM]

66. I'm not the least bit interested in looking up her old quotes, that's ridiculous. So if that makes

you feel better, fine. It permeated her campaign whether she said it herself or not, that's sufficient for my part.

[emulatorloo]

47. Never heard anyone say "It's her turn" other than alleged Bernie supporters.

I'm a Bernie primary supporter. HRC Supporters did not say that. Alleged Bernie supporters said it as a snarky smear.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

132. Well it's Bernie's turn now! Go Bernie!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

[BobbyDrake]

14. He was un-electable. He lost the primary election.

Funny how those rallies didn't translate into votes, huh? Almost as though crowd size at singular events has no correlation with voting on a specific day...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Primaries are closed to independents....

In fact, most voters show ZERO interest in primaries. Just a handful of people ever show up.

Caucuses are even worse. They've been described as a sewing circle with the same faces every year.

[BobbyDrake]

45. 22 states have open primaries.

Do your homework next time.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

72. That unjustified smug superiority is part of the problem....

Especially now.

BTW: Republicans were voting for Hillary in open primaries because they figured she was easier to beat in the general. In closed primaries the establishment voted for Hillary and openly questioned the loyalty of Bernie supporters.

BTW: The ammosexuals were voting for Bernie.

[BobbyDrake]

98. Again, know your history. Bernie won Wisconsin's primary with Republican votes.

That's why he won and Democratic judges and other officials on the ballot lost their elections, because "open primary" Republican voters went for him to ratfuck our primary.

And I've seen some of your other posts, so please don't try to project "smug superiority" onto me. I do not appreciate being used as a stand-in for yourself in such accusations.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

106. I have a right to be smug. Bernie would have beat Trump.

[BobbyDrake]

107. "Hey Norm, if the moon were made out of cheese, would you eat it?"

You should share this window you have into an alternate reality with science. Don't keep it to yourself!!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

108. It's not just ME saying that.

[Garrett78]

90. Most independents are party loyalists.

The problem with open primaries is they allow the opposition to cause strife. I suspect that played a big role in the difference between the Michigan primary and the Ohio primary. People wanting to damage Clinton took part in the Michigan primary, but when it came to Ohio folks with the same mentality were more interested in giving Kasich a boost.

Anyway, Clinton won more open primaries than Sanders did. So, however you want to look at it, that narrative should have been put to rest a long time ago.

And, as you point out, caucuses are pretty absurd. They're not accessible for a lot of folks. Without caucuses, the Democratic Primary wouldn't have been even remotely close.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

92. Here in Vegas that caucuses were a joke....

Everyone from our precinct had to sit on opposite sides of a table depending on who they supported. We had 85 people and it was a tie with one undecided who eventually supported Bernie. All of the Hillary supporters stormed out in anger thinking it was a winner take all contest before any could be selected as delegates. The whole process took 90 minutes.

[dionysus]

58. Your theory is bernie was unelectable. What's fact is Hillary actually WAS

Unelectable.

Proceed, sir.

[Garrett78]

91. She lost but that doesn't mean she was unelectable.

She lost by a razor thin margin in a few swing states. And faced unprecedented last minute interference from a rogue FBI.

A tweak or two and she's the President-Elect right now.

[dionysus]

93. Point is if she was so good it shouldn't have been close!

[uponit7771]

26. He was not right about Cornell West so this is false on its face

[boston bean]

3. You think that is what Donald Trump offers and that is why he won? OMG..

[leftofcool]

4. Oh FFS!

[think]

6. I was surprised that Schumer was very positive speaking of Bernie & his ideas for outreach

This was the part that really impressed me:

Chuck Schumer Is All In On Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Party

Michael McAuliff - 11/19/2016 12:10 pm ET | Updated Nov 20, 2016

~Snip~

“Bernie convinced me of this. Bernie asked me to do it, to organize it,” Schumer said, adding that he agrees with Sanders’ idea that the DNC needs to become more of an activist and organizing operation.

“So when we’re pushing for a strong college bill on the floor, there are hundreds of thousands of people on campuses across the country emailing, and tweeting and calling and protesting. And when we do minimum wage, there should be minimum wage workers all over the country pushing for that,” Schumer said. “That’s what Bernie wants to do with the DNC, and I completely agree.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chuck-schumer-is-all-in-on-bernie-sanders-democratic-party_us_58307a38e4b030997bbfc3cc

[Fresh_Start]

8. Why don't you do a little research on all the candidates the Bernie revolution supported

and see how many of those candidates got elected?

They didn't even get elected in California.

[killbotfactory]

11. here's some research

https://ourrevolution.com/election-2016/

[think]

15. Thanks for posting /nt

[BobbyDrake]

16. That appears to be a list of people who won state-level office in mostly-blue states.

It's not the definitive rebuttal you think it is, in other words.

[white_wolf]

19. Not bad!

A lot of those are at the state level, but we need to take the states.

[BainsBane]

20. Wow. Is this 1996.

Because your comments show no awareness of this election.

What was so third way about what Clinton ran on? What was so unacceptable about her positions on the issues you list above?

What evidence do you have to support your claims about what wins? And how do you explain losses by Feingold and various Bernie backed candidates? And if Bernie was so much better, why did he lose the primary by 3.75 million votes?

[ismnotwasm]

21. Some old shit

At least he didn't say "oligarchs"

[uponit7771]

28. Yeap, I don't believe some of this bullshit that is posted here. There was NOTHING about Clinton tha

... that was so bad that a vote couldn't be cast vs a generic GOP not less DPutin

[jake335544]

50. Her staff didn't run her 3rd way, they ran a litany of "hits" that didn't form a positive plan.

Clinton had some serious message cohesion issues, we can't pretend she didn't. First half of the race was third way, "free community college", "iron out Obamacare, we need to keep the market insurance system", "trade deals are good, TPP might be ok?"

Second half of the race was leaning progressive: "means-tested free college", I think her campaigned pushed a public option for a *day*, paid maternity leave. Really very little of the above policy proposals were campaigned on, she just ran hits on Trump.

For about the entire first half of 2016, her campaign hyped gun-control so much that down-ticket Dems all ran on it. 1st half of 2016 was almost exclusively "let's take guns away". Good way to hit Sanders from the left. Bad general election message.

Second half of 2016 was just trying keep Sanders supporters in line with vague messaging about "standing with her" and "standing together" "building bridges". And keeping disaffected Republicans in line with attacks on Trump's character.

Taken as a whole it was a message-less campaign in an economy where people are looking for straight answers and we have to learn from that mistake.

[bravenak]

27. We need to learn not to let non democrats run in our primaries

[grossproffit]

67. and keep running even after they've lost.

[JCanete]

113. As a former Bernie supporter, when did you come to that conclusion?

And as a Sanders supporter, I assume you were also a registered democrat at the time. Seems reasonable to me that you should have a say in what the party should be, and who should be welcomed inside the tent as our own, you know, cuz its the ideals that matter, not the label.

[bravenak]

122. When I saw how he had no skin in the game and tore down our party

[JCanete]

124. Is the party still what its about? I'm not interested in rooting for the home team, I'm interested

in rooting for home. Sanders has had skin in that game for a long long while. It isn't him blowing up the party. Its people storming the castle as much as it is people raising the drawbridge. Somebody probably should have had a parlay, way before the democratic convention. The establishment thought they could shut it down early without even paying lip-service to the demands of people within the party it represents. The establishment miscalculated. For that, you want to blame Sanders. For that, you take the entirely opposite message away from the ordeal...that the party should basically do what the DNC attempted to do subtly, just more blatantly and alienatingly. Sounds like that could work!

[bravenak]

125. This is party politics.

[JCanete]

129. well I spoke to party politics in my post, and the strategy you advocate. nt

[stopbush]

29. I would mention that Sanders no longer calls himself a Democrat.

That didn't take long. Despite the assurances by weaver et al that Sanders would remain a D. As a lifelong D, let me say I'm not impressed.

[Demsrule86]

30. I disagree completely...and Bernie could not even win a primary so we don't need to take advice

from him...populism won ....not progressive policy...there is a difference. We need to fix trade and offer a manufacturing policy for this country that will return good paying jobs to the rust belt.

[Demsrule86]

31. Also we had the most progressive platform in my memory...but

the BOB's stayed away...and there was so much damage done during the primary to Hillary's candidacy...both by Bernie supporters and by Bernie. He should have gotten out way earlier and not fixed it so there were protests at the convention...and he should have conceded. Many of his voters wouldn't come back. Bernies words went directly to Trump's lips...honestly I will never get over this election...but I know we must put it behind us and move on...however, advice from Bernie no thanks.

[guillaumeb]

44. Polling showed that the vast majority of Sanders supporters voted for Clinton. eom

[Demsrule86]

96. In a close election...the ones who didn't could have made the difference.

I hope they did come back...but I still think the divisive primary cost us the election.

[guillaumeb]

103. Very possible.

And I believe that the 41% of registered non-voters made a far bigger difference. My belief is that it would be better to concentrate on motivating these apparently unmotivated voters.

[jake335544]

78. No one reads the platform

or uses it. Otherwise we'd would have had a buncha down-ticket candidates campaigning on a public option. Guess how many did? 3, out of like thousands. I literally counted.

[Demsrule86]

95. I know that, but we had a divisive battle about it...didn't we?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Thank goodness we still have Hillary supporters to deal with posts like this....

We can't let praise of Bernie go unchallenged.

[NWCorona]

42. Bernie should be challenged. Especially by his own supporters nt

[guillaumeb]

34. A New Deal Part 2?

Sounds like a winner to me.

[Yavin4]

35. Exactly. Give the people a list of how your policies will improve their lives.

Big items. Use clear and concise terms.

[guillaumeb]

38. And, as Trump's campaign showed, slogans can be effective.

Clinton's campaign site was detailed and good, but far too many voters do not read well enough to follow. And many poor and rural voters have limited access to the internet.

[Yavin4]

40. Speak in broad policy terms like both Bernie and Trump did.

For example, run ads for a Public Option health care proposal to improve on Obamacare.

[guillaumeb]

41. Agreed. And this should be done starting very early next year to lay the groundwork for 2018 and to

frame the issue before the GOP machine frames this issue.

[emulatorloo]

46. Yes, this is why Russ Feingold and Zephyr Teachout won in big landslides!

Party needs to refocus and move left, but let's get fact based.

[jake335544]

48. I'm happy Teachout lost... /sarcasm

Last edited Thu Dec 1, 2016, 11:26 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm glad Teachout didn't win. And I'm glad the Democratic establishment (and even the WFP!) didn't support her against Cuomo, nor against a Republican. /sarcasm

[lapucelle]

52. Yes, Sanders was right when he said that "Hillary on her worst day is an infinitely better

choice than Trump." Sanders also showed good judgment in telling CNN (when asked in June if he would be voting for Clinton) "Yes – I think the issue right here is, I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump.” Only Sanders knows in his heart whether he actually followed through on that pledge, but it is nice to see him back on TV every day now that he's selling a book.

It's a shame that the fiery progressive from Vermont was unable to unite his faction with the Democratic party and marshal the most embittered among his supporters to do the right thing on election day. It was a test of leadership; I'll leave his grade for history to decide.

[elleng]

53. Big ideas definitely needed;

SO is running a good campaign, which did NOT happen.

[Kolesar]

54. Free tuition and I cannot remember what else Sanders was campaigning for

He had no depth. He also had a lot of nasty insinuations about Clinton that he can never take back.

[ehrnst]

57. So if he knows what the problem is, why did he lose the Democratic primary by 3 million? (nt)

[djsunyc]

63. the miscalculation...

is that clinton thought people would vote smart and not vote color.

[otohara]

65. Lesson #1 - At Rallies "Lock Her/Him Up" Chants Work

Lesson #2 Attack any and every Senator, Governor, Congressperson who endorses your opponent with viscous emails and phone calls.

Lesson #3 Gather surrogates who spew hatred towards your opponent

Lesson #4 Hold rallies at uber white colleges

I have to go cook dinner now.

[Tatiana]

68. Democrats all over need to start advocating tuition-free college.

That was a winning issue that seemed to really excite both young Republicans and Democrats.

[Yavin4]

69. Yep. And Lowering the debt burden of student loans.

Big ideas. Big proposals are what gets people going to the polls.

[agalisgv]

70. He was right about the angst many in our country feel

Not sure he could've won though. Too bad there's not a way to rewind time and try it again.

[stevenleser]

71. No, and no. nt

[TuslaUltra]

75. McGovern 2020! go further left after GOP ascendancy!

BRILLIANT idea.

[jake335544]

81. Humphrey's team literally campaigned for Nixon... Should we go further than Bernie or Bust tactics?

The Humphrey wing of that election practically campaigned for Nixon, stop with the revisionism. Also, McGovern made a mistake by making someone who didn't even want him to win as VP. History shows us leftys shouldn't reach across the Dem aisle so much.

Our "Bernie or Bust", was your "Anybody but McGovern". Us Dems campaign against each other when they stand for completely different things. But next time maybe we'll do it as aggressively as Humphrey's team did to McGovern, practically campaigning for Nixon. I'm being serious. We'll campaign against a corporate Dem in the general, and make the next Clinton clone's electoral map just as red as McGoverns.

https://newrepublic.com/article/130737/democrats-still-dont-get-george-mcgovern

"Perhaps the deepest damage to McGovern’s campaign came not from its own ineptitude, but from the candidate’s fellow Democrats. Early in the primaries, an adviser for Hubert Humphrey, one of McGovern’s main opponents for the nomination, promised, “We are going to show that McGovern is a radical, just like Goldwater was in 1964.” Keeping that promise, Humphrey claimed during a televised debate prior to the California primary that McGovern’s Demogrant plan would hike taxes on a middle class family making $12,000 by more than $400. The number wasn’t remotely true. According to both private calculations by Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget and independent academic estimates, the bottom 70-to-80 percent of families would pay less under McGovern’s plan than under existing law or Nixon’s proposals. But Humphrey’s claim not only stuck, it practically wrote the script for an anti-Demogrant commercial that Nixon would run in the fall.

As McGovern barreled toward the nomination, leading Democrats’ attacks became more desperate. Anti-McGovern Democrats staged an “Anybody But McGovern” movement at the convention. When that failed, some pledged that they would not campaign for him and might even support Nixon. A Democrat even handed Republicans their best attack line: “The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot,” an unnamed Democratic senator told the press. Hugh Scott, the GOP’s Senate minority leader, transformed the quote into “the three A’s: Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion” and a golden political slur was born. (Ironically, the unnamed Democratic senator who had originated the line was none other than Eagleton, though McGovern didn’t know it at the time.) "

[dflprincess]

86. Because the party's move ever further to the right over the last 35 years has served us so well nt

[Demsrule86]

97. So true... the country has moved right...they elected fascist Reagan/Trump

I know some on the left have this fantasy about how the GOP wins it all and then...people go way left as a result...it doesn't happen...someone like Clinton who has to be a centrist wins eventually...and it takes years to go left...and in this case, we will be lucky to survive Trump.

[Joe941]

99. It's going to take a lot of fighting to survive Trump!

[Cosmocat]

120. Correct

nm

[HassleCat]

79. Dare to be great.

Dream big. Something like that. It would be risky, a departure from the waffling and triangulation to which we're accustomed. We might even lose. Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees. Is that true?

[pnwmom]

82. Bernie inadvertently helped Trump, paving the way for him

by complaining that Hillary was part of the "corrupt establishment" and that she was benefiting from a "rigged system."

He pretested Trump's best lines for him. Trump took what worked and the voters fell for his faux-Bernie act.

Also, Bernie insisted on staying in the campaign for months after the math made a win for him impossible, spouting off against Hillary and the establishment and the rigged system till the convention. Because he waited so long many of his supporters had kept their hopes up till the bitter, bitter end and were never comfortable getting on board.

With all that, I think the single biggest factor in DT's win wasn't anything Bernie did. It was the two letter bombs James Comey dropped into the election in its final days, at which point her support plunged from a 9 point lead to a 2 point lead.

[otohara]

83. Unforgivable

He's still spewing venom on his book 📚 tour

[pnwmom]

85. I've noticed that. He never changes. n/t

[JCanete]

115. Hillary inadvertently helped Trump by being vulnerable on all these issues, and being mealy mouthed

about how she wasn't pro Wall Street. "I basically told them to cut it out," is the least committal think a person could say, and it was so effective, that she said it twice or more.

I bet he would have bowed out early if the DNC had offered the platform they eventually arrived at, and if Clinton had adopted some of those positions that she eventually ran on, earlier. He was using his capital to affect policy, which frankly, is why Clinton was able to instill in some of us, a hope and tentative enthusiasm in her candidacy.

[pnwmom]

118. Bernie would have been vulnerable on a 2-foot thick folder of issues,

according to Kurt Eichenwald, the reporter who viewed the opposition research that the RNC had prepared and was dying to use on Bernie in the General campaign, if he got that far.

For example, the bill he authored trying to get Vermont's nuclear waste sited in a rural, heavily hispanic part of Texas. Or his vote against the Amber alert system. In a long, productive career like Hillary's or Bernie's, there will always be votes the other side can use against you. Bernie wasn't the magical exception.

Some people have the fantasy that Hillary was the only vulnerable candidate the Dems could have put forward. Not true. Look what the RNC did to John Kerry, the war hero -- turning him into some sort of coward. When they don't have something on you, they just make it up.

[JCanete]

119. comment on that Eichenwald tweet already. That was like out of the Trump playbook.

"Trust me, I saw it."

We went over that issue of moving waste in the primaries. Was that really going to hurt him with potential voters that went for Trump anyway? Whether there would have been sit-outs on the democratic side is not in question though, just not for that issue, which if I recall the details, is far less ethically problematic than you make it sound.

I have no fantasy that Hillary is the only vulnerable candidate, or that Sanders wouldn't have had an uphill battle as somebody meddling with the primal forces of nature, not because of Trump but because of the whole political machine and its propaganda wing, our mainstream media. But I find it irritating that people want to blame Sanders because Clinton couldn't effectively defend against his accusations about her coziness with big business, nor even simply put up a strong enough message of intention to actually advocate against the influence of those interests. I'll repeat, "I basically told them to cut it out." I'm sure that had as much of a ring to it to everybody else as it did to me.

[pnwmom]

135. No, you didn't. I wasn't referring to a tweet.

I was referring to this very thorough article by Eichenwald.

You should read the whole thing and disabuse yourself of the idea that Bernie would have been our savior.

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

[JCanete]

136. why would you come back at me with the nonsense that I thought Bernie would have been our savior?

It's absolutely absurd in the context of my post. I said he would have likely lost. How much the media tries to hammer something home has a lot to do with what its angle is and whether it sticks, so any of those issues either would have killed him or just avoiding as much as possible the issues, might have done the trick, as usual.

[Cosmocat]

121. Correct

His hit job in June cut her off at the knees when she was up really big, and the late October hit job did was you noted.

POS scumbag, I said in June.

[andym]

88. I think Bernie's big ideas combined with a young charismatic candidate

could be a winning combination. Hopefully this is what we get in 2020.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

89. If sanders was right, zephyr teachout and

Feingold would have won. There is not one easy answer.

[JCanete]

128. This is true. I think Sanders is pushing for the right things, but that doesn't mean

that when it comes down to it, those things wont be beaten by media collusion, voter suppression(more media collusion through both silence and conflations of election fraud with voter fraud to confuse people), etc. It does mean that those who campaign on a Sander's like platform can use whatever voice they have(if they get a voice at all, go go social media to force the mainstream into begrudging coverage ) to unapologetically point out GOP ties to big money, to point to the remarkable similarities of their voting records to the interests of their lobbyists, etc. There has been a kind of unspoken agreement to avoid calling people out for this because in general, its just not convenient for anybody, so we make this big overture of pretending that our colleagues across the aisle are voting on principle, not out of obligations.

[Joe941]

100. I'm glad you had the guts to say it.

[liberal N proud]

102. One could also argue that the BS voters decided to burn the country to the ground than get some...

Of what they were demanding.

There was a lot of discussion post primary and add how they would not vote for Hillary and and even protested in the convention and disrupted rallies.
The

[Orsino]

104. He wasn't just right "in the end," but was right all along.

His campaign message may have been incomplete, but if we want a morning in America, Sanders needs to be a part of our balanced breakfast. People need justice, economic, legal and otherwise. The reign of the bankers and fake Christians needs to end.

[kacekwl]

105. No reason these programs couldn't have been done except

everyone was saying too lofty , unicorn dreams etc. Now we have the ultimate dream squasher for everyone but his billionaire club assholes.

[LiberalFighter]

114. Despite Sanders losing in the primary?

If the people want big ideas and proposals then why didn't Sanders win? Sanders only had to deal with one opponent in the primary unlike Trump with about 17. Which meant that Sanders got even more minutes during the debates than Trump did in the GOP debates.

[killbotfactory]

117. He was a no-name candidate nationally before he ran.

He was never treated seriously as a candidate by the mainstream media. Clinton had run previously and barely lost, and had nearly the entire democratic establishment putting their thumb on the scale for her, and had no serious opposition until Bernie entered the race.

That Bernie did as well as he did should be a wake-up call.

[Persondem]

123. NO. About 80,000 voters too many in 3 states wanted to believe LIES.

Your OP is just another part of the circular firing squad. It is unnecessary.

[Eko]

133. Big unabashed, progressive, policy proposals sounds great.

But when you cant come through with them the people who elected you to do those get very angry. Trump did that and its already started for him. I give it February, republicans will really start to turn on him and he wont be able to get much done.

[Yavin4]

138. You don't worry about getting them through.

The people need to know where you stand.

[SMC22307]

137. K&R

[stevenleser]

139. This kind of thinking is such a joke.

Last edited Sun Dec 4, 2016, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Nope, Bernie loses all the same states Hillary lost for sure except Michigan and Wisconsin plus he loses Virginia and is not able to contend for the Carolinas and Florida at all, allowing Trump to divert those resources to Michigan and Wisconsin winning him those states as well.

That's not the lesson here.