Is Bernie too economically left wing for you?

[Kentonio]

I've been wondering for a while now what the reasons are for liberals choosing Clinton over Sanders. His positions are unarguably more progressive than hers on economic issues, and at least equal on social issues. There was a long period where electability was used as the reason for backing Clinton, but polls consistently show him beating the GOP field.

So Clinton supporters, would you be kind enough to humour me please and explain what it is that informs your choice? I'd especially like to hear from anyone who feels Sanders goes too far on economic positions for them to feel supportive.

Just to clarify, this isn't an attempt to change anyones mind (as if such a thing were even possible at this point) or denigrate anyones opinion, I'm genuinely just curious to see if he's considered too economically extreme by some Democrats.

[JaneyVee]

1. How about an actual policy proposal paper for starters.

He correctly identifies obvious known problems, not so great at proposing solutions.

[whatchamacallit]

7. So you've not yet formed any opinion on Bernie's economics?

Good, I'll take that as a sign the red baiting isn't working.

[LWolf]

2. Not at all.

But then, I'm not a neo-liberal, nor am I a supporter of any neo-liberal candidate.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. No. Just the opposite.

[Chan790]

4. He's not economically progressive enough for me but I'm voting for him anyways.

I think the backbone of Hillary support however is a cult of personality. If she announced tomorrow that she intended to govern as a Republican...3/4 of her supporters would argue that makes her more progressive, not less. There is no changing their minds...they're less Democrats than Hillary supporters.

Not that there is anything wrong with that...I'm only a Democrat because there is no more-viable, more-democratically-socialist, less-capitalist option. I can empathize with them; it may be time to be transparently-honest: there are no more actual Democrats (even the people that think they are, aren't.), we're a coalition of about 3 or 4 different parties unified into a joint-effort for a ruling coalition.

[marym625]

6. +1

[artislife]

18. +1

[Adrahil]

24. The major political parties have ALWAYS been coalitions.

You just declared that water is wet.

[moondust]

28. +1000

I think the backbone of Hillary support however is a cult of personality. If she announced tomorrow that she intended to govern as a Republican...3/4 of her supporters would argue that makes her more progressive, not less. There is no changing their minds...they're less Democrats than Hillary supporters.

PUMA comes to mind. Too much blind, cultish zealotry for me.

[HerbChestnut]

5. No he isn't.

Economically, he's not even that left wing. He supports a market economy with common sense regulations. What separates him from other candidates is his social positions where he wants to use a progressive tax structure to finance things like universal healthcare, paid family leave, and free public college tuition. Those are all things I agree with, and more people are realizing they agree with them as they're introduced to the ideas.

[brentspeak]

8. He's not even "left wing"

Ike and even Nixon were more to the "left" than Sanders.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. He's not that left wing

[Kentonio]

14. The point was that he's certainly more left wing than Clinton is.

[litlbilly]

9. A majority of all Americans agree with most of Bernie's positions.

That makes him right down the middle. When each of his positions are polled one at a time, he gets a thumbs up on most of them. That's just a fact so get used to it.

[Kentonio]

15. I know all this, and am one of his supporters.

I explained the purpose for the thread in the op.

[jwirr]

10. This is just another DLC/Third Way meme. They would have

said the same thing of FDR. In fact many of them did. That is why they have been systematically trying to destroy the New Deal.

[Kentonio]

12. Ironic considering I'm a Sanders supporter

I'm trying to get some understanding of which of his positions is less appealing to some Dems than Clintons. It seemed reasonable that for some people perhaps a breaking up of the banks and a move to a much higher tax regime might actually be something they don't support. There's been so much fighting recently, that perhaps a little listening and attempting to understand how Clinton supporters feel might be productive.

[Armstead]

17. This place gets fairly rough...Don't take it personally

People have been asking variations of the same question for a while. Mostly answers stop at "he's a socialist and socialists are not electable."

Good luck in your quest for anything more substantial

[jwirr]

39. I was born in 1941 and have no need to talk to DLC/Third Way

people - they have done nothing but make my life and that
of my family worse. Maybe they could listen for a while.

[Skidmore]

48. I just think there are also problems in this society which

addressing economics only cannot resolve satisfactorily. You see these concerns reflected by groups like BLM and in the concerns of women who have been watching their rights steadily chipped away. You see it in the concerns of immigrants. The economy isn't the end all and be all to the quality of life. Mind you, I'm not saying that economic justice is not needed. Also, after all the gerrymandering for House districts and the sitting on votes by the left during the midterms, we have only a tenuous hold on the Senate. Right now there appears to be little interest in the downticket. If there is an insistence that the presidency is the only game that counts, then I want a power player in there, and Sanders doesn't fill that bill for me. We cannot afford to lose SCOTUS to conservatives for a generation. If the Rs shut the President down at every turn, what sort of treatment do people think Sanders will get?

[PowerToThePeople]

13. No. n/t

[pinebox]

16. The truth is

many things, perhaps it's because some people want to see the first elected female president, policies be damned, she lost last time so now it's "her" turn, "Bernie isn't a "true Democrat" so I won't support him", on and on it goes, where the stupid stops nobody knows. When confronted on policy, it's a "I can't hear you" moment, excuse after excuse and what's sad is that Hillary supporters have basically nothing to criticize Bernie on while Hillary has more baggage than Samsonite.

No din't get why people are supporting Hillary over Bernie. The issues which are most important Dems, Bernie is miles ahead on.
It's funny to watch them make up excuses for everything. Case in point below.

?2

[Starry Messenger]

19. No. I'm further to the left of him.

I don't think he has a prayer of beating the GOP in the general.

Despite his rhetoric around working class issues, he has not done the legwork to gain the trust of the core forces, which is shown in HRC's numbers in endorsements, union support, and poll numbers among minorities. Just being a "socialist" isn't the way to work for progress, if your positions tend to be armchair philosophy that don't translate into real policy. Show, don't tell, is a big part of movement work.

I'm not under the illusion that our country will move to the left, or adopt more progressive economic and social positions by electing one man. If we weren't under the threat of losing the third branch of government to the RW, I might be a little less doubtful about Bernie and his chances. All things being equal though, I just don't see him as a strong candidate that will beat the ultra-right and the reactionary big money forces.

[Kentonio]

20. Thank you for your explanation.

[Skidmore]

36. This. This.

[AOR]

40. Your posts and claims of "leftism" are a farce and utterly ludicrous...

That you don't consider Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party machine to be part of the reactionary big money forces and capitalist ruling class politics is beyond laughable. Capitalist policy is NO "real policy" and no amount of "movement work" of "change working within the Democratic Party" will change that. Not from Sanders and sure as hell not from Clinton and the neoliberal wing of the party. "Real policy" my ass. What you are doing is creating a grotesque caricature of leftist politics and demands.

The currently constructed "Communist Party" USA is a bigger joke than The Democratic "Socialists" Of America who believe the "road to Socialism" runs through the Democratic Party. The sellouts of the working class come in many flavors these days. Foster and Debs must be tossing in their graves.

Your posts are thousand times more sickening, pathetic, and reactionary than that of any disaffected Sanders supporter that can't take the next step and denounce capitalism as the insidious parasitic disease - inflicted on the human condition - that it is. Neoliberal identity politics bullshit and reactionary to the core is what your posts - defending the Clinton campaign - represent. Leftism my ass.

[IokuA]

41. If you paid attention to Bernie he would agree with you. He can't do it alone.

Glad to see you agree with him and wish it could be the case, sad to see that you still choose not to even try. Guess the other side has won you over.

[Starry Messenger]

43. I've been paying attention to Bernie for years.

I've had the opportunity to study what he does and doesn't pay attention to himself.

[Art_from_Ark]

44. Hillary certainly didn't do much to support unions when she sat on Walmart's BoD

And I was a Walmart temp worker at that time, in Sam Walton's hometown.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509

[Starry Messenger]

45. I'm sure I don't need to type my entire first post again.

[Art_from_Ark]

46. You talked about her union support

I'm showing why it might not be a good idea for union rank-and-file to support Hillary.

[Starry Messenger]

47. Nearly all of the largest unions in the US have already endorsed HRC

That article also says that HRC has repudiated their worker practices and returned a donation from them.

Union rank and file know that their rights are currently hanging in the Supreme Court and in the composition of the NLRB, and do not get caught up in the myopic world of Internet slap fights.

[msongs]

21. his economic policies are fine. add some more corporations are not people rhetoric tho nt

[MisterP]

22. then again there IS no "neoliberal vote": they only got people backing it by running neolibs

who pay lip service to social issues (though they never lead on them--how pro-gay is Emanuel and how epic was Harold Ford on race?)

or by appealing to the "gentry" who don't work for a living but instead live off investments (so once the industries are all dismembered and converted into stocks and bonds, the process will inevitably come to a halt: customers, not investors, make growth)

[Bluenorthwest]

23. Harold Ford Jr is a full tilt anti gay bigot who voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, to

amend the Constitution to ban marriage equality. He pays no service, lip or otherwise. He's a notoriously anti gay politician, actively so. He takes the lead as an opponent of equality, repeatedly.

[Adrahil]

25. For me? No. For thr country? Right now, I think yes.

Real political change in this country bubbles up, it almost never trickles down. If we want the county to move left, we have to recognize that winning the game as a PARTY matters, and that the successes must come from the bottom up. Too many people in this forum think that Bernie winning the Prsidency would mean radical chqnge. It wouldn't. But more that that, the narrative in this country just doesn't support a Prsident like Bernie...... Yet.

[grasswire]

26. NO nt

[Joe Turner]

27. No, I like Bernie's positions just fine

Corporations need to get out of the health insurance industry, Wall Street needs to be reigned in, TPP needs to be stopped, the rich need to be taxed more, young adults need affordable college tuition, the U.S. needs to stop getting into endless wars. The latter alone, will fund many of these new social initiatives. Bernie as president can take us to better future...not more of the same strife, war and corporate profiteering.

[TheFarseer]

29. yes. I disagree with him on some issues

I think a $15 minimum wage is counterproductive for instance but at least I know whose side he's on and it's not the billionaire outsourcing tax cheats. Sorry, I don't trust anyone who gets their campaign funds from those people.

[DanTex]

30. I support Hillary, mostly (almost entirely) because of electability.

Bernie would lose the GE, and a Republican president would be a disaster.

[Persondem]

31. For me, not so much. For about 80% of the electorate, yes indeed. nt.

[Kang Colby]

32. He's economically too far to the left for me.

He relies on populist rhetoric rather than documented policy proposals although I don't necessarily find issue with him for his rhetoric alone. It is primary season after all.

I just can't buy into Tobin taxes as a serious or effective public policy proposal to raise tax revenues. I think it's bad policy. He is smart enough to realize this, but see my first point...populist rhetoric.

I don't have an issue with him, I think as a Senator he has done well. But I do not feel he has the leadership and coalition building experience necessary to be POTUS. I'm also troubled with his support of the recent budget deal, which will end the file and suspend option for collecting spousal benefits. Bill Clinton gave us that option, and it would have been useful for millions of baby boomers who will be entering retirement soon.

[olddots]

33. no far from it economics is science for everyone

Hillary goes with Greenspan and Bernie goes with Minsky economics .

[lovemydog]

34. No. I like his economic policies.

We're talking about a more humane, more balance country. One that is more in line with advanced countries in Western Europe.

It's the economic policies of most everyone in Congress that completely suck. The trickle-down theory has been thoroughly discredited. Yet it rules the republicans, who for some reason I cannot fathom, keep getting elected.

[Joe the Revelator]

35. Frankly, yes.

[ornotna]

37. No n/t

[deutsey]

38. Not in the least n/t

[TheKentuckian]

42. Not even within shouting distance