Who else is already sick of---

[John Poet]

"Bernie can't win"

"Bernie is a socialist. Nobody I know will vote for a socialist."

"Bernie is like Ralph Nader" for contesting the Democratic primaries.

"Bernie will just weaken Hillary"

"Bernie isn't a Democrat"

"Voting for Bernie will make the Republicans win"

And maybe the worst,
"I agree with most everything Bernie says, but he doesn't stand a chance so why would I waste my vote"


Not just at D.U., quite a bit of the same on Facebook and Daily Kos also...

I guess we should just start posting.
"Hillary will just weaken Bernie, so she should get out of the race"....

[rocktivity]

1. If a closet Muslim can win, why NOT a closet socialist?

rocktivity

[Enthusiast]

28. Yeah! Stealth Muslin. He got right in. As a matter of fact....

he plans to round up the people of Texas, take away their guns and move them into some abandoned Walmarts. I'm just saying (so you won't be caught off guard).

[hootinholler]

35. Except for the closet thing

Bernie isn't closeted about anything. That's actually one major reason he will win.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Ive been calling for her to drop out of the race for weeks, and now the shit's gettin' real.

K/R

[John Poet]

3. He's not even closeted.

But my position is,
the Republicans have been calling the Democrats "socialists" for 80 years,
ever since they passed the Social Security Act,
and every time they sponsored any great social advance.

So if supposed Democrats are going to denigrate Bernie as a "socialist",
they must just be closet Republicans.

So who cares what they think.

[Ed Suspicious]

5. Right on. Welcome.

[jwirr]

7. Actually you may just have come up with a campaign idea. A video that links the name calling to

Social Security and all the other good people programs.

[John Poet]

13. Also,

Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance, affordable health care...

they've always said the same thing, "but that's SOCIALISM!"

So the US has therefore been a socialist country since 1936. That argument is long over.

[jwirr]

14. Exactly. Welcome to DU.

[John Poet]

19. Thanks.

I was on the old boards around 2004, I think it was... but drifted away for a long time.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

31. public roads, public libraries, public fire departments, EMTs, police, public universities,

'public' anything is socialism.

[jwirr]

38. IMO this is where Bernie needs to go if he is nominated as our candidate. The really great things

in this country are the things we all share.

[L0oniX]

12. That's been occurring since FDR.

[kenfrequed]

4. Agreed

I am very sick of this kind of talk. Bernie has been a good senator that has taken principled stands again and again. I honestly don't know why anyone would support her at all.

[jwirr]

6. I am. Is there a limit to how many people I can put on ignore. In all the time I have been on DU

I have never ignored anyone but I cannot stand the rudeness and insensitivity of these people.

[L0oniX]

11. Be glad you're not a mod. You can't have any ignores or you can't see who is causing problems.

[carolinayellowdog]

47. if there is a limit it must be over 400, because

my ignore list has grown to about 350, which over 13 years means only a couple per month. That breaks down to about 100 general purpose trolls who should be ignored by everyone, 100 Islamophobes willing to suspend the usual endless Christian-vs-atheist warfare to agree that we ALL should hate and fear Muslims, 100 authoritarian anti-progressives who stalk and harass the more prominent progressives here, and 50 regional bigots who miss no opportunity to express hostility to everyone south of the Potomac.

Sounds awful-- but 90%+ of DUers are honest and sincere progressives who are NOT here to bash "leftists" or Muslims or southerners as the "Evil Other"-- but sometimes have trouble connecting with one another in constructive ways due to the noise vs. signal ratio caused by a relative handful of haters and trolls.

This group brings together the best and most constructive voices at DU, in this oldtimer's opinion.

[John Poet]

8. I was a big Ted Kennedy man.

When he died, I felt like I no longer had a Senator.

But Bernie has filled that void. BIG-TIME.

[L0oniX]

9. I was sick of it before it started.

[TM99]

10. What used to be reasoned debate,

factual journalism, and principled opposition has turned into emotional cheerleading, propaganda, and adolescent team sport rivalry.

It is hard not to see the dumbing down that has been accomplished over the last 30 to 40 years. We are conditioned not to think critically but just react from an emotional place of fear and mistrust.

If someone spews that shit to me on or offline, I will counter it once with facts. Then I walk away if it continues. You can not argue intelligently with people who hold such beliefs. You just can't.

[arcane1]

17. It's like trying to argue the quality of a product w/someone who only knows the commercial slogans

[TM99]

18. Truly a sadly prophetic movie Idiocracy is!

[Lobo27]

27. Prophetic.

That is the truly scary part.

[arcane1]

15. This is the best they can do, merely two weeks into his candidacy.

It's going to be amusing.

[marym625]

16. She should!

Damn straight she should

[SheilaT]

20. I'm also very sick of the claim

that Hillary is the ONLY Democrat who will win, and her winning the Presidency is a foregone conclusion.

Those two ideas are false and dangerous. The first one is patently absurd. While it's nice that her supporters are so loyal, they are living in a dream world to think that no other Democrat can possibly win the election.

The second one is equally absurd. Her supporters keep on brushing aside the reminders that she was inevitable in 2008, and yet somehow we are not in the final part of her second term.

In addition, their recent insistence that she should not face any challengers is scary. If she wins the nomination after a good primary season, all well and good (even though I will personally not be happy with her, but that's my problem).

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is an amazing man, and while I would love to see Elizabeth Warren in the mix, I'd be very happy to see him as the candidate. Or at the very least a presence that will push the debate in the direction it should go: to the left, to a genuine concern for the working and middle classes, to holding the oligarchy responsible for all the terrible things they've done over the years, to an acknowledgement that our recent wars have been disasters, to a first world health care system.

[TBF]

33. I am told Obama's amazing charisma is the reason

he beat her in 2008. That may be true but he did in fact beat her. And I don't see what has changed since 2008, other than the 99% being even poorer. And SHE is the one authoring the TPP - the treaty that is going to move even more jobs overseas. Smh. No one is going to vote for that.

We have a real candidate this time - let's keep our heads down, ignore the nonsense from the Hillary camp, and keep pushing.

[SheilaT]

39. The Hillary camp tends to brush away her loss to Obama

as if it's something quite trivial. But it's not. It's her only competitive campaign -- neither of her Senate races were. And she lost. She also ran a crappy campaign; I remember the stories that came out of it.

Another thing they, the Hillary people, don't get, is that while plenty of us would love to see a female President in our lifetimes, there is not such a vast yearning for one that nearly every Republican woman would cross over to vote for her. Au contraire. There are those out there who sincerely do not believe a woman belongs in public life, let alone a high office, that if anything they'd come out in large numbers to vote against her. Keep in mind, that if women will vote for a woman candidate just because of her gender, then we would have Governor Wendy Davis right now in Texas. And Senator Alison Lundergan Grimes of Tennessee.

What I keep on circling back to is how ill-informed and disingenuous is the notion the Hillary Is The Only One and therefore, everyone else needs to stay out of the race. If she wins a competitive primary, as I've said more than once, then great. But let it be a competitive primary.

My other honest fear is that if the two candidates in the end are Bush and Clinton, the anger and indifference out there will be so great against the two of them, that we may have an extremely low voter turnout. The corollary to that is that we do not need the same two families in the White House for a long time. No matter who those two families are.

I'm old enough to recall when Robert Kennedy was running for President, and the glee on the part of some and the fear on the part of others that we were headed to a Kennedy dynasty, with Kennedys occupying the WH well into the foreseeable future. That also would not have been a good thing.

[jeff47]

41. Well, you don't have to worry about Jeb.

He's losing the "billionaire primary" and doing an utterly shitty job of lining up the base.

Barring a massive gaffe or indictment, the Republican candidate will be Walker. Same "I'm not as crazy as Cruz" angle, the billionaires like him, and the base likes that he beat up on liberals in WI.

[SheilaT]

42. Out of curiousity, do you have any sense of who

the Republican nominee might be? I'm not asking for the statement: It will absolutely be so-and-so, but just if you have any notion going forward who will end up in their top spot?

Me, I don't have any clue at this point. Could be anyone of the fifteen or so obvious candidates, could be someone who hasn't yet raised his or her head.

[jeff47]

44. Uh....I just said it would be Walker, and listed my reasons. (nt)

[TBF]

45. Unfortunately I think you are correct -

Cruz is only a favorite in Texas, Jeb is damaged goods - people still remember W, and Rubio can't even handle a bottle of water much less a campaign to be president. I fear it will be Walker (backed by a lot of Koch $$$) as well and they will harp on Hillary being elitist. I do think Sanders has a better chance against that weasel.

[jeff47]

46. Not just elitist. The "dynasty" argument would only hurt her, and not Walker. (nt)

[John Poet]

48. Never count out the Bushes until

all the votes have been counted-- if they all CAN BE counted...



Looking forward to a bloody GOP nomination process, in any case.

[nikto]

21. The Truth is ...

Bernie's candidacy weakens Corporate-Conservatism.
That's the real issue that will have the elites screaming.







Let's never forget that fact.

[daleanime]

23. +1

but that - should be a /. Really just two different names for the same thing.

[Smarmie Doofus]

22. They're talking about him. That is *good*. n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. "Bernie is a socialist. Nobody I know will vote for a socialist."

Like I said, they claimed Obama was a socialist too and he won TWICE.

The word has lost it's sting because people have seen Europeans are happy and the ALTERNATIVE is "greed is good" coming from a war mongering clown car.

Now watch all of the international bankers try to sabotage Sweden and Norway so they can say "See!!! See!!! Socialism is a FAILURE!!!"

[yurbud]

25. most of that talk is astroturf

[Kalidurga]

26. This one is the worst

"Bernie is like Ralph Nader" for contesting the Democratic primaries.

It is stupid and factually incorrect. It's demonstrably false. And yet there are people who refuse to get it even after they get it explained to them that there is a difference between the primaries and the general election. I can only think of one group of people that continue to make false claims like that after they have had the issue explained.

[SheilaT]

43. Especially because Nader didn't run in the Democratic primaries.

He was some sort of outside candidate.

[bob4460]

29. The Nader comparison and the MSM ingnoring him Is what bothers me

[Autumn]

37. The MSM will ignore him as long as they can and the Nader comparison

comes from a few shit stirring trolls who were previously banned but have joined again for the primaries. Ignore them MIRT will get them sooner or later. MIRT always does.

[smokey nj]

30. I have to say I see the most negativity towards Bernie's

candidacy here on DU. Things that I've shared on Facebook have received only positive responses - even from the right wingers I know.

[FlatBaroque]

32. "Hillary will just weaken Bernie, so she should get out of the race"....

not possible for Hillary Clinton to weaken Bernie.

[RoccoR5955]

34. It makes me so sick

I think that these people are getting paid to say these things.

[Autumn]

36. The only place I see that is here. On FB when I post about him it gets likes

and shares even from republicans I know.

[mother earth]

40. Prof. Richard Wolff is clearing up misconceptions about socialism & educating. I encourage people

to pass his videos around, he mentions Sanders in this month's update & the socialism conversation will pick up on next month's. I consider it a great help & timely, although he has been educating people on this topic for a very long time...too many people don't get it, but the number is growing, just like Bernie's popularity.

[RoccoR5955]

49. I have been doing that and look forward to speaking with Dr. Wolff

At the Left Forum in NYC later this month. I am sure that he will do at least three presentations, and I want to see each one of them.
I am a BIG fan of Richard Wolff, since I heard him speak there at the Left Forum, nearly 10 years ago.
So yeah, he has a youtube channel, and it would help clear up some of the myths of socialism that are going around.
I often use some of Wolff's videos to illustrate how the current default business model in the US is more like a dictatorship, and how the model that Wolff shows of a cooperative is much more democratic in every way. People are in awe after they see them.

[mother earth]

50. Lucky you, I always look forward to his updates & talks, I feel like he's been paving the way and

this may well be our turning point. I have to say Wolff reinvigorated my interest in politics through economics, and now with Bernie, I feel there may be hope yet...times appear to be changing. I became familiar with him after becoming interested in Syriza and Varoufakis...again, reinvigorating my interest in politics through economics.

He's truly educating the public, everyone's been brainwashed about socialism, and cutting through it all the way he does is entertaining as well, always a win-win.

[mother earth]

51. Meant to cross post Wolff's May update above, here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017265451

[Glassunion]

52. Fuck that noise.

[smokey nj]

53. It may just be the two glasses of wine I've had tonight, but I think this is the go to response

for the "Bernie can't win!!" bullshit.

[RoccoR5955]

54. U got dat right! n/t

[smokey nj]

55. Yup. My third glass of wine confirmed it.