radius777
radius777's JournalSanders can't hold onto the Obama/Clinton coalition.
He won't do well with PoC and women once his "identity politics" comments and fixation with the white working class over other voting blocs becomes widely known.
He won't win Latinos when his 2007 immigration reform vote (and going on Lou Dobbs to talk about it) becomes widely known.
He won't win swing voters and moderates who dislike high taxes and will not vote for someone with a long history of far-left politics and praise for leftwing dictators (Castro, Noriega) and who honeymooned in the USSR and spoke glowingly of the country during the height of the cold war.
He also won't win over enough white working class votes to offset underperformance with the aforementioned groups. Trump solidly has these voters, who will simply vote for "the real thing" ie a populism that more strongly appeals to their racial resentments, instead of the generic class populism pitched by Sanders.
Capitalism is the engine of growth
and technological advancement. It's the reason why we can live in an advanced first world nation with all of the things we take for granted.
Of course any powerful system can have issues, why a properly regulated mixed capitalist system is best, one that exists for the needs of the middle class, with a progressive tax system and safety nets.
The Malthusian argument against capitalism is mostly bunk, because capitalism is at its core a technological system which seeks efficiency, ie to do more w/less... why a car today uses far less gas than just 40 years ago.. why computers are tiny when they used to take up an entire room and use tons of electric... why the internet has replaced entire industries and virtualized our experience so we don't require physical locations (like stores) or items (like paper) all of which save the enviroment enormously.
The existence of rich people per se doesn't bug me, status hierarchies exist in all areas of life.
Bryce Harper or Manny Machado getting obscene amounts of money to hit a baseball is unfair, but it's also "unfair" that they're better looking and more muscular than I'll ever be - that's life.
All people can hope for is a fair shake and to have a decent middle class life.
I agree with the superdelegate changes, caucuses should also be banned.
The goal for any political party should be to (a) maximize voter participation while preventing vote meddling/ratfucking, thus closed primaries w/early voting are best (b) prevent party leaders (superdelegates) from publicly stating how they intend to vote (c) prevent supers from voting on the first ballot (d) but in the case of deadlock, then the supers should decide the nominee on the second and subsequent ballots instead of unknown party hacks and backroom dealers. (e) the supers should take into account how the first ballot went ie how the voters voted and the overall feel of how the primaries went.
Sanders does have valid beefs against the 2016 nominating process, but he clearly benefited from the highly undemocratic caucus system which has low turnout and is dominated by activists.
He also clearly benefitted from the fact that the media loves to hate Hillary, loves a horserace, and was just aching to build someone up like Sanders.. who did excite an element of the base (the left and youth) but not most of the base which heavily includes party loyalists, moderates, women, PoC, etc.
The issue is that Sanders is not a Democrat, and has always branded himself an Independent, and railed against Dems well before the Clintons came onto the scene and moved the party to the center (saving the party from itself, which had suffered numerous landslides due to the perception of being out of touch w/mainstream voters).
It is not just that Sanders is to the left - he is alt (independent) left, and not a left-liberal in the Dem tradition. Thus, he saw no need to build strong ties within the party, raise money for the party etc over his many years in politics. This means he had no support from party leaders when he needed it. ALL parties (including far left ones that Sanders may be more sympathetic to) work this way, by you know, politicking and building relationships.
Profile Information
Member since: Sun Sep 11, 2016, 10:37 PMNumber of posts: 3,635
