What do Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore and Bill Clinton have in common? [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Yes, they were the last four Democratic Party candidates for President who won the popular vote. And none of them helped Jon Ossoff before the Georgia special election either. Neither did any living former Democratic President or Vice President - that adds Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden to the list. Nor did any living former Democratic Party candidate for President or Vice President - that adds Mike Dukakis, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards and Tim Kaine to the list. But why stop there? Far as I can tell neither did any living former Democratic Party runner up for the Presidential nomination - that adds Bill Bradly and Bernie Sanders to the...

Whoa! Did I just add Bernie Sanders to that list? Surely that must merit its own DU thread attacking him for not helping Jon Ossoff, and Lo, there indeed is one, and it got 122 DU Recs. I could also have added to the above list leading contenders for the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential nomination, and mentioned Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sherrod Brown, and Al Franken, and Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Cuomo, and Martin O'Malley, and Cory Booker etc, none of whom to my knowledge helped Jon Ossoff either - but I don't have a definitive list of leading Democratic contenders for the 2020 nomination. Besides I had enough to make my point.

I think DU has experienced a significant outbreak of Sanders Derangement Syndrome. And I don't say that simply because there have been multiple posts that express criticism of him. I certainly don't say that because some people have criticisms to make against Bernie Sanders. There are numerous points that can be made with varying degrees of justification that are not wholly flattering either to Bernie, or his political endeavors. He's fair game like every other Democrat or politician who caucuses with Democrats (maybe if I looked hard enough I could find a thread critical of Angus King here).

DURING THE 2016 PRIMARY SEASON there were lots and lots of DU threads critical of both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. There were really nasty ones about each. There was some reasonable criticism of each also. And then the primaries ended, and then we had a nominee and primary season officially ended at DU. I just counted 8 threads on the first two pages of this forum that at root are critical of Bernie Sanders - and I left off a couple that take more glancing swipes at him. Conversely there are none there that are directly critical of Hillary Clinton, and only one that perhaps could be considered "veiled" criticism of her politics. My point again isn't that there is nothing of any merit that can be said negative about Bernie Sanders. There are positive things said of him here also but he is after all, according to our DNC Chair and our Congressional leadership, generally on our side. My point is that there is more said negative about Bernie Sanders on DU than is being said about any other figure in American politics with the exception of Donald Trump.

There are more negative comments on DU toward Bernie Sanders than there are here toward Mike Pence, or Paul Ryan, or Steve Bannon, or Mitch McConnell, or Rush Limbaugh, or Ted Cruz etc. There is even more said negative toward Bernie here than there is toward Joe Manchin - and that's sayng something. Bernie Sanders is more than just a controversial figure who some have reason to be displeased with for some of the things he says or does, or doesn't say or do. He won 45% of the votes in our last presidential primary. He has millions upon millions of supporters who like him for what he is, and who wanted him to represent our Party as our candidate for President. Yes I am one of those people, but I don't find Bernie Sanders infallible. He makes mistakes. He can be criticized. His way forward may not be the best way forward. There is room to disagree.

But DU is looking more and more like it used to last Spring, except only one side remains on the attack.