"Bernie Sanders Has Always Sacrificed Pragmatism For Idealism, But Now Its Hurting Democrats"

[DanTex]

98. To your first question, yes. ACA, Dodd-Frank, Stimulus, etc.

To your second, that is a good point, the seats we lost make a strong argument against Obama's strategy. But it's not an argument in favor of Bernie's. A lot of the problems, IMO, were tactical rather than ideological. I don't see, at all, that a hard left tack would have helped keep any of those seats. The left likes to argue this, but the evidence for it is zero. By evidence, I mean leftists winning seats in districts where mainstream Dems struggle. Zephyr Teachout lost. Russ Feingold lost. Show me some evidence.

Also, you have to admit, Bernie has a very long record in national politics, with very little to show for it. The "establishment" Democrats that he complains about held the White House from 92-2000 and from 2008-2016. The left wing of the party has only won a few seats in very blue states and districts.

Next: your point about him dropping out when I wanted. That supports my contention. Sure, if had dropped out, his ideals would probably not have made it into the platform to the extent they did. On the other hand, we probably would have won the election. Let me repeat: without him sowing that level of discord in the party, we probably would have the election. Without people booing the convention, without "Bernie or Bust" and all that, we probably would have picked up the 80K votes we needed in those states. So that is about as blatant a case of putting ideology ahead of pragmatism that I can think of. Bernie made a calculation: I can help my ideology, or I can help prevent Trump from being president, and he chose the former.

And I don't get why you think the Democratic party is "supposed" to be promoting single payer. What? Universal healthcare, yes (and they are), but of all the ways to get there, we are "supposed" to all get behind single payer even when many progressive policy experts think that's not the best way? No. This again is putting ideology ahead of pragmatism, insisting on one and only one way of getting universal healthcare.

I mean, the results are kind of in for the approach we've been taking. Not pragmatic.

In disagree. I thought Obama was a great president. It's easy to sit and complain from the peanut gallery as Bernie has done his entire career. It's hard to get things done, like Obama did.