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

[JCanete]

110. Well, you are naming things right off the top which as idealistic and unwilling to go for

the pragmatic as Sanders supposedly is, all got his backing. Did he withhold votes for those? Did he not endorse clinton and campaign for her in the GE? What isn't pragmatic is starting from defeatism. What isn't pragmatic is limiting our platform before we've even promoted it. We have nothing to scare the shit out of republicans with to get them to go with something more moderate, because we take all that off the table before we begin.

Whether we have to take incremental steps at the end of the day is not something that anybody disagrees with. Whether we can even take those if we don't leap high enough to try to clear them by a wide margin, is. As to Bernie's role in Washington, my understanding is that he's had a hand in keeping bills honest, getting amendments into them that make them better, etc. And, as I've said, he's voted with the Dems that whole time, clearly, sacrificing the practical apparently. He's attempted to bring issues to the fore, and they've been often ignored. So should he not have been doing so? If people like reality shows should you not write a drama? If people like fast food, should you not still promote vegetables?

You have to admit, that the same things he was saying since the beginning, he's saying now, he just didn't have any public platform from which to say them, he didn't have any advocates in Washington pushing for the same things, he certainly didn't have the money backing his message. Our party has not helped his message get out there in that time. BUT because of the internet, and because of persistence, and consistency, it has gotten out, and lo, its kind of popular. The very fact that he has the record he has lends his message credibility. The very fact that people are hearing these things now, finally, FINALLY, is because he continued to preach these issues, in spite of the rest of Washington giving him a cold shoulder. The very fact that he is being heard now is vindication of his career in politics.

You can belittle that and say instead that he should have taken the one or two steps back for one or two steps forward approach, but some of the things we've given ground on over the years are still punishing us. And nothing good the Dems have ever done is in a vacuum of liberal activism and pressure. And if Sanders was largely ignored when he could be ignored, his vote still mattered and gave him influence on policy, which he used.

It is entirely speculation that Sanders pulled off votes when it came to the GE, and it is even more specific if you want to try to tie any vote drops from Clinton to him taking it to the convention. Maybe you have some numbers to cite, but I don't see that as very likely. Those of us who were frustrated that the Democratic party thought it did not need to change, were far more fed up with it previous to the announcement of its platform, and previous to Clinton's own platform modifications in that span. Until those changes, I was thinking my party had decided it had weathered the liberal storm and could continue to focus on fairly vague (and truly unicorn-like)promises to work with the banks and within the totally functional political machinery in Washington to somehow make things better.

I have plenty of good things to say about Obama. I think he was an inspiration. I'm not an absolute hater here. That doesn't mean we don't need to do something different going forward. It shouldn't be that we continue to accept a rigged game where only the most adept, most charismatic Democratic players can survive our election process against the Neanderthals in the Republican party. We are perpetuating the difficulty. We as a party need to be giving our candidates cover for their brave ideas, not for their middling, safe ones..we need to sell the ones that will inspire the public.

As to single payer, the point was, things aren't popular unless you promote them and make them real. There very well may be other ways to do a thing. If those ways involve making insurers happy, then I'm not so happy, and I'm sure the public is not better served.