2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Sen. Sanders: I know you mean well, but I don't WANT those people in our party [View all]Koinos
(2,792 posts)that many here seem so conciliatory toward Trump followers. It would be refreshing if these peacemakers extended the same open arms to other candidates, their supporters, and voters within the Democratic party. The fact is that a number of Sanders' supporters share common ground with Trump followers. Both of these mini-groups distrust the government and dislike (or despise) the Democratic party. Both are animated by fear and anger. Where the Sanders miraculous conversion of mouth-breathers will being and possibly end will be with getting Trump's followers to hate not just Democrats and the government, but billionaires as well. Since economic problems are the sole sufficient cause of social injustice for some Sanders supporters, they will pass over issues of racism, bigotry, and misogyny in their zeal to get more converts to taxing the rich and making America into Finland. Taxing the rich is an excellent idea, by the way; but it won't solve long-standing attitudes of hatred and ignorance. And Trump followers don't like Finland, by the way; nor do they care for anything else foreign.
In any case, such a strategy may gain for Sanders a small percentage of Trump followers, but lose for him more and more women, minorities, immigrants, and everyone else who detests the white sheets, the beatings, the anti-science, the illogic, and the intolerance that seem to follow the mind-set of the typical Trump follower. Trump appeals to the worst elements of the worst human natures in our society. The Republican party has found out the hard way what Sanders has yet to learn -- that, once unleashed, these low-information mouth-breathers are impossible to educate and very hard to control.
Tolerance is a virtue. But it is unacceptable in a so-called "civilized society" to tolerate intolerance. Tolerating intolerance to get a vote or two is something more akin to Republicans than Democrats.
I think that, as a learning experience, anyone believing that this beastly crowd can be turned into homo sapiens with a stirring speech or two about the 1%, should attend an actual Trump rally and try to work their magic on the brains and hearts therein.
Or Perhaps Sanders should make his pitch to non-Trump followers in the Republican party. Some of them actually have an education and know a syllogism from a fallacy. Why he would aim his Occupy Wall Street (I happen to revere that movement) pitch at the very Tea Party now reviled even by Republicans, is beyond my comprehension or digestion.