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Rolling Stone interviews Bernie Sanders: Where do we go from here?

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Supast4r

Junior Member
????

Our Revolution is still going. I'm not sure how successful it is, but it still exsists. Building the type of movement he was talking about was always going to take longer than six months always. The Democratic Party has been slowly eroding for years at the grassroots level. You could argue they never really recovered from 68. Building it back up will take years.

Either way, look on the news: Sanders is by far the most active voice on the left in this country. Wishing for someone else to take that role involves inventing someone that doesn't exist.
Your revolution was SO good that no youth voted whatsoever. Even if you don't like Clinton what is the excuse for not voting for your congressmen/women? Hint hint there is none. It still blows my mind hat Michigan kept its congresmen and their senators after flint.
 

Supast4r

Junior Member
A few points:

1) There are younger folks who are also minorities (and he even won those groups in various categories). It's actually much more accurate to say that Sanders didn't get enough support from old people, but it's interesting that the narrative was never "Sanders had an older voter problem".
2) A preference for Clinton and/or her policies (especially if someone agreed with the "electability" and "realism" argument at the time) is not the same as a dislike of Sanders and/or his policies. From the previous link again, Sanders favorables remained high across all groups, and as far as I can tell, has still remained high.
3) Sanders was attacked plenty of times. Sometimes within the same day. Sure, maybe there's some super duper secret scandal that would completely ruin him, but it's also possible (and even more likely, since he's been in elected office for 30+ years with both Democrats and Republicans gunning for him) that he just doesn't have a lot of skeletons in his closet comparatively speaking, and people would actually like him more as he becomes more of a national figure. That view actually does fit with the evidence of his mostly high favorables over the past year compared to when people knew less about him. Available evidence shows that the more people find out about Sanders, the more they like him. "If people find out more about Sanders, they would turn on him!" is not backed up by any available evidence. It's certainly possible, of course, but it's a much weaker claim. It's also a claim that Clinton made about Obama in 2008 that didn't pan out then either.
Bernie was never attacked the way that Hillary was with emails or Benghazi. He was straight up kid gloves the entire time.
 

sphagnum

Banned
Your revolution was SO good that no youth voted whatsoever. Even if you don't like Clinton what is the excuse for not voting for your congressmen/women? Hint hint there is none. It still blows my mind hat Michigan kept its congresmen and their senators after flint.

Our Revolution is the name of a group that Bernie started.
 
Bernie was never attacked the way that Hillary was with emails or Benghazi. He was straight up kid gloves the entire time.

Did you read that link?

It's interesting that the obvious possibility of "because he isn't as scandal-ridden and doesn't make as many unforced errors like Clinton" doesn't even seem to come to mind as a potential explanation why he wasn't attacked the way she was. We live in a weird world where existing, still in progress and under investigation scandals from her were routinely seen as no big deal ("she's been vetted already!"), whereas possible scandals that might not actually even exist or be as damaging for Sanders is some kind of obvious dealbreaker.

Obviously, it's certainly possible that Sanders was Fidel Castro's secret lover, and also sold nuclear weapons to Russia and North Korea. But this idea that he was treated with kid gloves and that it was guaranteed that he would be equally as scandal-prone as Clinton and would crumble under Republican pressure seems more like an article of faith, and not a sober analysis of their political careers. And as shown in the link in my post, doesn't actually match with what has happened in reality.

And even with all that...the competition was Donald Trump of all people, lol.

edit: never mind that the "he was never attacked the same way!" is literally the same argument used against Obama in 2008. "No one knows who he is, we can't risk it!" Yet Obama's been pretty scandal-free for the most part, and of course went on to win two elections. So again, it's possible that Sanders has his own Whitey Tape waiting to be found and would have doomed him in a general election. It's also possible that...there isn't one and he's basically scandal-free (by politician standards), or at least, whatever scandals he does have are nowhere near as numerous as other politicians (and certainly not as numerous as Clinton/Trump). Hell, there's even a better case for him, since he's at least been "attacked" in politics for 30+ years now, whereas Obama was a relative newbie.
 

Azzanadra

Member
Bernie was never attacked the way that Hillary was with emails or Benghazi. He was straight up kid gloves the entire time.

But it works so well with Hilary Clinton because its Hilary Clinton. Even if Bernie's "scandals" were as half as bad as hers, she has a certain image that just allows scandals to stick to her and sink her more easily. If Trump has proved anything, the actual content of the scandal matters not, rather it is the person to whom the scandal is being applied to.

I really can't see what ammo the Republicans could use, no matter how could that could actually damage Bernie much. I could imagine the GOP likening him to Stalin, but Americans wouldn't have feel for that nonsense the way they fell for the emails, because again, its Hilary Clinton being attacked, and there is some truth to the emails thing.

And as the above poster said, it was against Donald Fucking Trump too. The most unliked candidate EVER. Even Martin O'Malley could have beaten trump, A paper bag could have defeated Trump.
 
But it works so well with Hilary Clinton because its Hilary Clinton. Even if Bernie's "scandals" were as half as bad as hers, she has a certain image that just allows scandals to stick to her and sink her more easily. If Trump has proved anything, the actual content of the scandal matters not, rather it is the person to whom the scandal is being applied to.

I really can't see what ammo the Republicans could use, no matter how could that could actually damage Bernie much. I could imagine the GOP likening him to Stalin, but Americans wouldn't have feel for that nonsense the way they fell for the emails, because again, its Hilary Clinton being attacked, and there is some truth to the emails thing.

And as the above poster said, it was against Donald Fucking Trump too. The most unliked candidate EVER. Even Martin O'Malley could have beaten trump, A paper bag could have defeated Trump.

I'll also add, for people who say "but that's totally unfair, Clinton's scandals are often made up right-wing noise!"...I would totally agree! Her scandals often are silly right-wing BS, like the Benghazi stuff.

But at some point, people have to ask themselves: is it actual scandals where the person is guilty that matters, or is it just the perception of scandals? If actual scandals matter, then all the worry over both Sanders and Clinton was invalid, and people should pick a new talking point when discussing the candidates. If only the perception of a scandal matters (so Sanders saying something positive about Cuban health-care in the 80's is a potential dealbreaker), then that means Clinton should have been the one to worry you more, for obvious reasons.

If we're being consistent, at least. Instead, we got "the perception of scandals and conflicts of interest for 30 years...is actually a good thing! Electable! But the fact that there are way fewer scandals involving Sanders actually means we should worry even more about him! Unelectable!"
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
Bernie was never attacked the way that Hillary was with emails or Benghazi. He was straight up kid gloves the entire time.

Well...

That's because he did not have fucking emails or Benghazi which should have been a red flag instantly for Clinton running.

Almost anything Gaf brings up was from 20, 30 years ago with his ass. Not the same fucking year
 

guek

Banned
But it works so well with Hilary Clinton because its Hilary Clinton. Even if Bernie's "scandals" were as half as bad as hers, she has a certain image that just allows scandals to stick to her and sink her more easily. If Trump has proved anything, the actual content of the scandal matters not, rather it is the person to whom the scandal is being applied to.

I really can't see what ammo the Republicans could use, no matter how could that could actually damage Bernie much. I could imagine the GOP likening him to Stalin, but Americans wouldn't have feel for that nonsense the way they fell for the emails, because again, its Hilary Clinton being attacked, and there is some truth to the emails thing.

And as the above poster said, it was against Donald Fucking Trump too. The most unliked candidate EVER. Even Martin O'Malley could have beaten trump, A paper bag could have defeated Trump.

Clinton being almost as unlikable in general polls should have been a big enough red flag. As silly as it sounds, Clinton might have been the only modern politician that could lose to Trump in the general while Trump may have been the only radical unorthodox current candidate that had a shot at beating Clinton. Any standard Republican would not have been able to repel attacks the way Trump did. We have to consider that Clinton was uniquely unsuited to run against Trump. That doesn't excuse Clinton for some of the bigger mistakes she made during her campaign but hindsight is 20/20. Clinton and Trump are both unlike most politicians. People really do love to hate both.
 
Bernie was never attacked the way that Hillary was with emails or Benghazi. He was straight up kid gloves the entire time.

That was a good thing for his chances
. Going into the general election with 65% disapproval rating is a disaster, as plainly evident by the disaster we're living in. It's insane that Clinton was pushed by the DNC. Had Bernie or literally anyone else had an active FBI investigation ongoing, the cries of "GET OUT!" from the DNC and the party would be deafening.
 
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