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[kirblar]

Except the DNC is supposed to be a neutral vehicle for Democratic candidates until AFTER the primary. It was undeniably not so. If the party is going to support a candidate prior to the primary, why run a primary at all?

There's nothing stopping either party from simply nominating and supporting any person they choose - both the GOP and DNC Charters state that they are to remain neutral leading up to the primary. It's odd to me that the GOP held up to this while the DNC did not.

....pretty sure the GOP was trying to stack the deck in the audience multiple times in the debates w/ surrogates for non-Trump candidates.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Rumours say the DNC will push Kaine, actually.

If the DND does try to push Kaine, then i'd love to know the thought process behind that. Hillary lost in part because she simply couldn't manage to make people enthusiastic about supporting her. The Obama's, Bernie, and Elizabeth were burning up the campaign trail for her because she couldn't energize the base. And Kaine is perhaps the one visible Democrat that could actual do even worse in that area.

 

[pigeon]

Except the DNC is supposed to be a neutral vehicle for Democratic candidates until AFTER the primary. It was undeniably not so. If the party is going to support a candidate prior to the primary, why run a primary at all?

There's nothing stopping either party from simply nominating and supporting any person they choose - both the GOP and DNC Charters state that they are to remain neutral leading up to the primary. It's odd to me that the GOP held up to this while the DNC did not.

The first GOP debate was literally loaded with questions designed to target and disqualify Trump.

The answer here is not complicated. The GOP identified that they couldn't hurt Trump by attacking him but that he could split the GOP and decided to just wait him out, which pretty clearly was a mistake.

The Democrats identified that Bernie wouldn't win and made no particular effort to disqualify him. I understand that a lot of Bernie supporters seem not to understand this, but their ignorance doesn't make their narrative true.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

I hate this argument. If she'd spent an extraordinary amount of time in those states and lost, you'd say the opposite. "She should have spent her time on TV speaking to millions (i.e. raising money for ad buys) instead of in town halls talking to 100's".

Do you not realize the ass whooping Dems got in States they should have wo ? Do you not realize how much people can be swayed by actually seeing a candiate, and how that can have a ripple effect with people. As much as I despise Trump, while Hillary was out having concerts and running her victory lap, he was out stull campaigning.

 

[Lord Fagan]

I do not understand what you guys want sometimes or what you think you saw for the last 18 months.

I saw a self-described socialist burn a quarter of a billion dollars on expensive rallies, all the while railing on the waste and abuse of millionaires and billionaires.

I'm glad he's still in the Senate, and his ideas are important to the national conversation, but I'm not gonna pretend that he's somehow holier than his fellow members because of how he asks for money.

But I do think he has a fine point on the timidity of the party, which was part of the crow I ate this cycle. Dems brought piss to a shit fight, and he knew that was a recipe for disaster two years ago.

 

[Odrion]

Bernie Sanders is an outstanding individual who did something remarkable. It is not fair to blame him on Hillary Clintons shortcomings.
He took the fight to the conventions, like Hillary had done in 08, and he managed to get so much of his platform endorsed. A terrific feat for a real political outsider who half of registered Democrats wanted to drop out. It's real political prowess to get your agenda hurt, and the Democratic Party was wise and inclusive enough to embrace him.
His person is not the reason why Hillary lost. This was a historic election- and a historic year in the entire world in that the west collectively lost faith in its governments in both the UK and the US. Hillary represented the ultimate establishment. In a conventional election she would have smoked Sanders and Trump and won in a landslide. And Trump and Sanders would not have made it off the first debate.
It is incredible unfortunate, but it is not Sanders fault.

*on hillary clinton smearing bernie* : this is a primary, the republicans will be even worse towards the nominated.

*after the election* : this is because bernie smeared clinton's reputation during the primary!

 

[soul creator]

This is precisely the thought process that brought us to the current situation. Democrats decided to try to get along with white working class voters for 50 years to advance economic and social justice together. But it turned out those voters had never been convinced that social justice was important at all, so they happily turned around and voted a white nationalist into office along with large majorities to ensure he can enact his agenda.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree if you think the Democratic Party over the last 50 years was some sort of great champion of economic justice. I look back and see a party that has gradually given up on broad economic justice and instead has followed a program of "right-wing economics, except not being as blatant of an asshole about it". Hence the slow rightward drift of our economic policy in this country over the past 50 years.

That's kind of why any broad, universal, simple to understand programs that would benefit all people (including the minorities they claim to care so much about) are frowned upon, while modern Democrats love proposing means-tested, complex, segmented programs that preserve large corporations like the ACA and then act shocked that people don't praise them for it.

And of course, unions haven't been a key part of any national Democratic policy in a long time, which one would think would be a minimum standard for "progressive" economic policy.

Their policies have still helped in some ways, but it has still left a ton of people behind. And even when it does help people, they have a hard time communicating that fact because their obsession with "wonkiness" inherently makes things more politically difficult for them. Sure enough, a part of the group that's left behind is the "white working class" that gets so much press, but it's not just them. The working class in general has been left behind. And in a lot of cases, it's been Democrats doing the harm, not just Republicans, because the modern Democratic Party has fallen under the spell of that economic ideology as well, the ideology often described by everyone's favorite n-word, neoliberalism.

Sure enough, immensely important gains have been made in other aspects of civil rights (often by dragging the national Democratic Party along due to grassroots movements, and not because of any visionary leadership by national leaders themselves), which is why Democrats are still able to appeal to women/minorities, but it's happened at the same time as increasingly widening inequality and economic hardship.

So the answer to "why wouldn't I try that" is mostly "because the historical record on it is not convincing."

Depends on if we're talking about campaigning or governing. Campaigning on economic justice has been tried successfully by Democrats, even if they don't always govern that way (Clinton and Obama come to mind).

Those Democratic voters who are okay with white nationalism are exactly the people I'm talking about. Preventing Trump from getting to the White House is a political question for them. It's an existential question for me. That's why we lost.

It's not like "right-wing appeals to white nationalism in elections" somehow just started in 2016, and it's not like Democrats have only been losing in 2016. Trump's a buffoon who took more advantage of it, but that's a matter of degree, and not kind. And it doesn't explain the lower turnout for Democrats in general, even before 2016.

Black and brown folks (who make up a large percentage of non-voters, and a not-insignificant slice of Trump voters) weren't convinced by "we gotta stop the white nationalist!", so what's the political strategy for convincing them to turn out?

My end goal is for my family to be able to live safely in America. Elections are kind of secondary to that.

Judging by the reaction to the election of Donald Trump, and how it's generally seen as uniquely terrible within liberal circles, it seems that elections actually are kind of important for that, no?

My argument hasn't changed since the elections. I said then that Trump was a moral choice, not a political choice. I still believe that. The fact that large numbers of Americans made the wrong moral choice does not change my view, it merely sharpens the importance of communicating it.

Maybe too many people ignoring the fact that it is a political choice and just assuming everyone is automatically up to date on how racial oppression works is the mindset that allows Republicans to run away with elections in this country?

Of course, I'm not making an argument for abandoning morals or abandoning antiracism. I'm making an argument for fusing those morals with a better politics instead of saying things like "Trump is not a political choice".

That said, people make wrong moral choices all the time, and it doesn't make them irredeemable. But absolution is not free. It requires contrition and confession. My expectation, mostly unfulfilled, is that people who claim to be allies would hold that line rather than working hard to give people forgiveness they haven't earned.

Who is saying anything about "forgiveness"? I'd rather build enough solidarity to win elections and keep people like Trump out of power. And solidarity is not the same as friendship or love, either.

You seem to be boiling this all down to people's individual moral choices, when this has more to do with systems of power leaving large portions of the population behind (and causing them to either abandon the political system entirely, or be seduced by demagogues).

That isn't me "forgiving" them, it's showing why the current strategy by the national Democratic Party isn't working. And it lets down the very people they claim to care so much about. So I don't know why "uh, more moral condemnations!" is seen as the only way forward for some people.

Conflating "white nationalism" with "racism" is deeply and dangerously incorrect and is another part of why we lost. I understand that most Americans have at one time or another considered or actually voted for a racist. One whole party is racist and the other one spends a lot of time faking it, so that's kind of inevitable. Electing somebody who explicitly campaigned on using the state apparatus to directly oppress people of color because they are people of color is different. I had hoped that people understood that distinction and cared about it. One of those assumptions was clearly inaccurate.

A Democratic president that numerous liberals swoon over is directly using the state apparatus to at best tweak around the edges to help some folks here and there, but not do anything to attack the core of what's oppressing people of color, and at worse, is already actively oppressing people of color.

So if the entire message someone has is "yeah, but Trump will be worse!" for a lot of people that's not gonna be super convincing, because things are already so terrible. Which is why you have so many people who either 1) voted for Trump anyway because at least he was saying something different, despite acknowledging that he's also saying terrible things (and black and brown folks and possibly a majority of white women voted for him too!) or 2) didn't vote at all.

It's not about giving up and waiting -- it's the exact opposite.

My point is, before asking what we can do in order to win elections in America, it is necessary to first ask the question of whether it is safe for people of color to live in America, as it is currently constituted, at all.

It hasn't been safe for people of color to live in Obama's America, Bush's America, Clinton's America, Reagan's America, etc. If you're waiting on it to be safe for people like me before trying to win elections...uh, we'll be waiting a while.

This isn't a "both sides are exactly the same in every way" argument, but pretending like somehow these things uniquely started with the election of Trump in 2016 seems...odd. And I'd argue that the fact that a lot of people can plausibly say "Democrats haven't helped me either" is precisely the reason for the consistently low turnout in national elections, and what allows Republicans to still gain so much power in 2016.

And the losses by Democrats also didn't just start in 2016, as they've been bleeding seats for years now. So that's more evidence that this isn't solely a Trump/white nationalism thing.

 

[TruHero]

i really didn't care for bernie's purity test bullshit,

I didn't see much, if any, of that on GAF. What I did see more than anything was a ton of HillGAF make thread after thread going after BernieBros for supposedly not caring about minorities, or not falling in line behind the supposed most-electable and most qualified candidate ever.

 

[IrishNinja]

I didn't see much, if any, of that on GAF. What I did see more than anything was a ton of HillGAF make thread after thread going after BernieBros for supposedly not caring about minorities, or not falling in line behind the supposed most-electable and most qualified candidate ever.

i was talking about the rhetoric more than the fanbase, but yeah, there were problems in assuming minority vote & messaging there (even before the BLM incident), and considering the polls throughout, i don't fault them for thinking the candidate that won the primary by millions & had fantastic odds on 538, princeton etc was the safer bet.

they probably thought she'd spend more time on the campaign trail in the places where she was weak against bernie, but here we are...moot points now, i suppose.

 

[Torokil]

Hillary did not want to help her biggest donors. She entertained them because she had to. That said, Sanders is mostly on point here.

Remind me what she did during all of August?

 

[Baron Aloha]

Bernie is right.

Also, I love the excuse of Hillary supporters now blaming Sanders. All during the primary they kept telling us "oh, but she's been tested", and "she's stood up against 25 years of republican attacks", "she's so electable", "Bernie they will call a socialist", yada yada yada... now all the sudden its Sanders' fault that their supposedly Teflon candidate lost. I thought she could stand up to the "attacks"? Please. We tried telling you during the primary but you didn't want to listen and you still don't get it.

Democrats need to wake up fast. Just today it was announced that Trump and Carrier made some backdoor deal where Carrier says they will keep 1000 of the 1400 jobs they planned on shipping to Mexico. Yeah, you can bet he probably gave them too much but at the end of the day those 1000 people got to keep their jobs. Now he can go around talking about it and people will lap it up. People in OH, WI, MI, and PA will hear about and remember this. Meanwhile you had Hillary telling them during the election how America was already great and these people lost their jobs during Obama's 8 years. She was completely out of touch.

*on hillary clinton smearing bernie* : this is a primary, the republicans will be even worse towards the nominated.

*after the election* : this is because bernie smeared clinton's reputation during the primary!

Thank you! So I'm not the only one who noticed!

 

[guek]

As good as it feels to take pot shots at Hillary out of election result frustration, I'll be glad when people stop bringing her up altogether and instead work together as we enter Trump's America.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

GAF loves Hillary? Where?

This site has turned into the biggest anti-Hillary circle jerk outside of Reddit. GAF liked her when she was ahead in every poll, but now that she's lost, everyone on here acts like she's the anti-christ.

It's obnoxious and exhausting.

I don't think a majority of GAF even cares about politics seeing as how it's a gaming forum, but for over a year a very vocal minority suppressed all dissent against Hillary by shouting down and banning anyone who didn't support her, especially Bernie supporters. With all dissent completely suppressed, it looked like GAF loved Hillary when in fact it was a tiny minority. Most people never liked Hillary, here or anywhere else. That silent majority went to the polls and voted against Hillary or stayed home on November 8th.

 

[ChuChu]

I don't think a majority of GAF even cares about politics seeing as how it's a gaming forum, but for over a year a very vocal minority suppressed all dissent against Hillary by shouting down and banning anyone who didn't support her, especially Bernie supporters. With all dissent completely suppressed, it looked like GAF loved Hillary when in fact it was a tiny minority. Most people never liked Hillary, here or anywhere else. That silent majority went to the polls and voted against Hillary or stayed home on November 8th.

uhhh.... majority?

 

[guek]

I don't think a majority of GAF even cares about politics seeing as how it's a gaming forum, but for over a year a very vocal minority suppressed all dissent against Hillary by shouting down and banning anyone who didn't support her, especially Bernie supporters. With all dissent completely suppressed, it looked like GAF loved Hillary when in fact it was a tiny minority. Most people never liked Hillary, here or anywhere else. That silent majority went to the polls and voted against Hillary or stayed home on November 8th.

Dude she won the popular by a convincing margin

 

[damisa]

The only good thing to come out of the election was Bernie losing. What an awful human being. The sooner he is out of politics the better it will be for all Americans.

 

[nynt9]

The only good thing to come out of the election was Bernie losing. What an awful human being. The sooner he is out of politics the better it will be for all Americans.

Awful human being? Now what did he do?

 

[sphagnum]

The only good thing to come out of the election was Bernie losing. What an awful human being. The sooner he is out of politics the better it will be for all Americans.

He's a regular Stalin!

 

[Surface of Me]

uhhh.... majority?

Dude she won the popular by a convincing margin

"Or stayed home"

 

[damisa]

Awful human being? Now what did he do?

One of my biggest pet peeves in politics and on the Internet is purity tests. I hated how he spread this idea of being a "true liberal" among his supporters. Bernie Sanders is not in charge of what a liberal is.

Furthermore, NAFTA and TPP are both good for America. I actually was also pissed at Hillary for abandoning TPP. Obama has it right here. I hate how free trade is a bad word among liberals now. Economists overwhelmingly agree it's good for the country. Democrats should not be a party that disregards expert opinions to please their uneducated members, otherwise we're no better than Republicans and climate change.

I don't like when politicians propose unrealistic plans and refuse to say how they'd pay for it. I don't like how he never released his tax returns, despite promising to do so. I don't like how he often refused to thank his supporters when he lost a state.

Finally, his hang up on Wall Street pissed me off. He treated it as the root of all evil. Wall Street is not evil, it might have a few bad apples, but it's filled with mostly good people. Wanting good regulations for it is fine, but he was incredibly lazy and blamed everything on Wall Street. He literally said that "Wall street's business model is fraud". Fraud is a felony. He is implying that they are all criminals. He proudly said he wouldn't pick any advisors that ever worked with Wall Street, which is completely insane. If you refuse to listen to anyone who's ever worked there how can you possible understand how to properly regulate it. Working at some random Wall Street firm, say Goldman Sachs, doesn't make you a bad person.

I also think many of his policies are not only unrealistic but actively bad for the country if they miraculously were passed. Free college for example. We should be going for a system where college isn't required for everyone, because not everyone can handle it. We also don't need taxpayers to spend 100K to get someone aworthless Art History major.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I am so glad Hillary Clinton is over tbh. Now Bernie and his people can take the Dems back to where they left 30 years ago.

It would have been preferable that she was the president, though.

30 years ago?

When they were losing elections to Reagan and Bush in landslides?

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

Rumours say the DNC will push Kaine, actually.

he's one of the big reasons Clinton lost, why push such a boring, dull candidate like that? Say what you want about Pence, but at least he had charisma and personality, and he DESTROYED Kaine in the VP debate. Kaine only said "Trumps mean!" and you could see Pence just get tired of it. Kaine had none of that and people often forgot about him. He was only picked because he was from VA and nothing else. If Clinton was actually a smart person, she'd pick Bernie or someone like him instead of another generic Democrat.

If they want to lose, yeah pick him.

 

[jack_package_200]

Rumours say the DNC will push Kaine, actually.

.

Receipts?

 

[nynt9]

One of my biggest pet peeves in politics and on the Internet is purity tests. I hated how he spread this idea of being a "true liberal" among his supporters. Bernie Sanders is not in charge of what a liberal is.

Furthermore, NAFTA and TPP are both good for America. I actually was also pissed at Hillary for abandoning TPP. Obama has it right here. I hate how free trade is a bad word among liberals now. Economists overwhelmingly agree it's good for the country. Democrats should not be a party that disregards expert opinions to please their uneducated members, otherwise we're no better than Republicans and climate change.

I don't like when politicians propose unrealistic plans and refuse to say how they'd pay for it. I don't like how he never released his tax returns, despite promising to do so. I don't like how he often refused to thank his supporters when he lost a state.

Finally, his hang up on Wall Street pissed me off. He treated it as the root of all evil. Wall Street is not evil, it might have a few bad apples, but it's filled with mostly good people. Wanting good regulations for it is fine, but he was incredibly lazy and blamed everything on Wall Street. He literally said that "Wall street's business model is fraud". Fraud is a felony. He is implying that they are all criminals. He proudly said he wouldn't pick any advisors that ever worked with Wall Street, which is completely insane. If you refuse to listen to anyone who's ever worked there how can you possible understand how to properly regulate it. Working at some random Wall Street firm, say Goldman Sachs, doesn't make you a bad person.

I also think many of his policies are not only unrealistic but actively bad for the country if they miraculously were passed. Free college for example. We should be going for a system where college isn't required for everyone, because not everyone can handle it. We also don't need taxpayers to spend 100K to get someone aworthless Art History major.

Ok, but those are his policies you're calling him an awful human being over. Policies that were pretty well meaning and progressive, even though you perceive them to be misguided. A guy who, depending on who you ask, is about 80%-95% in agreement with Clinton. Is the character attack really warranted?

 

[Kettch]

The only reason it became a line of attack was because of Bernie Sanders. One which Trump and the right were all too happy to disingenuously parrot.

Clinton narrowly loses an election, and it has to be taken as a "repudiation" of democrats? When she won the popular vote by 2%+? Bullshit.

Sanders is a guy who helps burn the house down and then comes around with a fire hose.

Eh, she had a narrow 2% popular vote win against one of, if not the, worst candidate ever nominated for the position. That's not a good thing. Trump should have had no chance to win this election.

I don't know if that's a repudiation of Democrats exactly, I'm sure they can find someone better at expressing the party's ideas, but let's not just pretend that Clinton lost because of bad luck and that it's ok to go that route again.

We might not find another Obama anytime soon (+33 favorability back in 2008), but we can still do a hell of a lot better than Clinton (-13 favorability this election).

 

[damisa]

Ok, but those are his policies you're calling him an awful human being over. Policies that were pretty well meaning and progressive, even though you perceive them to be misguided. A guy who, depending on who you ask, is about 80%-95% in agreement with Clinton. Is the character attack really warranted?

Yes, I generally call people who are trying to push what I think of as awful policies awful. I am sure Trump and his supporters think he's well meaning too. I can understand why others like Bernie(and even Trump), but I don't

 

[Azih]

The Democratic leadership has been losing everywhere for decades now. The only exception is the Presidency and it took them landing two of the most charismatic candidates of their respective generations (Bill abd Barack) to get those.

It needs a thorough revamp.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

One of my biggest pet peeves in politics and on the Internet is purity tests. I hated how he spread this idea of being a "true liberal" among his supporters. Bernie Sanders is not in charge of what a liberal is.

Furthermore, NAFTA and TPP are both good for America. I actually was also pissed at Hillary for abandoning TPP. Obama has it right here. I hate how free trade is a bad word among liberals now. Economists overwhelmingly agree it's good for the country. Democrats should not be a party that disregards expert opinions to please their uneducated members, otherwise we're no better than Republicans and climate change.

I don't like when politicians propose unrealistic plans and refuse to say how they'd pay for it. I don't like how he never released his tax returns, despite promising to do so. I don't like how he often refused to thank his supporters when he lost a state.

Finally, his hang up on Wall Street pissed me off. He treated it as the root of all evil. Wall Street is not evil, it might have a few bad apples, but it's filled with mostly good people. Wanting good regulations for it is fine, but he was incredibly lazy and blamed everything on Wall Street. He literally said that "Wall street's business model is fraud". Fraud is a felony. He is implying that they are all criminals. He proudly said he wouldn't pick any advisors that ever worked with Wall Street, which is completely insane. If you refuse to listen to anyone who's ever worked there how can you possible understand how to properly regulate it. Working at some random Wall Street firm, say Goldman Sachs, doesn't make you a bad person.

I also think many of his policies are not only unrealistic but actively bad for the country if they miraculously were passed. Free college for example. We should be going for a system where college isn't required for everyone, because not everyone can handle it. We also don't need taxpayers to spend 100K to get someone aworthless Art History major.

There was a sharp divide between college educated whites and non-college educated whites in the election.

Knowledge is the only cure for ignorance.

 

[jack_package_200]

There was a sharp divide between college educated whites and non-college educated whites in the election.

Knowledge is the only cure for ignorance.

We will have to focus on fixing K-12 considering Trump's administration is going to gut public schools of much of their funding for charter schools.

 

[Supast4r]

This kind of post is what makes me feel like some people just aren't able to be reached.

So you don't believe he should have run in the primary at all then? That Clinton's coronation was owed and should have gone unchallenged? And are you unaware of the dirty tricks that came to light near the end of the election that showed Clinton's camp and the DNC clearly weren't playing fairly with Bernie, or do you just refuse to acknowledge it? What do you think Bernie's ambitions are for running in the first place? You think he's just in it for glory? Do you know anything at all about his long history in politics and the things he's fought for?

There is a large group of Americans who are mocked on the regular for watching Fox News and believing everything they see there. We wonder how they can be so blind to facts and we wonder how to retrieve those people from the depths of the bubble they choose to reside in. I see very little difference between that audience and the people who believe Clinton was dealt some kind of dirty hand this election.

You clearly don't get what he is talking about. Kirblar is talking about the fact that Bernie didn't give up even though he was nearly mathematically eliminated for months. Instead he went out of his way to say that the process is rigged and that the Democratic Party is rigged for MONTHS. The right used that as a clear weapon in the election. Normal candidates don't hurt their own party like that and that definitely affected the youth vote.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

We will have to focus on fixing K-12 considering Trump's administration is going to gut public schools of much of their funding for charter schools.

GOP knows they gotta keep people dumb if they want to stay in power.

 

[Supast4r]

Maybe they should have, you know not meddled in the process and let the people decide without any influence? I mean it worked out great for her since She won.

Posts like this are super naive. Politics ALWAYS has under cover meddling and t always will. I honestly believe that political parties should be able to influence their own front runner because they represent their party as a whole.

 

[kirblar]

There was a sharp divide between college educated whites and non-college educated whites in the election.

Knowledge is the only cure for ignorance.

Once you control for racial resentment it disappears.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Once you control for racial resentment it disappears.

Receipts? It's not hard to believe, but I'd still be interested in seeing proof.

 

[Azih]

You clearly don't get what he is talking about. Kirblar is talking about the fact that Bernie didn't give up even though he was nearly mathematically eliminated for months. Instead he went out of his way to say that the process is rigged and that the Democratic Party is rigged for MONTHS. The right used that as a clear weapon in the election. Normal candidates don't hurt their own party like that and that definitely affected the youth vote.

The Democratic party establishment did have their hands on the balance here so it was perfectly fair for Sanders to complain. As well Clinton lost her firewall because she didn't bother to campaign there in the general not because of anything Sanders did in the primary.

 

[VendettaRed07]

Rumours say the DNC will push Kaine, actually.

The DNC won't be pushing anyone. It's going to be every man for himself as there's no clear front runner. We are getting a two year long 15-20 candidate clown car race at the very start of 2019

 

[jack_package_200]

The Democratic party establishment did have their hands on the balance here so it was perfectly fair for Sanders to complain. As well Clinton lost her firewall because she didn't bother to campaign there in the general not because of anything Sanders did in the primary.

Can someone give me definitive proof on this for once?

 

[Azih]

Can someone give me definitive proof on this for once?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html

 

[Dude Abides]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html

How many votes did this cost him?

 

[jack_package_200]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html

How did this depress turnout or have any effect on votes?

How did this cause minority voters to overwhelmingly choose her over him?

 

[Azih]

How many votes did this cost him?

How did this depress turnout or have any effect on votes?

How did this cause minority voters to overwhelmingly choose her over him?

It's a valid thing to complain about when the supposedly neutral referees of a contest are discussing how to hurt your campaign. So it was perfectly alright for Sanders to do so.

 

[Baron Aloha]

*snip*

Suffice it to say, I take issue with just about everything you just typed but I did want to say a few things about college in particular...

We used to have a system where college wasn't required for everyone. It was back when we had manufacturing in this country. When "low skilled" labor paid a decent wage. But then free trade/globalization happened and that literally created the situation we are in now where in order to get a decent paying job you have to go to college. So demand for college increased and so did the costs. 100k art degree strawman aside, trade schools probably do need to be more of a thing here.

As for regular college... it doesn't need to be completely free but plenty of other countries have colleges that are much more affordable than the US. In addition to more trade schools, college itself needs to be restructured. Look at what some other countries are doing. For example, when you go to school in the UK you don't have to take a bunch of bullshit classes that you don't need. You take what's in your major and that's it... so you graduate sooner... and because you spend less time in school it typically costs less. Also because you don't have a lot of departments being propped up by students being forced to take classes they don't want/need the school requires less staff in those areas of study which also reduces costs. I could literally move to the UK and live there to complete my masters in less time and for less money at a top ranked school than it would cost me here to do the same thing for a state school. Not kidding. I've looked into it.

 

[Boney]

How did this depress turnout or have any effect on votes?

How did this cause minority voters to overwhelmingly choose her over him?

Less debates for one. It's not that they mind controlled voters, just that he had to climb uphill to communicate his platform vs the gentle frolicking of his opponent

 

[JesseEwiak]

Less debates for one. It's not that they mind controlled voters, just that he had to climb uphill to communicate his platform vs the gentle frolicking of his opponent

Don't walk in the door five minutes before a party empty handed and expect everybody to buy the pizza you want, get the beer you want, or listen to the music you want.

I'd be far more sympathetic to the "oh the Clinton dominated DNC screwed over Bernie" calls if ya' know, Bernie was an actual Democrat.

 

[guek]

How many votes did this cost him?

How did this depress turnout or have any effect on votes?

How did this cause minority voters to overwhelmingly choose her over him?

This question is even more absurd than asking how Bernie would have definitively fared in the general against Trump. In both cases, we don't really know.

We have evidence to show that the DNC under DWS did not view Sanders as a legitimate possibility for the nomination and we know Sanders made those accusations even before that evidence came to light. We'll likely never know if there were conspiratory actions made specifically to impede Sanders' campaign but we do know there is evidence they had the motive to do so. It's a smoking gun but it does not prove guilt. However, combined with the utter blackballing corporate media gave Sanders during the height of his rise, the argument that his candidacy was not given the equal standing he deserved as the only legitimate challenger for Clinton is fairly reasonable. Jeb! Bush got more coverage in the GOP primary for fuck's sake.

And you know what, if people want to use the argument that Sanders would have wilted under pressure in a general election against the GOP hate machine, the same rules apply for Clinton. If she couldn't handle the accusations of corporate entanglement and corruption in the primaries, a criticism Sanders was far from the first to levy against her, she would have faltered under the same inevitable attack in the general. And guess what, she pretty much did! Hillary's corporate ties, whether a legitimate concern or not, is an extremely common reason for people to mistrust her. Hillary's likeability rating was awful throughout the general, and if Sanders is purported to be unable to handle GOP pressure, something we'll never be able to verify, the same can be said with certainty about Hillary. She was never able to shake her image, and much of that was her own damn fault.

I mean for fuck's sake, DWS resigns as DNC chair after the leaks due to the implication of unfairly stacking the deck in Hillary's favor and Hillary then appoints her as a chair in her campaign. What the fuck was Hillary thinking? There's all this controversy that the DNC chair is corrupt and everyone is saying, rightfully or not, that your campaign conspired with them to impede your only opponent and then when she resigns, you give her a job??? There were a lot of mistakes Hillary made but this one makes me facepalm the hardest.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

One of my biggest pet peeves in politics and on the Internet is purity tests. I hated how he spread this idea of being a "true liberal" among his supporters. Bernie Sanders is not in charge of what a liberal is.

Furthermore, NAFTA and TPP are both good for America. I actually was also pissed at Hillary for abandoning TPP. Obama has it right here. I hate how free trade is a bad word among liberals now. Economists overwhelmingly agree it's good for the country. Democrats should not be a party that disregards expert opinions to please their uneducated members, otherwise we're no better than Republicans and climate change.

I don't like when politicians propose unrealistic plans and refuse to say how they'd pay for it. I don't like how he never released his tax returns, despite promising to do so. I don't like how he often refused to thank his supporters when he lost a state.

Finally, his hang up on Wall Street pissed me off. He treated it as the root of all evil. Wall Street is not evil, it might have a few bad apples, but it's filled with mostly good people. Wanting good regulations for it is fine, but he was incredibly lazy and blamed everything on Wall Street. He literally said that "Wall street's business model is fraud". Fraud is a felony. He is implying that they are all criminals. He proudly said he wouldn't pick any advisors that ever worked with Wall Street, which is completely insane. If you refuse to listen to anyone who's ever worked there how can you possible understand how to properly regulate it. Working at some random Wall Street firm, say Goldman Sachs, doesn't make you a bad person.

I also think many of his policies are not only unrealistic but actively bad for the country if they miraculously were passed. Free college for example. We should be going for a system where college isn't required for everyone, because not everyone can handle it. We also don't need taxpayers to spend 100K to get someone aworthless Art History major.

I just want to be clear on this, so we know where you stand. You would prefer Trump over Bernie then?

 

[IrishNinja]

I mean for fuck's sake, DWS resigns as DNC chair after the leaks due to the implication of unfairly stacking the deck in Hillary's favor and Hillary then appoints her as a chair in her campaign. What the fuck was Hillary thinking? There's all this controversy that the DNC chair is corrupt and everyone is saying, rightfully or not, that your campaign conspired with them to impede your only opponent and then when she resigns, you give her a job??? There were a lot of mistakes Hillary made but this one makes me facepalm the hardest.

wasn't the mentality at the time that they were trying to contain her? that's what i recall, around the time she had to be stopped from opening up the the convention or so i wanna say

 

[excelsiorlef]

wasn't the mentality at the time that they were trying to contain her? that's what i recall, around the time she had to be stopped from opening up the the convention or so i wanna say

Yep, she wasn't going to step down so she was given a meaningless title and sent back to Florida to go win her congress seat...

Like literally her role after stepping down is the same role Wes Craven had with the Scream Television series, nothing but a title.

 

[mrhyderager]

The first GOP debate was literally loaded with questions designed to target and disqualify Trump.

The answer here is not complicated. The GOP identified that they couldn't hurt Trump by attacking him but that he could split the GOP and decided to just wait him out, which pretty clearly was a mistake.

The Democrats identified that Bernie wouldn't win and made no particular effort to disqualify him. I understand that a lot of Bernie supporters seem not to understand this, but their ignorance doesn't make their narrative true.

The Dems identified that he wouldn't win... how, exactly? Bernie had support coming from the center and right, which is what it takes to win the General. Got thousands to sign up as Democrats despite ludicrous restrictions to the primaries.

Whole lot of HillGAFers trying to dig into some kind of moral high ground but where has your candidate been since the concession speech? Here we have Bernie fighting the good fight, like he has for years, and Hillary is nowhere to be found. We've seen the occasional statement from the Campaign indicating they support recount efforts - that's it.

I don't know about anyone else but all I see Bernie doing now is reinforcing every one of his convictions.

 

[Father_Brain]

The Dems identified that he wouldn't win... how, exactly? Bernie had support coming from the center and right, which is what it takes to win the General. Got thousands to sign up as Democrats despite ludicrous restrictions to the primaries.

Whole lot of HillGAFers trying to dig into some kind of moral high ground but where has your candidate been since the concession speech? Here we have Bernie fighting the good fight, like he has for years, and Hillary is nowhere to be found. We've seen the occasional statement from the Campaign indicating they support recount efforts - that's it.

I don't know about anyone else but all I see Bernie doing now is reinforcing every one of his convictions.

Hillary showing up to surprise Katy Perry might represent her convictions pretty accurately, to be honest.