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[Suikoguy]

So we are now back to Sanders being not relevant at all.

Can't wait for Sanders is to blame within the next 5 posts.

Huh?

I'm asking a simple question, why did the Ultra Progressive candidates lose worse than Hillary?

 

[excelsiorlef]

So we are now back to Sanders being not relevant at all.

Can't wait for Sanders is to blame within the next 5 posts.

No he's relevant. He's going to be an important part going forward he's just not the guy, the answer or the leader.

It is not his party as many like to claim now.

I remind you again that he absolutely failed at helping just about anyone he endorsed get elected and his activist PAC died almost immediately...

 

[kirblar]

um... The media did have a major impact in the way they reported each of his wins and losses (showing super delegates before they actually votes etc.), not giving him much air time. Not many debates and many of the debates given were during bad times. etc.

The media basically wanted a Clinton vs Trump showdown, this is not something you can deny in any way man. Unfortunately, their desire to cover Trump so much, aided in his increasing popularity. So much free advertisement, Trump should thank all of the media.

EDIT:
And to clarify, Bernie did not abandon the south for no real reason. He was limited on funds, wasting it away on southern states in the primary (especially after South Carolina) that he felt he had no chance of actually winning or even closing the margins doesn't seem wise.

Without putting up better results in those states he was mathematically eliminated early on in the process.

The Dem primary map (it's proportional) forces you to have a 50 state campaign.

 

[Suikoguy]

Without putting up better results in those states he was mathematically eliminated early on in the process.

The Dem primary map forces you to have a 50 state campaign.

I'm still confused where this idea that the Media did not want a fucking horse race like every other time in history comes from?

 

[PdotMichael]

Huh?

I'm asking a simple question, why did the Ultra Progressive candidates lose worse than Hillary?

Because Clinton was that good.

 

[Wall]

Still waiting Boney for you to explain why all of those candidates lost worse than Hillary and where those mythical Sanders voters were.

Katie Mcginty was a moderate, and she lost by more than Clinton did in PA. With a few exceptions, Democrats underperformed across the board. That's to be expected when the party is disorganized with no coordinated national message beyond "Donald Trump is bad". There were a few grassroots groups trying to support candidates outsider candidates like Democracy for America, but the vast majority of the organization that existed on the left went towards the Clinton canidacy. Sanders was campaigning for her for god's sake.

2016 was the culmination of losses that began in 2010. You would hope Democrats are at their lowest point, but I fear that may not be the case. Really, if you look at the history of the party since 1994, Democrats have been out of power in the majority of the branches of the national government for the entire time with the exception of the 4 year period between 2006 and 2010. That's only four years over a 20 year period. It' might very well take years to rebuild the party into a national force, and in the meantime Democrats will need to overcome headwinds like voter suppression, gerrymandering, further erosion of campaign finance laws, and quite possibly the complete destruction of what remains of organized labor in this country.

 

[Suikoguy]

Katie Mcginty was a moderate, and she lost by more than Clinton did in PA. With a few exceptions, Democrats underperformed across the board. That's to be expected when the party is disorganized with no coordinated national message beyond "Donald Trump is bad". There were a few grassroots groups trying to support candidates outsider candidates like Democracy for America, but the vast majority of the organization that existed on the left went towards the Clinton canidacy. Sanders was campaigning for her for god's sake.

2016 was the culmination of losses that began in 2010. You would hope Democrats are at their lowest point, but I fear that may not be the case. Really, if you look at the history of the party since 1994, Democrats have been out of power in the majority of the branches of the national government for the entire time with the exception of the 4 year period between 2006 and 2010. That's only four years over a 20 year period. It' might very well take years to rebuild the party into a national force, and in the meantime Democrats will need to overcome headwinds like voter suppression, gerrymandering, further erosion of campaign finance laws, and quite possibly the complete destruction of what remains of organized labor in this country.

That does not really explain much of anything, there is no why. Especially when Kander over-performed Clinton by leagues.

Because Clinton was that good.

Huh?

 

[kirblar]

Katie Mcginty was a moderate, and she lost by more than Clinton did in PA. With a few exceptions, Democrats underperformed across the board. That's to be expected when the party is disorganized with no coordinated national message beyond "Donald Trump is bad". There were a few grassroots groups trying to support candidates outsider candidates like Democracy for America, but the vast majority of the organization that existed on the left went towards the Clinton canidacy. Sanders was campaigning for her for god's sake.

2016 was the culmination of losses that began in 2010. You would hope Democrats are at their lowest point, but I fear that may not be the case. Really, if you look at the history of the party since 1994, Democrats have been out of power in the majority of the branches of the national government for the entire time with the exception of the 4 year period between 2006 and 2010. That's only four years over a 20 year period. It' might very well take years to rebuild the party into a national force, and in the meantime Democrats will need to overcome headwinds like voter suppression, gerrymandering, further erosion of campaign finance laws, and quite possibly the complete destruction of what remains of organized labor in this country.

And that's why it needs to be rebuilt, because historically, we're about to get a backlash wave election in two years, and we need to maximize gains during it.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

Do you live in the same universe, or did you not watch how that same media treated Clinton and Trump?

There was a primary / townhall debate where Chris Cuomo was redfaced, screaming hysterically at Bernie "Why do you want to punish the rich?!" for literally four questions in a row. Clinton's first four questions were "Oh wow it looks like Obama is endorsing you, why does he love you so much? You've gotten a lot of endorsements." and similar barely coded praises. All of the townhalls and debates were handled like this, though not as extreme as Chris Cuomo's.

Bernie Sanders was given less mainstream news coverage than all of the 9-1 percenters in the Republican primary. Not combined. Trump uniquely dominated the media, this is true. But it's also true that there was a media blackout of Bernie Sanders and that the Clinton and the DNC worked with their allies in the media to create that in exchange for giving said media access later on.

And let's not forget how the media, including Google and Facebook, covered superdelegates, including them in all totals before the primaries even started. This was deliberately wanted by the DNC and the Clinton campaign and done to make it look as though Bernie was hopelessly behind in the primary, before voting even began. They did not cover superdelegates this way during the 2008 primary as proof of that.

 

[TarNaru33]

Without putting up better results in those states he was mathematically eliminated early on in the process.

The Dem primary map (it's proportional) forces you to have a 50 state campaign.

I'm still confused where this idea that the Media did not want a fucking horse race like every other time in history comes from?

We all know the maths, but that isn't how top media work, they work for ratings as demonstrated with their coverage of the presidential campaigns.

To say the media didn't take Sanders lightly and giving a 100% certainty Clinton win, in my view is not something you can deny, regardless of his actual chances of winning the primary.

I voted for Hillary in VA and glad we did go Blue, but I am disappointed that some candidate like Tump managed to beat her.

Dear moofers, guek, et. al.:

You lost the primary.

You lost single-payer in Colorado.

You lost with Jane Kim.

You lost with Tim Canova.

You lost with Zephyr Teachout.

You lost with Russ Feingold.

You lost Prop 61.

Face it - if Clinton is a loser, the Sanders path is an even bigger loser. Following that path is an even narrower path than Clinton's path.

A lot of these losses are explainable. Since Sanders did not win the nomination, we have no idea if these elections would of been different.

As much as we all recognize and hate it, democratic voters simply do not show up to vote in large margins unless there is something great to vote for. I see Hillary as a great candidate, but I personally believe there would of been a larger turnout and more independent votes had Bernie been nominee or even VP pick..

 

[Suikoguy]

A lot of these losses are explainable. Since Sanders did not win the nomination, we have no idea if these elections would of been different.

As much as we all recognize and hate it, democratic voters simply do not show up to vote in large margins unless there is something great to vote for. I see Hillary as a great candidate, but I personally believe there would of been a larger turnout and more independent votes had Bernie been nominee or even VP pick..

So you are saying, unless the BernieBros get their canidate at the top, they won't show up to vote? Even if it's a canidate that is exactly what they want at a more local level?
And Dems are supposed to cater to these lazy fucks?

 

[Wall]

That does not really explain much of anything, there is no why. Especially when Kander over-performed Clinton by leagues.

You are cherry picking examples to suit a simplistic narrative you are trying to create. Patrick Murphy lost, Deborah Ross lost ... a whole bunch of Democrats lost.

More fundamentally, "moderates" have been in control of the Democrats the entire time they've more often than not been losing elections.Face it, the "moderates" got everything they wanted this time. They got the candidate they wanted at the top of the ticket. The got the entire party apparatus behind them. They even got the exact candidate they wanted to run against. They still lost, which is what they've done most of the time I've been alive.

So, if disparate progressive candidates with no institutional backing and little organization didn't do well, my question is: Compared to what?!

 

[TarNaru33]

So you are saying, unless the BernieBros get their canidate at the top, they won't show up to vote? Even if it's a canidate that is exactly what they want at a more local level?
And Dems are supposed to cater to these lazy fucks?

Yes and Yes... This is unfortunately a fact, always had been for years now. Democrats are strong with minority and young voters. Older voters almost always vote.. Unfortunate, but true. They have the incentive (keep things the same or backward) and ability to.

You calling people "lazy fucks" for not seeing a reason to vote for a candidate is very unbecoming by the way.

 

[guek]

No he's relevant. He's going to be an important part going forward he's just not the guy, the answer or the leader.

It is not his party as many like to claim now.

I remind you again that he absolutely failed at helping just about anyone he endorsed get elected and his activist PAC died almost immediately...

How common is it for the loser of the primary to get the people the endorsed in office?

When Obama won in 2008, did he and Hillary have different endorsements? Did Hillary do a better job getting the people she endorsed during the primary elected? This is the first I've ever head of this being a metric used to judge candidates from the primary so I'm genuinely wondering what kind of precedent there is for your claim that this reflects poorly on Sanders.

I'm still confused where this idea that the Media did not want a fucking horse race like every other time in history comes from?

If you really think the media wanted a horse race for the dem nomination based on the amount and type of coverage Sanders got, you're not remembering things correctly.

You need to chill the out though with your anger at Sanders and his supporters. We're ultimately on the same side. That is unless you're one of the weird people who actually believe he cost Clinton the general, or legit think the Democratic party was as left as it could possibly be with Clinton, in which case I probably should stop trying to engage.

 

[Suikoguy]

Yes and Yes... This is unfortunately a fact, always had been for years now. Democrats are strong with minority and young voters. Older voters almost always vote.. Unfortunate, but true. They have the incentive (keep things the same or backward) and ability to.

You calling people "lazy fucks" for not seeing a reason to vote for a candidate is very unbecoming by the way.

The truth hurts. Especially when you have a Senator or House member to vote for that is exactly what you have been bitching about has not existed.

Dems will never regain a supermajority with this top down approach.

You need to chill the out though with your anger at Sanders and his supporters. We're ultimately on the same side. That is unless you're one of the weird people who actually believe he cost Clinton the general, or legit think the Democratic party was as left as it could possibly be with Clinton, in which case I probably should stop trying to engage.

The Clinton/Trump race was fucking close, he could have cost her the race, as could tens of other factors. He played up the rigged narrative with zero evidence before Trump even did.
The Dem party was the furthest left it has ever been, and you need to provide evidence as to why the Dems should move FURTHER left. Thus far there is more evidence that moving left will hurt more than help.

 

[SystemBug]

Turn all the lights down now

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

The truth hurts. Especially when you have a Senator or House member to vote for that is exactly what you have been bitching about has not existed.

Dems will never regain a supermajority with this top down approach.



The Clinton/Trump race was fucking close, he could have cost her the race, as could tens of other factors. He played up the rigged narrative with zero evidence before Trump even did.
The Dem party was the furthest left it has ever been, and you need to provide evidence as to why the Dems should move FURTHER left. Thus far there is more evidence that moving left will hurt more than help.

Giving the grassroots and activist wings of the party more control over the platform and candidates is literally the exact opposite of a top down approach.

You got everything you wanted this election. You lost. Step aside.

 

[guek]

So you are saying, unless the BernieBros get their canidate at the top, they won't show up to vote? Even if it's a canidate that is exactly what they want at a more local level?
And Dems are supposed to cater to these lazy fucks?

From my knowledge, that is not how elections work. Take a step back, there correlation you're seeking isn't actually there. Bernie largely stopped campaigning for himself and his endorsements after the primary until he joined Clinton's coalition. Much of Obama's voters didn't show up for Clinton either because *surprise!* Obama wasn't on the ticket.

 

[Suikoguy]

Giving the grassroots and activist wings of the party more control over the platform and candidates is literally the exact opposite of a top down approach.

You got everything you wanted this election. You lost. Step aside.

Wow man, just wow.

 

[excelsiorlef]

How common is it for the loser of the primary to get the people the endorsed in office?

When Obama won in 2008, did he and Hillary have different endorsements? Did Hillary do a better job getting the people she endorsed during the primary elected? This is the first I've ever head of this being a metric used to judge candidates from the primary so I'm genuinely wondering what kind of precedent there is for your claim that this reflects poorly on Sanders.



If you really think the media wanted a horse race for the dem nomination based on the amount and type of coverage Sanders got, you're not remembering things correctly.

You need to chill the out though with your anger at Sanders and his supporters. We're ultimately on the same side. That is unless you're one of the weird people who actually believe he cost Clinton the general, or legit think the Democratic party was as left as it could possibly be with Clinton, in which case I probably should stop trying to engage.

Clinton didn't run on I'm starting a revolution in 08 or 16...

Sanders did.

A barometer to test success of a political revolution is to see how those the revolution wants you to support did, Canova bombed hardcore (and should never have been endorsed), a few others lost in the primary and all the rest but one (who was the most endorsed by all people) lost in the GE.

And then to boot his Revolution PAC died because the guy he trusted to run his campaign killed it fast than you could blink.


I have said a million times he is an important voice, but I will fight tooth and nail against him becoming the voice.

Do I think he cost Clinton the election? Nah, do I think he hurt her a bit absolutely, the privates speeches came from him, he set the tone for the DNC is rigged and stealing the primary from me, he absolutely hurt the DNC this election cycle... Because by the end that's who he was campaigning against.

I absolutely hated how he chose to run his campaign, and I will never apologize for feeling that way. I think it did a disservice to the left and has introduced a lot of toxic mentalities and litmus testing bullshit.

I came into this primary a Sander person, his behaviour and actions drove me away and quickly. I think his ideas are important but I think he is the wrong man to be the leader going forward.

 

[Wall]

For the record, losing candidates in primaries often are given large roles in their parties:

Reagan lost to Gerald Ford in 1976
Bush 1 lost to Reagan in 1980 -> VP
McCain lost to Bush 2 in 2000
Romney lost to McCain
Clinton lost to Obama

Then you have Howard Dean not even running particulary strong in 2004 but becoming DNC chair and substantialy shaping the subsequent direction of the party.

Edit: I'm sure there are others. That is just off the top of my head.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

So you are saying, unless the BernieBros get their canidate at the top, they won't show up to vote? Even if it's a canidate that is exactly what they want at a more local level?
And Dems are supposed to cater to these lazy fucks?

Huh?

I'm asking a simple question, why did the Ultra Progressive candidates lose worse than Hillary?

Being tied to an massively unpopular candidate at the top of the ticket always hurts down ballot races. That's not new or controversial. Hillary Clinton was counting on it with her "Pied Piper" strategy to help Trump or Cruz win the Republican Primary.

 

[guek]

Clinton didn't run on I'm starting a revolution in 08 or 16...

Sanders did.

A barometer to test success of a political revolution is to see how those the revolution wants you to support do, Canova bombed hardcore, a few others lost in the primary and all the rest but one (who was the most endorsed by all people) lost in the GE.

And then to boot his Revolution PAC died because the guy he trusted to run his campaign killed it fast than you could blink.


I have said a million times he is an important voice, but I will fight tooth and nail against him becoming the voice.

Do I think he cost Clinton the election? Nah, do I think he hurt her a bit absolutely, the privates speeches came from him, he set the tone for the DNC is rigged and stealing the primary from me, he absolutely hurt the DNC this election cycle... Because by the end that's who he was campaigning against.

I absolutely hated his campaign, and I will never apologize for feeling that way. I think it did a disservice to the left and has introduced a lot of toxic mentalities and litmus testing bullshit.

I came into this primary a Sander person, his behaviour and actions drove me away and quickly. I think his ideas are important but I think he is the wrong man to be the leader going forward.

Ah, so you're judging Sanders on this exclusively. I hope you wont be offended then if I and others don't take your conclusions to heart when there isn't a precedent to compare it to.

Overall, I see where you're coming from but I'm of a mind to believe the DNC deserved to be attacked, much in the way he chose to do so. That's not to say I agree with all the choices his campaign made, but I'd be lying if I said Clinton's campaign didn't ultimately bother me more than Sanders'.

 

[Wall]

Clinton didn't run on I'm starting a revolution in 08 or 16...

Sanders did.

A barometer to test success of a political revolution is to see how those the revolution wants you to support did, Canova bombed hardcore (and should never have been endorsed), a few others lost in the primary and all the rest but one (who was the most endorsed by all people) lost in the GE.

And then to boot his Revolution PAC died because the guy he trusted to run his campaign killed it fast than you could blink

????

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.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Ah, so you're judging Sanders on this exclusively. I hope you wont be offended then if I and others don't take your conclusions to heart when there isn't a precedent to compare it to.

Overall, I see where you're coming from but I'm of a mind to believe the DNC deserved to be attacked, much in the way he chose to do so. That's not to say I agree with all the choices his campaign made, but I'd be lying if I said Clinton's campaign didn't ultimately bother me more than Sanders'.

Exclusively?

No I judge him on a lot of things.

I once made a list...

Let me drag it out for you

Data theft, his team did wrong, and he played victim and attacked the DNC, instead of accepting responsibility

My first indication that A) He had incompetent Staff and B) He is unable to take responsibility and may in fact lack integrity

That was a huge moment for me because it was the first time I got an indication of who Bernie Sanders the candidate was, prior to that I had thought of him solely as a set of ideas if that makes sense.

So the shift began, I still agreed with ideas but started to think that he might not be the right person to put them into action.

Then he completely lost me with the Planned Parenthood fiasco. Where he called them the Establishment, doubled down, tripled down and then finally said oh wait I meant the leaders are, not the organization itself, which in itself was a back track and a quadruple down.

There was absolutely no reason to go after Planned Parenthood, they endorsed Clinton because of her track record in the Senate and her proactive nature on the issues important to them. They were polite and quite positive towards Sanders and yet Sanders turned around and flipped out on them tossing them into the Establishment he was fighting.

That was it for me, I have no time to support a guy who attacks arguably one of the most persecuted organizations in the country just because they endorsed his opponent, while complimenting the hell out of him. The thread I made about it here didn't help either as pro Sandesr people absolutely joined in on attacking PP as part of the establishment and questioning their integrity, and mine, including a few calling to have me banned over it.

The rest is history, he's proven to me since that I was absolutely correct to get off that band wagon.

I mean it's a laundry list:

1) His reaction post South-Carolina, where he simulatenously dismissed the south as "conservative", didn't thank his supporters in those states or really acknowledge what those losses meant.He went to Super White Minnesota I believe that night and called them too smart not to vote for him, which is a terrible thing to say post a major loss in a state where the black vote was a huge factor in his loss.

2) He also managed to claim that had he tired harder he'd have won, which basically implies he didn't consider the South worth his time, and that he lost because they (which includes a lot of minorities) just didn't know about him. It's also a lie, he out spent Clinton in South Carolina.

3) His surrogates have been horrendous and he's never really held them accountable. I mean his response to Killer Mike's Uterus comment was to say "I'd never say vote for me because I'm a man". Then there's the Establishment Whores moment, the Rosario Dawson shit, the Cornel West stuff

4) The John Lewis incident

5) Blaming the DNC for the Arizona issues, and claiming somehow that it only hurt him, never mind that in many of those places it likely hurt Clinton more

6) Demanding debates and then complaining because he didn't get his desired dates, or that he'd have to change a date of one of his million and a half stump speech rallies

7) the fact that all he seemed to do is host rallies, whereas I saw Clinton going into communities and meeting with people in much more intimate ways

8) His refusal to do fuck all for the downticket

9) His attack on Emily's List when he finally sort of kinda did a tiny thing for the downticket

10) His camp's insistence that he didn't need to really help monetary wise wtith the downticket because just being on the same ticket as Bernie fucking Sanders is enough. No cult of personality for me please.

11)That disastrous NYDN interview where he was frankly exposed as not having much of a plan of action, just a lot of core ideas.

12) His ridiculous policies on free trade and his inclination to give anti-GMO zealots any credibility.

13) Everything to do with his fucking Clinton speeches bullshit. Especially given that when asked to pinpoint even one time Clinton was "bought and paid for" he couldn't. Not to mention he sure as shit managed to only release a tiny fraction of his tax return

14) How he fucked up the Castro and Ortega question in the Florida Debate

15) How we went to the fucking Vatican on his campaign's dime in the middle of a fucking primary

16) How he came back and immediately criticized Clinton for the Clooney predominately downticket fundraiser, eventually calling it and other fundraisers like it money laundering.

17) His repeated claims that he represents the will of the people, despite being currently decimated in the popular vote.

18) His disinterest in foreign policy, beyond I was against Iraq. He hired advisers way too late, by then he'd already propose that the solution to fighting ISIS was for Saudi Arabia and Iran to create a coalition... which is fucking asinine. That and it's clear that he has never been all the interested in foreign policy. In a Senate briefing about Libya, Sanders took the floor and talked about Democratic messaging on the economy.

19) How almost every loss is somehow because the election was stolen from him and not because people sincerely voted against him

20) His obsession with yelling fraud at everything

21) His constant attack on the Democratic Party and the DNC which in the end turned out to be the only actual target for his "revolution" to the point where his supporters booed the Democratic Party at his latest stump rally. Shouldn't have been a surprise in retrospect, since he's the guy that wanted someone to primary Obama in 2012

22) Which is exactly why what happened in Nevada as his response to it is no surprise. It was a culmination of so much of what I've listed above. He has whipped a lot of people into a detached from reality frenzy, his "everything is fraud and theft" behaviour has convinced a subset of his followers that an election is literally being stolen from him. I mean again look at his press release, after walking away from the question like a fucking coward, he releases a statement that basically blames Roberta Lange for her own harassment, I'd argue in fact that in focusing the bulk of the release on making false accusations that she was corrupt and committing fraud and stealing a win from Sanders that he in fact was essentially just giving more ammo for people to either harass her more or feel justified in their harassment, and frankly that seems evident when you read the interviews of some of those people who harassed her

23) Oh and now he's actually called Clinton the lesser of two evils, while trying to pretend he didn't like a fucking weasel.

24) He's run his campaign as a litmus test for getting to call oneself a progressive.

25 ) He pretends to not be a politician but absolutely is one.

26) His inability to ever truly admit fault, it's always someone else's.

27) Everything to do with Super Delegates, first hating them despite hiring the guy who helped create them, and then going oh wait they should be allocated by the outcome of the primaries, oh wait by that I mean the states that I won, the ones in states that Clinton won should vote for me because meaningless GE polls. He's essentially claiming to be the will of the people while arguing to over turn the will of the people

Add to that his campaign selling out an AIDS group and calling them stooges of big Pharma or whatever after they came out and clarified that they did not in fact endorse a California drug initiative that Sanders was backing as his campaign announced.

Some of my issues are smaller than others but they add up to be significant.

I repeat again I admire the man for his convictions and passion, I believe he is going to be very important as party of the party, but not as the face of it, I will never endorse him to be the guy. He cannot be the guy.

I want to make something really clear: The Clinton Primary vs the Clinton GE was night and day in some cases. She abandoned a lot of tactics that I thought worked really well for her in te primary, namely the smaller gatherings directly in communities with leaders of those communities.

 

[Wall]

Well okay.... excelciorlef hates him some Bernie Sanders... noted. I don't think he's perfect either, but wow.

Unfortunately, he kind of is "the guy" right now. Gonna be seeing a lot of him over the next couple of years.

 

[guek]

Exclusively?

No I judge him on a lot of things.

you misunderstood, I meant your criticism about candidate endorsements, there isn't precedent for that.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Well okay.... excelciorlef hates him some Bernie Sanders... noted. I don't think he's perfect either, but wow.

Unfortunately, he kind of is "the guy" right now. Gonna be seeing a lot of him over the next couple of years.

I don't hate Bernie Sanders, I hate how he ran his campaign. I hate his approach to things.

I don't know how many times I've said he's clearly important going forward.

But no he's not "the guy"

You folks can't throw shit fits at Clinton be anointed and then anoint Sanders as the guy now.

He's a key player bu he is not and will not be the player.

Also just fyi I'm a she

you misunderstood, I meant your criticism about candidate endorsements, there isn't precedent for that.

When you claim to be running a revolution, I get to judge how successful your revolution was... it wasn't.


He's a special case because he made a unique claim.

 

[pigeon]

Well okay.... excelciorlef hates him some Bernie Sanders... noted. I don't think he's perfect either, but wow.

Unfortunately, he kind of is "the guy" right now. Gonna be seeing a lot of him over the next couple of years.

It's truly astonishing to me how people are willing to level brutal character and personal attacks at Hillary and people who supported her in the primary and then somehow are not just offended but shocked when others do the same to Bernie.

 

[Wall]

I don't hate Bernie Sanders, I hate how he ran his campaign. I hate his approach to things.

I don't know how many times I've said he's clearly important going forward.

But no he's not "the guy"

You folks can't throw shit fits at Clinton be anointed and then anoint Sanders as the guy now.

He's a key player bu he is not and will not be the player.

I didn't anoint him anything. Honestly, nothing we say or do on here has any impact. I'm just going by what I see in terms of who is getting coverage in the media. That and his appointment to prominent roles within the party. Also the fact that, historically, primary losers who run a strong second assume prominent roles within their parties- that goes double when the person they lost to goes on to lose the general.

Also just fy I'm a she

I apologize.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

Exclusively?

No I judge him on a lot of things.

I once made a list...

Let me drag it out for you



Add to that his campaign selling out an AIDS group and calling them stooges of big Pharma or whatever after they came out and clarified that they did not in fact endorse a California drug initiative that Sanders was backing as his campaign announced.

Some of my issues are smaller than others but they add up to be significant.

I repeat again I admire the man for his convictions and passion, I believe he is going to be very important as party of the party, but not as the face of it, I will never endorse him to be the guy. He cannot be the guy.

At least 75% of your list is wrong and backwards to what actually happened. I can and am willing to go over all of it once I'm home from work. "The John Lewis" incident for example, was an incident caused by John Lewis saying Bernie Sanders never fought for civil rights, which was demonstrably false and timed when Clinton surrogates were lying about photos of Bernie Sanders during civil rights protests.

That's on your team. Not ours.

You're talking about Bernie's awful surrogates and not being held accountable, but Delores Huerta and David Brock were running around saying that Bernie Sanders and his supporters were at the Nevada Caucus and were screaming "English only" which never happened. Bernie Sanders was proven to not be in Nevada, and video of the evidence disproved their claims. Nothing happened to either Huerta or Brock for their lies. On contrary, the Clinton team rewarded them.

That's on your team. Not ours. You won't find anything official Bernie surrogates did that comes anywhere close to that level of awfulness.

Also the NYDN interview was not emblematic of Bernie not having a plan of action. When banks are ordered to break up, it's up to them how they are going to downsize. That's how it's always been. That's how Dodd-Frank is designed to be.

I seriously count 5 items from you list that are good points without any caveats (1&2 are the most true and poignant). Your analysis and understanding of how the primaries went is literally backwards.

 

[guek]

It's truly astonishing to me how people are willing to level brutal character and personal attacks at Hillary and people who supported her in the primary and then somehow are not just offended but shocked when others do the same to Bernie.

Lol what the hell are you talking about. The post you quotes is tame as fuck.

 

[Wall]

It's truly astonishing to me how people are willing to level brutal character and personal attacks at Hillary and people who supported her in the primary and then somehow are not just offended but shocked when others do the same to Bernie.

I was trying to make a joke to lighten the mood. I'm sorry if that came across as "brutal". I have friends and family who voted for Hillary in the primary....

Edit: And for the record, i'm not offended... more half amused, but also disturbed if the Democrats start fighting again even after the primary

 

[Dude Abides]

In July Bernie said he's going back to being an independent. I imagine it's a bit difficult to lead or be the face of a party you don't belong to but maybe The Revolution can accomplish that as well.

 

[Azzanadra]

In July Bernie said he's going back to being an independent. I imagine it's a bit difficult to lead or be the face of a party you don't belong to but maybe The Revolution can accomplish that as well.

Well he kind of has to now, no? He was elected to the senate for this term as an independent so he has to finish it as one- I believe he's going to run as a Democrat in 2018.

 

[Dude Abides]

Well he kind of has to now, no? He was elected to the senate for this term as an independent so he has to finish it as one- I believe he's going to run as a Democrat in 2018.

I don't believe so. His predecessor Jim Jeffords went indy shortly after being reelected as a Republican. I don't think there is any requirement to stay in the party you were in when elected.

 

[Wall]

Well he kind of has to now, no? He was elected to the senate for this term as an independent so he has to finish it as one- I believe he's going to run as a Democrat in 2018.

That was my understanding. He also was added to the Democrat's Senate leadership in a role focused on messaging. That's why I was saying to get used to seeing him in the media as a prominent voice for Democrats: That's his job with the party now.

 

[excelsiorlef]

At least 75% of your list is wrong and backwards to what actually happened. I can and am willing to go over all of it once I'm home from work. "The John Lewis" incident for example, was an incident caused by John Lewis saying Bernie Sanders never fought for civil rights, which was demonstrably false and timed when Clinton surrogates were lying about photos of Bernie Sanders during civil rights protests.

That's on your team. Not ours.

You're talking about Bernie's awful surrogates and not being held accountable, but Delores Huerta and David Brock were running around saying that Bernie Sanders and his supporters were at the Nevada Caucus and were screaming "English only" which never happened. Bernie Sanders was proven to not be in Nevada, and video of the evidence disproved their claims. Nothing happened to either Huerta or Brock for their lies. On contrary, the Clinton team rewarded them.

That's on your team. Not ours. You won't find anything official Bernie surrogates did that comes anywhere close to that level of awfulness.

Also the NYDN interview was not emblematic of Bernie not having a plan of action. When banks are ordered to break up, it's up to them how they are going to downsize. That's how it's always been. That's how Dodd-Frank is designed to be.

I seriously count 5 items from you list that are good points without any caveats (1&2 are the most true and poignant). Your analysis and understanding of how the primaries went is literally backwards.

Find then those Clinton's surrogates sucked too!


Though there;s some potential nuance to the English only thing:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ores-huerta-english-only-shout-down/#comments

Take it for what you will.

John Lewis might have been overzealous in his comments but the response towards him was horrible and essentially reduced a civil rights hero to a stooge. People even now here have dismissed him as a sell out and whatever.... a man who put his life on the line for his civil rights.


I don't think you want to go into Nevada on anything, that was a fucking gong show, Roberta Lange received intense harassment and all Sanders could do is say I on't condone harassment and violence in between calling her a corrupt politician who was stealing Nevada from him...

What happened in Nevada was fucking embarrassing

 

[pigeon]

Jesus fucking Christ...:



http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unions-grow-uneasy-with-keith-ellison.html?referer=https://www.google.com

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/kfile-keith-ellison-nation-of-islam/

Your claim wasn't that some members of the Democratic leadership oppose him, it was that they're smearing him as a scary black Muslim. That's a very strong claim! Your articles give no evidence of that claim, and Ellison himself says the smear is coming from the right wing.

This might help explain why people ask you to actually post evidence for the statements you make. It's illuminating when you attempt to do so.

 

[Fancyarcher]

This. Bernie is a hell of a lot like Trump. Sell big ideas that actually cannot be implemented as they are totally impractical and dismissive of reality.

Bernie was a lot Trump in regards to being delusional, but at least Sanders didn't build his campaign around hate and yelling, mind you that's probably what got Trump the vote in the first place, but Sanders still came off as much more reasonable regardless.

 

[Fancyarcher]

As much as we all recognize and hate it, democratic voters simply do not show up to vote in large margins unless there is something great to vote for. I see Hillary as a great candidate, but I personally believe there would of been a larger turnout and more independent votes had Bernie been nominee or even VP pick..

The problem with Sanders is, is while he got a lot of support from younger folks, he couldn't get enough support from minorities. Even if he had somehow got the nomination, there's nothing to suggest that turnout wouldn't have been low for him either, especially if they started throwing out scandals on him.

 

[Wall]

Your claim wasn't that some members of the Democratic leadership oppose him, it was that they're smearing him as a scary black Muslim. That's a very strong claim! Your articles give no evidence of that claim, and Ellison himself says the smear is coming from the right wing.

This might help explain why people ask you to actually post evidence for the statements you make. It's illuminating when you attempt to do so.

I'll admit I was being hyperbolic, and it looks like Shumer and co are standing behind Ellison. I'm jumping at shadows because i'm afraid that the infighting in the primary will continue at the highest levels of the party, which would be fatal. It's stuff like this I that scares me:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/2...p-fight-pits-west-wing-against-left-wing.html

The last thing the Democrats need is a fight like that. I don't even care so much about Ellison versus someone like Dean than I do that people connected to Obama might be thinking along those lines. Then I saw the anti-Israel smear, which might have originated with a right-org but started getting cited on left wing blogs like Daily Kos, and I got a little nervous.

It looks like I was completely wrong ...... and happily so!

You win this one Pigeon!

 

[aeolist]

Would you be saying the same thing if Clinton was basically mathematically eliminated and went scorched earth on Sanders?

oh like what clinton did in 2008?

 

[noshten]

oh like what clinton did in 2008?

It's especially funny that at least Bernie didn't stay in the race in the hope of Clinton being assassinated...

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Clinton told the editorial board of a South Dakota newspaper. " I don't understand it," Clinton added, alluding to the calls for her to quit.

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-rfk-comment/

Data theft, his team did wrong, and he played victim and attacked the DNC, instead of accepting responsibility

I wonder why the FBI didn't step in to investigate this data theft... Probably because there is an actual contract and there was no data theft. A firewall went down and someone who was personally recommended by the DNC made a copy of data from the Clinton campaign and was promptly fired.
The DNC overeached and stopped access to the voter files which was against their contractual obligations to the Bernie campaign - had he sued them for money he would have easily won the case.

My first indication that A) He had incompetent Staff and B) He is unable to take responsibility and may in fact lack integrity

We are talking in a post-Trump world. If there is anyone with incompetent staff it's the candidate that lost to Trump.

That was a huge moment for me because it was the first time I got an indication of who Bernie Sanders the candidate was, prior to that I had thought of him solely as a set of ideas if that makes sense.

So the shift began, I still agreed with ideas but started to think that he might not be the right person to put them into action.

Then he completely lost me with the Planned Parenthood fiasco. Where he called them the Establishment, doubled down, tripled down and then finally said oh wait I meant the leaders are, not the organization itself, which in itself was a back track and a quadruple down.

There was absolutely no reason to go after Planned Parenthood, they endorsed Clinton because of her track record in the Senate and her proactive nature on the issues important to them. They were polite and quite positive towards Sanders and yet Sanders turned around and flipped out on them tossing them into the Establishment he was fighting.

That was it for me, I have no time to support a guy who attacks arguably one of the most persecuted organizations in the country just because they endorsed his opponent, while complimenting the hell out of him. The thread I made about it here didn't help either as pro Sandesr people absolutely joined in on attacking PP as part of the establishment and questioning their integrity, and mine, including a few calling to have me banned over it.

PP made the wrong call endorsing Clinton before a single vote was cast in January sure they waited longer than majority of Dem insiders but hardly a decision that was based on just the Clinton credentials.

Traditionally PP had never endorsed ANY candidate in their entire HISTORY during the Dem Primary and both candidates had a strong record. Tipping the scales at exactly this election before we had even gotten into the primaries much like a lot of the larger unions that ended up not showing up election day just showed how out of touch PP and Union Leadership were with the mood of the American Public.

They also bare responsibility in this whole fiasco.

1) His reaction post South-Carolina, where he simulatenously dismissed the south as "conservative", didn't thank his supporters in those states or really acknowledge what those losses meant.He went to Super White Minnesota I believe that night and called them too smart not to vote for him, which is a terrible thing to say post a major loss in a state where the black vote was a huge factor in his loss.

During an election where it was made clear by the Clinton campaign that she didn't really care about young voters or trying to appeal to them and during an election where she made the biggest folly attacking her opponents voters by calling them deplorable you really think Bernie calling SC which voted overwhelmingly for Trump conservative is a red mark against his candidacy.
It was not a good look no doubt but you are making a mountain out of a mole hill in the grand scheme of things.

2) He also managed to claim that had he tired harder he'd have won, which basically implies he didn't consider the South worth his time, and that he lost because they (which includes a lot of minorities) just didn't know about him. It's also a lie, he out spent Clinton in South Carolina.

Yes he outspend his opponent in SC and spend a lot of time there without result. Clinton's organizational advantage and having all major opinion leaders in the South campaign for her was definitely something he was unable to overcome.

3) His surrogates have been horrendous and he's never really held them accountable. I mean his response to Killer Mike's Uterus comment was to say "I'd never say vote for me because I'm a man". Then there's the Establishment Whores moment, the Rosario Dawson shit, the Cornel West stuff

At least he didn't have Bushes, Kissinger and other Neocons singing his praises.
You really shouldn't comment about surrogates anyway because I can list a lot more disparaging comments from Clinton ones. "They just want to be with the boys" "
How about Clinton herself trying to paint Sanders as a sexist due to his shouting remarks?

4) The John Lewis incident

The incident where John Lewis that attacked Bernie's civil rights record?
Where he later appologized saying he "didn't mean to disparage' Bernie Sanders' civil rights activism"

5) Blaming the DNC for the Arizona issues, and claiming somehow that it only hurt him, never mind that in many of those places it likely hurt Clinton more

Ohh so you think what occured in Arizona is normal? That Bernie's comments where out of line - let me quote the guy:

“We got an email last night from a woman who was waiting in line for five hours to vote. For five hours to vote,” Bernie said incredulously today at a press conference in San Diego.

“Whatever the cause of that problem is, people in the United States of America should not have to wait five hours in order to vote. We do not know how many thousands of people who wanted to vote yesterday in Arizona did not vote. We don’t know if they wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, whoever. We don’t know that.”

“In the United States of America, democracy is the foundation of our way of life,” Bernie said. “People should not have to wait five hours to vote, and what happened yesterday in Arizona is a disgrace.”

“I hope that every state in this country learns from that and learns how to put together a proper election where people can come in and vote in a timely manner and go back to work.”

the nerve of the guy...

6) Demanding debates and then complaining because he didn't get his desired dates, or that he'd have to change a date of one of his million and a half stump speech rallies

The dates for the Dem debates were awful and compared to Clinton Obama there was like 1/10 of the amount of debates and most were scheduled in such a way that fewest possible amount of people would watch them.

7) the fact that all he seemed to do is host rallies, whereas I saw Clinton going into communities and meeting with people in much more intimate ways

Unless you are talking about communities of rich folks - you can look into Bernie's schedule and see which of the two was more active on the campaign trail with both small events and yuge rallies. In the end we saw which is the better way to go and Obama also held huge rallys in 2008.

8) His refusal to do fuck all for the downticket

9) His attack on Emily's List when he finally sort of kinda did a tiny thing for the downticket

Emily's List who chose to endorse an outside candidate in the senate who was running against a local Latina - just because she had endorsed Bernie?

10) His camp's insistence that he didn't need to really help monetary wise wtith the downticket because just being on the same ticket as Bernie fucking Sanders is enough. No cult of personality for me please.

Once again whole lot of projections especially in light of the GE result and Clinton outspending Trump 4:1 and still losing across the ticket.

11)That disastrous NYDN interview where he was frankly exposed as not having much of a plan of action, just a lot of core ideas.

Hillary aced the interview and debates - too bad that's not exactly something that makes you more likely to win a GE.

12) His ridiculous policies on free trade and his inclination to give anti-GMO zealots any credibility.

The ridiculous policies of putting worker rights first rather than corporate profits?

13) Everything to do with his fucking Clinton speeches bullshit. Especially given that when asked to pinpoint even one time Clinton was "bought and paid for" he couldn't. Not to mention he sure as shit managed to only release a tiny fraction of his tax return

It was very easy for a multimillionaire like Clinton who had decided to run for President a long time ago to simply not do speeches for large and unpopular institutions after leaving her role as SoS. Instead she did a speaking tour and didn't release the transcripts because "she was already vetted" this was just another "witch hunt" - much like the email issue her insistence of secrecy hurt her image among voters.

14) How he fucked up the Castro and Ortega question in the Florida Debate

Clinton takes advise from Kissinger she is pals with two war criminals Powell and Condi - she uses them as her defense for her email server. That's far more damning than Sanders had made about Ortega and Castro 30 years ago.

I encourage you to actually watch the interview and than remind us again why things Clinton said about super-predators don't matter but this does.

15) How we went to the fucking Vatican on his campaign's dime in the middle of a fucking primary

I though he was already mathematically eliminated before the NY primary and due to the awful primary registration rules there wasn't much he could do campaigning there.

16) How he came back and immediately criticized Clinton for the Clooney predominately downticket fundraiser, eventually calling it and other fundraisers like it money laundering.

300k per table, while people are struggling to pay a 40k loan... yes the optics are wonderful all those fundraisers really helped usher a new wave of downticket victories for Dems.

17) His repeated claims that he represents the will of the people, despite being currently decimated in the popular vote.

He represented the will of his people.

18) His disinterest in foreign policy, beyond I was against Iraq. He hired advisers way too late, by then he'd already propose that the solution to fighting ISIS was for Saudi Arabia and Iran to create a coalition... which is fucking asinine. That and it's clear that he has never been all the interested in foreign policy. In a Senate briefing about Libya, Sanders took the floor and talked about Democratic messaging on the economy.

Foreign policy doesn't matter in a GE unless you are in an actual war where American lives are lost.

19) How almost every loss is somehow because the election was stolen from him and not because people sincerely voted against him

Receipts that people voted against him? I though they were voting for Clinton

20) His obsession with yelling fraud at everything

Do quote him yelling about fraud at everything - I'd like to get more information on this.

21) His constant attack on the Democratic Party and the DNC which in the end turned out to be the only actual target for his "revolution" to the point where his supporters booed the Democratic Party at his latest stump rally. Shouldn't have been a surprise in retrospect, since he's the guy that wanted someone to primary Obama in 2012

It's like you were watching a different primary.

22) Which is exactly why what happened in Nevada as his response to it is no surprise. It was a culmination of so much of what I've listed above. He has whipped a lot of people into a detached from reality frenzy, his "everything is fraud and theft" behaviour has convinced a subset of his followers that an election is literally being stolen from him. I mean again look at his press release, after walking away from the question like a fucking coward, he releases a statement that basically blames Roberta Lange for her own harassment, I'd argue in fact that in focusing the bulk of the release on making false accusations that she was corrupt and committing fraud and stealing a win from Sanders that he in fact was essentially just giving more ammo for people to either harass her more or feel justified in their harassment, and frankly that seems evident when you read the interviews of some of those people who harassed her

Nevada was a shit show where Clinton campaign and the media made claims about BernieBros throwing chairs and people here ate it up I can digup the thread.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1220341

23) Oh and now he's actually called Clinton the lesser of two evils, while trying to pretend he didn't like a fucking weasel.

Do pull out a quote where he called her the lesser of two evils.

24) He's run his campaign as a litmus test for getting to call oneself a progressive.

Yes because all those that endorsed Clinton before a single vote in the primary was cast also helped usher in a Republican President, a Republican Supreme Court and total control over the other branches of government. People with such awful decision making shouldn't be in a place to make decisions.

25 ) He pretends to not be a politician but absolutely is one.

I see just more projections.

26) His inability to ever truly admit fault, it's always someone else's.

Pot kettle black

27) Everything to do with Super Delegates, first hating them despite hiring the guy who helped create them, and then going oh wait they should be allocated by the outcome of the primaries, oh wait by that I mean the states that I won, the ones in states that Clinton won should vote for me because meaningless GE polls. He's essentially claiming to be the will of the people while arguing to over turn the will of the people
Add to that his campaign selling out an AIDS group and calling them stooges of big Pharma or whatever after they came out and clarified that they did not in fact endorse a California drug initiative that Sanders was backing as his campaign announced.

Some of my issues are smaller than others but they add up to be significant.

I repeat again I admire the man for his convictions and passion, I believe he is going to be very important as party of the party, but not as the face of it, I will never endorse him to be the guy. He cannot be the guy.

I want to make something really clear: The Clinton Primary vs the Clinton GE was night and day in some cases. She abandoned a lot of tactics that I thought worked really well for her in te primary, namely the smaller gatherings directly in communities with leaders of those communities.

Super Delegates had one job to select the best candidate for the GE.
A majority of Super Delegates endorsed Clinton in the summer of 2015.

The Clinton Primary was a reflection of her GE and she ran an awful primary which she nearly lost to a 74 year old socialist Jew that majority of America had not heard before the start of this election. If you think it's normal for Clinton to be so unpopular to almost lose to a guy who wasn't even a rock star like Obama than you've gotten the wrong ideas about the primary. She had virtually every organizational advantages, all major unions, all major dems, millions raised every month, 30 years of creating connections among leaders across different Democratic communities. She lost young votes, union voters, minority voters, white voters - virtually every demographic compared to Obama. You cannot disconnect how she approached the primary and what the DNC did with the depressed voter turnout.
She could have easily picked a better VP to energize at least one of the above groups - but what did she do she chose a VP that had ZERO chances to outshine her and proceeded to not campaign in States where it was obvious she was weak raising money instead.

You know what fundraising by Bernie would have looked like:
- Bernie goes to rally
- Rally is televised
- He says $27
- A big link is posted to ACT BLUE

Not a single fundraising event where he personally needs to get off the campaign trail is needed.

 

[Abounder]

It's especially funny that at least Bernie didn't stay in the race in the hope of Clinton being assassinated...

Holy shit Hillary is godawful. She says & does dumber shit than Dan Quayle, and is the laziest frontrunner we've seen yet.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

At the same time, she couldn't even bother to visit my home state of Wisconsin even once. They have paper mills and various factory jobs shutting down left and right across the state and she never bothered to stop there. That's why you lose people.

Maybe. But it's really stupid. Why should a candidate visiting you even matter? These people are really going, "oh, Clinton didn't visit us, therefore I'm going to vote for the other, who's a racist nutcase NYC billionaire demagogue who keeps lying from his golden tower and will obviously not help us"?

I get that this is the strategy but holy shit at these people in WI/MI/PA/rust belt or whatever. SMH, why couldn't they just use one brain cell or two...

I hated Bernie in the primary

Why?

The Clinton diehards still don't understand why she lost.

While I was a Bernie supporter and not a Clinton diehard, I do understand why she lost; I just think it's way more the fault of the voters than her own.

Hillary and her shitty campaign handed the country to a wildly unpopular cartoon fascist. The consequences of their failure will likely have ramifications long after Trump is out of office, and everyone who made the disastrous decisions that cost them the election will continue to collect six-figure salaries (thanks to DC's incestuous politics/lobbying/media/think tank culture) while the most vulnerable Americans suffer the consequences. People are absolutely right to be angry.

People should be angry primarily at the morons who voted for Trump or who abstained from voting, resulting in Trump's victory. End of fucking story. It's not like these voters had ANY excuse. "She didn't visit my home state wah wah"? Please.

Frankly, I agree with Bernie Sanders. People need to come to terms with why we lost this election.

It was because a large percentage of Americans were willing to vote for an overt white supremacist.

Yup. But people are looking for a scapegoat and she's an easy target I guess.

 

[Father_Brain]

Blaming stupid voters is catharsis, not politics. Doesn't mean it's inherently wrong or even untrue, but it's not going to help the party learn anything productive or recover.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

Blaming stupid voters is catharsis, not politics. Doesn't mean it's inherently wrong or even untrue, but it's not going to help the party learn anything productive or recover.

This. And at the end of the day, it's the candidate's job to win votes. Votes aren't owed. And yeah, it's easy and fun and cathartic and probably true to blame stupid, ignorant racist voters. But you're up against a campaign and political media apparatus working 24/7 to make voters more racist and less informed. You have to fight back against the misinformation in the media. You don't hide from the media and spend all your time hosting luxurious fundraisers with megamillionaires. You have to actively fight to win votes and you have to give people something to vote for.

We aren't going to win in 2020 by having Cory Booker of Gillibrand come out and campaign on tut-tuting 2016 voters for being sexist and racist. I'm sure a lot of people still feel extremely emotional over the election, and are hurt and upset by the results but it really comes across as people wanting that to be the Democratic Party's message going forward; "Too much of the country is irredeemably sexist and racist so why bother trying until they all die off?"

We can't even get people to admit that extreme economic hardship and wealth inequality create fertile breeding grounds for racism, authoritarianism and fascism.

 

[TarNaru33]

The problem with Sanders is, is while he got a lot of support from younger folks, he couldn't get enough support from minorities. Even if he had somehow got the nomination, there's nothing to suggest that turnout wouldn't have been low for him either, especially if they started throwing out scandals on him.

Minority voter turnout has increased from a decade ago. I doubt Sanders running would of seen a decrease of minority votes less than Clinton got, especially since Sanders was also stronger with independents. A lot of people simply didn't like Clinton due to all the lies the Republicans have spread throughout all the years.

I can agree that a candidate like Sanders is definitely something we can't predict accurately, just as we didn't with Trump. I just see no reason for turnout to be smaller with a guy who boast more younger voters, an automatic higher minority vote than Donald Trump was guaranteed, and is more appealing with Independents and Republicans than Hillary was.

I really feel like we lost due to going the "pragmatic" and established choice when people were definitely seeking some change in the political system, it was why Obama got elected. Enthusiasm is something that should not be underestimated, as that is what gets people to vote for something (instead of against). I wish I can say I was able to foresee this election, but I did think Hillary would win, forgetting completely that Donald Trump made himself seem like he was for workers.

 

[soul creator]

The problem with Sanders is, is while he got a lot of support from younger folks, he couldn't get enough support from minorities. Even if he had somehow got the nomination, there's nothing to suggest that turnout wouldn't have been low for him either, especially if they started throwing out scandals on him.

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.