Berning down the house!

[Segnosaur]

~12% Sanders supporters voted Trump
~24% Clinton supporters voted for McCain

Yes, it may be true... many Clinton supporters switched to McCain. (Probably even more than Sanders voters switched to Trump. Although technically you should also count in non-voters and people that switched to 3rd party voters too.)

But that doesn't necessarily negate the claim that Sanders to Trump supporters contributed to Hillary's loss (and all of the political problems we have had since then.)

It should also be pointed out that there is a world of difference between the Obama/McCain election and the Clinton/Trump election. Obama once made a speech where he said: "I think I was right and Mitt Romney and John McCain were wrong on certain policy issues, but I never thought that they couldn’t do the job." A voter could (in theory) switch from Clinton to McCain and get a president who would likely be competent and a decent person. On the other hand, Trump can't do the job, and he is not a decent person. So any BernieBros deciding not to support Clinton have a lot more ton answer for.

...There were a lot of reasons Clinton lost... Its hard to pin it to any one factor, but anything that harmed her campaign (even if it wasn't a "death blow" by itself) would have contributed to her loss.

...So, it was her turn and reality rebelled?!

Uhh... no. Where did I suggest it was "her turn"?

She was a competent politician. She had a decent set of ideas. She probably would have been a decent president. And she lost. Partly from Russian interference, partly from Republican dirty tricks, partly from her own mistakes, and yes, partly from "BernieBros" more interested in sitting in the corner and pouting because "their guy" lost than actually voting to make the country better.

 

[kellyb]

You know, up here in Canada, in the great white north, our economy is dominated by 5 really big banks. If any of them failed, it would wipe out our economy.

Yet there is no call to 'break up' the banks (even though we currently have a left-of-center political party in charge). I don't even think our far-left NDP party wants to break up the banks. Why not?

Because our country's leaders have decided to make sure that the banks are well regulated. (They've taken the position that decent regulation is preferable to trying to break up banks to somehow make it so a failure in one won't crash the system.) Its a system that seems to have worked pretty well for us.

The U.S. doesn't necessarily need to break up the banks (whether that can be done easily or not.) Simply making sure that there is proper regulation and oversight would likely be enough.

Looks like you guys have a whole different history of banking regulation, so what works there might not work here:

https://www.nber.org/digest/dec11/w17312.html

One important factor, the authors argue, is that from the outset Canada's federal government had the authority to charter and regulate banks while the U.S. Constitution did not specifically reserve that power for the federal government. That led to constitutional disputes, an on-again-off-again national bank, and a dual system of federal- and state-chartered banks that were smaller, geographically confined, and thus more exposed to local economic conditions. The inherent weakness of the banks led to the development of stock and other securities markets that were far more robust than Canada's and to the rise of other intermediaries -- the so-called shadow banking system -- that were overseen by a patchwork of regulators.

Financial crises, particularly the Great Depression, spurred reforms to strengthen regulation. In the 1930s, the government created federal deposit insurance, the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate securities markets, and stricter bank rules encompassed in the Glass-Steagall Act, which among other things separated commercial from investment banking.

For more than a century, the Canadian system has proven itself far more stable than its U.S. counterpart, the authors conclude. "ut there is a caveat to keep in mind: greater stability may have come at a cost. A more concentrated and regulated financial system may have been slower to innovate, may have been slower to invest in emerging sectors, and may have provided services at monopoly prices."

Personally, I'd be fine with just emulating the Canadian system of bank regulation, if possible.

 

[kellyb]

So any BernieBros deciding not to support Clinton have a lot more ton answer for.

The only people I know of who voted for Sanders and then didn't vote for Clinton would never have voted for Clinton even if Sanders had never run.

It's funny, because over on the actual "far left", they call Sanders a "sheepdog" for bringing so many people back into the democratic party (right wing compared to them) fold.

 

[Segnosaur]

So any BernieBros deciding not to support Clinton have a lot more ton answer for.

The only people I know of who voted for Sanders and then didn't vote for Clinton would never have voted for Clinton even if Sanders had never run.

Which doesn't really change my point.

Clinton was a left-of-center candidate (especially compared to the republican party). Whether they would have voted for her or not if Sanders did not run does not absolve them of contributing to Trump's victory.

They wanted someone "on the far left", they didn't get it. They could have voted for someone who was moderately left. Instead they sat out and pouted. They got a right wing racist con-artist instead. They could have at least attempted to stop him, but they didn't.

Enjoy your abortion rights, gay rights, and all the other things Clinton might have protected while they last. The fact that you may lose them is (in part) thanks to the BernieBros, regardless of what they would have done if Sanders hadn't run.

 

[kellyb]

Which doesn't really change my point.

Clinton was a left-of-center candidate (especially compared to the republican party). Whether they would have voted for her or not if Sanders did not run does not absolve them of contributing to Trump's victory.

I don't think they want or need your or anyone else's absolution. The democratic party acts like it's just "owed" everyone's votes instead of needing to earn them. No party or candidate is just owed everyone's votes. The quicker the democrats figure that out again, the quicker they might get back to a winning streak like they enjoyed from FDR till LBJ.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I don't think they want or need your or anyone else's absolution. The democratic party acts like it's just "owed" everyone's votes instead of needing to earn them. No party or candidate is just owed everyone's votes.

While you 'progressives' keep telling yourselves that, republicans continue to vote for whoever is put in front of them - no matter how much they may dislike the candidate - because they know that winning is everything. Most republicans agreed that Trump was the worst nominee, but once selected they supported him 100% - because the alternative (staying home and letting a Democrat win) was worse.

But then 'progressives' don't really wan to win anyway, because if they did they would then have to try to put their policies into practice - and fail. Far better to let Republicans win, then you can safely claim to have all the answers without having to prove it.

 

[kellyb]

While you 'progressives' keep telling yourselves that, republicans continue to vote for whoever is put in front of them - no matter how much they may dislike the candidate - because they know that winning is everything. Most republicans agreed that Trump was the worst nominee, but once selected they supported him 100% - because the alternative (staying home and letting a Democrat win) was worse.

Actually, there were far more conservatives who voted for Johnson than progressives who voted Green or who wrote in some leftwinger, and there were a lot more conservatives who just didn't vote at all.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politi...f-eligible-voters-did-not-vote-election-2016/

According to the United States Election Project, nearly half of eligible voters (46.9 percent of approximately 231,556,622 people) did not vote in the 2016 election. And while not the lowest voter turnout in history (that honor goes to the 1996 election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, with 49 percent of eligible Americans abstaining from voting), the numbers are much lower than they were in both 2012 and 2008, particularly among Democrats.

While it might be easy to assume that these numbers reflect a lack of passion from the Democratic party this year, Republicans actually saw a lower voter turnout compared to the 2012 election, as well — albeit much less dramatically.

These folks y'all are so angry with for not voting for Clinton often lean somewhat independent more than they lean "Democratic Party Loyalist". The party loyalist crowd has a major "out of touch and unaware of it" problem going on with this stuff...too out of touch to be able to begin to guess how far out of touch you are.

 

[Segnosaur]

Which doesn't really change my point.

Clinton was a left-of-center candidate (especially compared to the republican party). Whether they would have voted for her or not if Sanders did not run does not absolve them of contributing to Trump's victory.

I don't think they want or need your or anyone else's absolution.

Whether they want absolution is irrelevant. They (meaning Sanders supporters who did not switch to Clinton) are partly responsible for Trump's victory. They should recognize that fact however, instead of trying to play the blame game.

(Of course, it does mean that such BernieBros can never claim that they support gay rights, or abortion rights, or any of the other things Clinton would have defended, since obviously those things weren't important enough for them to give up their little temper tantrum for.)

The democratic party acts like it's just "owed" everyone's votes instead of needing to earn them. No party or candidate is just owed everyone's votes.

Seriously, what exaclty does "owed votes" actually mean? Are you expecting candidates to personally visit voters? Offer foot rubs?

Politicians and political parties typically do the same thing... they offer a set of policies and promises that they think best aligns with both their own beliefs and that will be popular enough to get them elected.

Is the claim that the democrats thought they were "owed" votes some sort of BernieBro code for "You must give us everything that we want, or we will go off in the corner and sulk"?

Sanders couldn't even gather enough votes in the primaries to win the nomination. Does that mean he thought he was 'owed' democratic votes in the primaries that he didn't get? What it does mean is that millions of democratic voters thought "We prefer the policies that were offered by Clinton".

The quicker the democrats figure that out again, the quicker they might get back to a winning streak like they enjoyed from FDR till LBJ.

Ummm, "winning streak"?

What I THINK you're suggesting is that somehow "the democrats were more left-wing back then and had more success". But, there are several problems with your claim:

1) Your 'winning streak' includes a multi-term republican president. No its not like the left-wing Democrats had a hammerlock on the presidency during that entire period

2) It ignores the fact that in the early 20th century, the Democrats in some ways were less appealing to minorities than the Republicans were. (It wasn't until the mid-20th century that the Democrats and Republicans re-alligned, with the Democrats becoming the more racially appealing party and the Republicans becoming the party of the bigot)

3) It ignores all the other issues that were going on at the time... FDR was a war-time president (and that often increases popularity). And LBJ likely benefited from sympathy over the assassination of Kennedy. So the Democrat's victories at the time weren't all necessarily due to their left wing politics.

 

[Trakar]

...These folks y'all are so angry with for not voting for Clinton often lean somewhat independent more than they lean "Democratic Party Loyalist". The party loyalist crowd has a major "out of touch and unaware of it" problem going on with this stuff...too out of touch to be able to begin to guess how far out of touch you are.

Your assessment is, at the least in reference to myself, anecdotally correct.

I was originally registered and voted as a Republican in the '60s. I voted Democratic (nationally) for the first time in the mid '70s. I became a registered Independent in the early '90s, and I almost registered as a Democratic voter in the early '00s and again in the mid '10s, but ultimately rejected that course of action both times. Through all of this I have always remained a committed Progressive (my family lionized President (Theodore) Roosevelt), this is what led me to leave the GOP and later, to reject the DNC. This is also why, after vocally and actively supporting H. Clinton in her 2007/2008 run for the Democratic nomination, and watching her self-unmasking during Obama's administration, there was very little she could have done to win back my support, especially against the most Progressive candidate to enter mainstream American politics in over a century.

 

[kellyb]

Ike was the only anomaly in the democrat's winning streak between frd and lbj, and the dems wanted ike as one of their own:

https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/campaigns-and-elections

Even Harry S. Truman tried to interest Eisenhower in a run for the presidency. As the election year of 1948 approached, Truman, who became President when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, seemed to have little chance of winning a full term of his own. In a private meeting, Truman proposed that he and Eisenhower run together on the Democratic ticket, with Eisenhower as the presidential candidate and Truman in second position.

Ike understood people:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018...d-social-security-coverage-sept-1-1954-799178

On this day in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law a major expansion of the nation’s Social Security program.

How crazy is that, that both parties understood that being able to genuinely promise the people economic security was the ticket to power?

 

[d4m10n]

Probably this part:

That part doesn't necessarily apply to mid-tier banks like the erstwhile Beer Stearns.

 

[Trakar]

Ike was the only anomaly in the democrat's winning streak between frd and lbj, and the dems wanted ike as one of their own:

https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/campaigns-and-elections

Ike understood people:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018...d-social-security-coverage-sept-1-1954-799178

How crazy is that, that both parties understood that being able to genuinely promise the people economic security was the ticket to power?

I always liked Ike, one of the few later Republican (generally Progressive) presidents. He had some issues but definitely had some strong progressive attributes.

 

[Trakar]

A New (largely meaningless, at this point) Poll since Sanders announced candidacy...

"Bernie Takes Early Lead In New Hampshire Democratic Primary;..."
https://emersonpolling.com/2019/02/...nate-race-if-gov-sununu-takes-on-sen-shaheen/

 

[Travis]

More to the point though... It's not fair to blame a candidate for dumb things their followers say. And given your notable proclivity to leap to hyperbolic conclusions based on what anonymous bozos post on social media, you would be well advised to take a deep breath and not paint yourself into an idiotic corner.

I get that it can seem like that but consider this, if I see fellow supporters getting out of line online I call them out. I've never seen that happen with Bernie supporters. About a week ago John Cusack, notable Bernie supporter, with over a hundred thousand followers posted the names and @'s of prominent Bernie critics, many of whom I followed, and the dogpile was on. Several of them, who I should point out are just private citizens and not paid pundits or journalists, ended up having to go offline because their mentions were suddenly inundated with attacks.


That is reprehensible. He used his celebrity to direct a swarm of attacks on normal people that had posted negative things about Bernie. No one in the Bernie camp has ever spoken up about this let alone condemned it. It drove several of the people offline and the others had to lockdown their account and set them to private.


In this new age where so much of the political battles are now won or lost in social media there has to be a certain accountability for how the war is waged.

Just realize that one of the biggest risks in 2020 is that dim-witted lefties, unable to grasp the existential threat that Trump poses, adopt the same sort of attitude about purity as you put on display here.

About that hyperbole... You're boldly crossing the threshold into self-parody here.

Yeah yeah I'm a bit sore. The Cusack attack in particular hurt many people who I had become friends with. No matter what we can't let Trump win again. I agree with that.

Here's what I find so funny about Democrats. I used to think that they were about pragmatism. Ideology be damned. You're supposed to back the candidate who can win. Winning is the only thing that matters! I think that's backwards morally, but I can kind of see where they're coming from. You want to put up a lesser-evil candidate who can beat the greater-evil Republican.

What Bernie revealed is that the whole "pragmatism" thing is a load of bull. Both in 2016 and 2020, Bernie's their most compelling candidate, and the one most likely to beat Trump. The Democrats apparently aren't interested in beating Trump, though. They want a candidate who is pure, and Bernie doesn't fit the bill. He's not a "real Democrat", he's too white, too old, too male, etc. etc. They would rather lose with the "right" candidate than win with the "wrong" one. In other words, they're doing exactly what they accuse the Green Party of doing.

I'm honestly quite doubtful that Bernie could have actually won. It was well known that the Republicans were actually laying off him because he was doing so much damage to Hillary. They were testing out lines of attacks and had even focus grouped a bunch of things they could use but ended up letting him be so that he could damage Hillary as much as possible.



But...if he had somehow pulled out a victory then those kid gloves come off and they start hammering on his own refusal to disclose taxes, on his wife's scandals, on how he is an atheist of Jewish descent. Trust me Bernie's popularity was due in large part to how little many knew about him leaving him to be a projection of what people wanted to believe. Once the entire Republican attack machine was gunning for him all the old skeletons would come out of the closet.

 

[TragicMonkey]

"Bernie Takes Early Lead In New Hampshire Democratic Primary;..."
https://emersonpolling.com/2019/02/...nate-race-if-gov-sununu-takes-on-sen-shaheen/


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=197&pictureid=12085[/qimg]

I'm hearing good things about Someone Else. They may be the candidate we need!

 

[Segnosaur]

Ike was the only anomaly in the democrat's winning streak between frd and lbj

So, a two-term president is considered an "anomaly"?

What you're saying is that you're never wrong because when you are wrong its just an 'anomaly'?

Oh, and by the way, it seems like you ignored my other points... that the success of the Democrats in that time period may not simply to do with their 'left wing/progressive' policies... the fact that FRD was a 'wartime' president (which increases popularity), the fact that Democrat's policies at the time were not always as "progressive" as you might think.

...and the dems wanted ike as one of their own:

Yet he didn't run as a democrat, did he.

Eisenhower was a moderate as republicans go. But he wasn't "far left". Yet voters took a look at his (not far left) policies and said "Yup, I want that". Hmmm... a centrist won an election. Wonder if there's a lesson in there anywhere.

 

[Trakar]

I'm hearing good things about Someone Else. They may be the candidate we need!

LOL, well, she's ran in a lot of races, and though she has occasionally held leads, so far she hasn't won any of those contests. I've supported her in a great many of her campaigns, perhaps her time is coming this time around!

 

[Toontown]

Here's what Trump had to say about the news that Bernie is running again. Trump came off sounding almost like a Bernie supporter. The fact that Trump did not viciously attack Bernie (yet) can only mean he wants Bernie to win the Democrat nomination because Trump believes he can defeat Bernie.

I personally don't believe Trump, on his own, could defeat the town drunk if he was running for dog catcher. But I believe Russia can defeat some people. I believe Fox News and it's ilk can defeat some people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvqZ9v-t2OU

 

[Segnosaur]

Re: Far-left Democrats and their history of success...

Just thought of one other thing.

Kellyb seemed to suggest that the Democrats needed 'progressive' policies in order to win elections like they did in the times of FDR and LBJ. I've already challenged her claims, but thought of one other thing:

If being "progressive" is such a sure-fire ticket to electoral victory, why did it not work for Mondale? He supported the ERA. Wanted a nuclear freeze. Picked a woman as his running mate (who was criticized for being pro-choice). Talked about raising taxes and the 'unfairness' of the economy under Reagan. Sounds to me like he was 'progressive'.

And he was slaughtered in the 1984 election. Barely won even his own state in the general election. If being "far left" liberal is the key to victory for the Democrats, why did it fail for Mondale?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Re: Far-left Democrats and their history of success...

Just thought of one other thing.

Kellyb seemed to suggest that the Democrats needed 'progressive' policies in order to win elections like they did in the times of FDR and LBJ. I've already challenged her claims, but thought of one other thing:

If being "progressive" is such a sure-fire ticket to electoral victory, why did it not work for Mondale? He supported the ERA. Wanted a nuclear freeze. Picked a woman as his running mate (who was criticized for being pro-choice). Talked about raising taxes and the 'unfairness' of the economy under Reagan. Sounds to me like he was 'progressive'.

And he was slaughtered in the 1984 election. Barely won even his own state in the general election. If being "far left" liberal is the key to victory for the Democrats, why did it fail for Mondale?

I would humbly suggest that the attitudes of the electorate has changed since the 80's. But I agree that progressive politics were a non starter at that time and the Clinton-era move towards the right was the expedient thing for the Democratic party at the time.