General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCriticizing the DLC, the Third Way and the Blue Dogs is not "bashing Democrats".
Nor would it be "Bashing Dems" to do that regarding organizations on the progressive side of the party.
It is simply honest and legitimate disagreement with those organizations and legitimate critique of the role they have played within the party.
The "Don't Bash Democrats" rule does NOT mean that no group within the Democratic Party can ever be questioned or criticized. Nor does it mean that there can be no dissent against any strategic choices the party has ever made.
It refers to attacks on Democratic figures as individuals, not to open discussion of what the party does, what it stands for, or which organizations have or will played an influential role within the party.
If we cannot have real conversations about this party's future OR the choices it has made in the recent past.
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juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)
ToxMarz
(2,166 posts)juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)This would not have been remotely controversial for 95% of the time this site has been in existence. I don't know why people are treating it that way now.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)the site has changed. Maybe you haven't noticed.
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)I admit that I took some time off the place, but I didn't realize I was quite that out of the loop.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)ToxMarz
(2,166 posts)I think the problem was with bashing them.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They aren't be subjected to any critiques that are in any way unfair or unwarranted. The "don't bash Democrats" thing was never meant to be a restriction on substantive debate.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)morphed into the "don't be divisive" rule. So, even legit criticism gets a hide under the "don't be divisive" guise
Marr
(20,317 posts)Criticizing the Clinton wing of the party is 'bashing'. Insulting Sanders or that wing of the party is fine, no matter how far you go.
The double standard is way too transparent.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)
JudyM
(29,233 posts)(just saw this happen not even 15 minutes ago) while vitriolic, histrionic adolescent cultlike evisceration of Sanders and his supporters is permitted to stay.
JHan
(10,173 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But I can give some:
1) The fixation with negotiating more trade deals when it's been shown that those deals benefit the rich while mainly causing hardship among the Democratic base;
2) Rahm's role as chief of staff in keeping the progressive wing of the party out of contact with the White House when there was still a Democratic Congress;
3) The insistence on the party of every DNC, DSCC, and DCCC chair in the last eight years to place a special emphasis on recruiting and supporting "centrist" congressional and senatorial candidates and to try to stop as many progressives as possible from getting nominated-a preference that did the party no electoral good at all(as 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 showed).
ALL of those were the result of third way thinking.
JHan
(10,173 posts)1) "The fixation with negotiating more trade deals when it's been shown that those deals benefit the rich while mainly causing hardship among the Democratic base"
Trade deals aren't the problem in and of themselves. Trade deals have not only benefited the rich. It has lifted many out of poverty. The problem is the elites did not aggressively address how to mitigate the ill-effects of globalization. We are spoiled for choice and enjoy luxuries our grand parents only dreamed up - due to trade. What is unfair, are the advantages enjoyed by corporations, like Tax loopholes ( and to a certain extent, subsidies) What is often described as free trade actually isn't.
2)"The insistence on the party of every DNC, DSCC, and DCCC chair in the last eight years to place a special emphasis on recruiting and supporting "centrist" congressional and senatorial candidates and to try to stop as many progressives as possible from getting nominated-a preference that did the party no electoral good at all(as 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 showed). "
- I wasn't impressed with many of Sanders' solutions, but I agreed with him on the problems. Where does that leave someone like myself? Suppose the solutions put forward by progressives simply aren't sound?
Last polling I saw most americans are moderate - that is what the party leadership is probably looking at. So progressives will have to make better, more persuasive arguments. Progressives don't have a monopoly on what is good for the people - sincere people will disagree with progressive solutions. Which is why instead of bashing each other, we become the big tent party we claimed we wanted to be - purity politics will kill the progress of the liberal agenda.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Show them supporting policy ideas that are actually to the left.
When people call themselves "moderate", it doesn't necessarily literally mean "exactly between Barack Obama and Paul Ryan"
even then, moderate SHOULD mean exactly between the actual far left and the actual far right). People generally see the term "moderate" as just being a euphemism for "sensible".
As to you, I suppose it simply means "pragmatic" in some sense.
JHan
(10,173 posts)I get called a moderate because I like trade deals - while acknowledging we need more transparency and discussion about them.
And I am as liberal as it gets - trade deals fit in with my liberalism while protectionism is as illiberal as it gets ( in my view).
But if I mention any policy that involves private interests or if I take a position that is "pro-business" ( I still remember our discussion about this and I think we settled it ) I get the moderate label. But generally, if I question progressive stances and their economic viability I get the label anyway. Often, it's the not the objective that's the problem with but how we accomplish it and I think we ( on the left) will fight less battles between each other if that becomes the focus.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The full text of any agreement should be available to the public.
Agreements should not, under any circumstances, be put up for "fast track" approval, because fast track makes it impossible to correct any flaws or injustices in the agreement.
And we should insist that negotiating teams include representation from labor, people of color, environmental and consumer groups. We should also insist that social spending, education spending, labor laws, environmental laws and any other legislation necessary to defend progressive, humane and democratic values will be exempt from categorization as subsidies and tariffs.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)There is nothing wrong with this goal.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The problems come in when:
1) SOME of those who were recruited as candidates and then get elected spend most of their time IN OFFICE fighting to stop most of the Democratic agenda from getting approved(a good example of that was Heath Shuler, the former Republican who was essentially imposed as Democratic nominee in a North Carolina seat-even though there was a progressive running again who had lost to the GOP incumbent by only fifteen votes in the previous election-and then voted and spoke against MOST Obama legislative proposals, or when several of the "moderate" Dems in the Senate filibuster major Democratic legislation into oblivion). What use is it to have people sitting as "Democrats" when they base their whole political identity on working against what most of the party wants and on watering Democratic legislation down to near-nothingness?
2) A consistent pattern develops in which the "moderate" candidates the party recruits get beaten after one or two terms(or lose repeatedly, in the case of some of the candidates the party has recruited in Florida).
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)I have worked on recruiting local candidates and it is not easy in the best of times. I note that most of the Sanders recruited candidates lost this cycle.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)The Democrats, you may have noticed, have for some time been losing in a peculiar "Thirty-something State Strategy."
So, "Sanders recruited candidates" can be forgiven if they get clobbered by a far better focused opposition as well.
The Party has drifted and lulled in enemy seas for some time; this time, it took a torpedo from a movement which doesn't like a listing hulk, partying like its 1999.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Pushing the crazy claim that the DNC fixed the nomination process hurt the Clinton campaign. That claim was false http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044
Start with this: The DNC, just like the Republican National Committee, is an impotent organization with very little power. It is composed of the chair and vice chair of the Democratic parties of each state, along with over 200 members elected by Democrats. What it does is fundraise, organize the Democratic National Convention and put together the party platform. It handles some organizational activity but tries to hold down its expenditures during the primaries; it has no authority to coordinate spending with any candidate until the party’s nominee is selected. This was why then-President Richard Nixon reacted with incredulity when he heard that some of his people had ordered a break-in at the DNC offices at the Watergate; he couldn’t figure out what information anyone would want out of such a toothless organization.....
According to a Western European intelligence source, Russian hackers, using a series of go-betweens, transmitted the DNC emails to WikiLeaks with the intent of having them released on the verge of the Democratic Convention in hopes of sowing chaos. And that’s what happened—just a couple of days before Democrats gathered in Philadelphia, the emails came out, and suddenly the media was loaded with stories about trauma in the party. Crews of Russian propagandists—working through an array of Twitter accounts and websites, started spreading the story that the DNC had stolen the election from Sanders. (An analysis provided to Newsweek by independent internet and computer specialists using a series of algorithms show that this kind of propaganda, using the same words, went from Russian disinformation sources to comment sections on more than 200 sites catering to liberals, conservatives, white supremacists, nutritionists and an amazing assortment of other interest groups.) The fact that the dates of the most controversial emails—May 3, May 4, May 5, May 9, May 16, May 17, May 18, May 21—were after it was impossible for Sanders to win was almost never mentioned, and was certainly ignored by the propagandists trying to sell the “primaries were rigged” narrative. (Yes, one of them said something inappropriate about his religious beliefs. So a guy inside the DNC was a jerk; that didn’t change the outcome.) Two other emails—one from April 24 and May 1—were statements of fact. In the first, responding to Sanders saying he would push for a contested convention (even though he would not have the delegates to do so), a DNC official wrote, “So much for a traditional presumptive nominee.” Yeah, no kidding. The second stated that Sanders didn’t know what the DNC’s job actually was—which he didn’t, apparently because he had not ever been a Democrat before his run.
Bottom line: The “scandalous” DNC emails were hacked by people working with the Kremlin, then misrepresented online by Russian propagandists to gullible fools who never checked the dates of the documents. And the media, which in the flurry of breathless stories about the emails would occasionally mention that they were all dated after any rational person knew the nomination was Clinton’s, fed into the misinformation.
In the real world, here is what happened: Clinton got 16.9 million votes in the primaries, compared with 13.2 million for Sanders. The rules were never changed to stop him, even though Sanders supporters started calling for them to be changed as his losses piled up.
I was a delegate to the national convention and I saw much of this silliness first hand. This election was winnable but the sanders campaign did a great deal of damage that is the subject of valid commentary
JHan
(10,173 posts)No wonder things were a mess.
"Delusions of Persecution" is a legitimate addition to the #WhyTrumpWon list
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)Maybe the concerns about the DNC favoring insider candidates are "silly" to you, not to many others.
In fact, this type of inbreeding behaviour will guaarantee poor candidates for future elections and is of paramound importance to cull it. Just as important as investigating the GE.
JHan
(10,173 posts)Show me how state electoral processes "rigged" millions of votes intentionally.
Don't even bring up California re Bernie - that has been debunked.
And don't bring in false equivalencies into this re Trump where we actually have massive evidence of real voter suppression.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)In both cases, a powerful, ostensibly neutral, third party was working behind the scenes to favor one candidate over the other
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Sanders lost the nomination because he could not appeal to more than a narrow segment of the base of the party.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)They were not neutral, and did favor a candidate, and they DID cheat and rig the process. Did this change the outcome? Probably not, but well never know for sure.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)There is simply no basis in the real world for this claim. What hurt Sanders was the fact that his base was limited to a very narrow demographic section and that Sanders had little appeal to African American and Latino voters. After the Super Tuesday primaries, Clinton had a delegate lead that Sanders could never overcome. Facts matter and so does math
JHan
(10,173 posts)SMH.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Rigged system. Burn it all down. Political revolution. Drain the swamp.
From the crowds cheering on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as he campaigned for the Democratic nomination to the throngs supporting developer-turned-reality show host Donald Trump, it was the theme that defined the election year: The United States has become so completely broken that it needs a thorough flushing to fix things.
It was also a theme somewhat detached from reality. The nation holds elections regularly, the courts function, and agencies at local, state and federal levels provide services according to established rules ― and without the expectation of bribes or kickbacks, a staple in many dozens of actually corrupt countries.
Indeed, elected officials at every level keep careful track of feedback from constituents, so that in instances where they must choose between angry campaign donors and angry voters, they typically side with the voters.
Sander's baseless charges hurt Clinton
JHan
(10,173 posts)jack_krass
(1,009 posts)and nothing you can say, including parhetic attempts to smear me by bringing trump into this will change that.
They fed HRC debate questions
They brainstormed on messaging to use against Sanders
This is only the top of my memory. Theres more if you care to look.
Even that they favored her though is a problem
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)That theory has no basis in reality. After March 1, Clinton had a delegate lead that Sanders could not challenge or eat into. That delegate lead was due to the fact that Sanders only appealed to a very narrow demographic segment of the party and that Sanders could not win the vote of African American and Latino voters. The DNC had nothing to do with the fact that key groups in the Democratic coalition rejected Sanders.
Again I was a delegate to the national convention and your theory is simply false.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)You can dance around this fact all you want, but cant deny it.
Ask yourself: why did they feed HRC the debate questions if they were so confident they had it in the bag.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)You do know that Sanders had zero chance of being the nominee. Sanders did very poorly with key groups in the Democratic coalition which is why he had no chance of being the nominee. African American and Latino voters did not support Sanders. The only group where Sanders did well was white upper class voters which is why Sanders never had a chance of being the nominee. The DNC had zero to do with the fact that Sanders was unpopular with African American and Latino voters.
Again, you are ignoring the math. After the Super Tuesday primaries, Clinton had a delegate lead that Sanders never over came. It was almost mathematically impossible for Sanders to make up that difference in the real world. Your claims about the DNC are really silly but funny. Math plays a large role in the determination of the nominee and Sanders never had a chance. The DNC had nothing to do with the math or the fact that Sanders lacked the support of key groups in the Democratic coaltion.
In other words, I am denying your so-called facts with something called math.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)jack_krass
(1,009 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)The DNC had no effect on Sanders not being the nominee. Sanders appeal was to white voters and Sanders had little support among Jewish, African American and Latino voters. The DNC had nothing to do with the fact that Sanders attacked President Obama and alienated a large percentage of the base.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)Last edited Tue Dec 20, 2016, 07:54 PM - Edit history (1)
Favor.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Sanders was a very weak general election candidate who would have been killed by Trump. Sanders lost the popular vote by a huge margin in the primaries and most of his delegate wins came from caucus states that were very undemocratic. Sanders had little if any support from the Jewish, African American and Latino voters in the Democratic base. That is why he lost
The claim that the DNC favored Clinton is really a false claim that has no basis in reality. Thank you for the laughs
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)A huge number of people voted for Hillary in the primaries because the artificial early lead the supers gave her created the impression that she would be nominated no matter what. They figured "she's going to be the nom anyway, I guess we HAVE to vote for her or get left out in the cold"
And yes, Hillary beat Bernie among POC(although it was a tie among AA voters under 30), but a big part of that was the relentlessly repeated lie (made at a time when Bernie, who hadn't ever wanted to run but was left with no choice when Elizabeth Warren has, er, persuaded not to run, was largely unknown to POC) that he "didn't care" about institutional racism or abour POC in general. Even though these claims were unfounded and even though Bernie had an antiracist/criminal justice reform plank on his website before Hillary did(though he should have had it there the day he declared) they had their effects.
Every proposal in Bernie's program would have ended up helping POC MORE than Hillary's tiny increments would have.
We'll never know how Bernie would have done if the race slurs and the claim that Bernie only WANTED white votes hadn't been repeated endlessly. And now that he'll probably never run for the presidency again, those slurs and lies need to retired.
Tell me this: If Bernie really had just wanted to hurt Hillary, why didn't he accept Jill Stein's offer to run as the Green nominee in the fall? He could have hurt her much more deeply in doing so. So why, instead of that, did he travel coast to coast campaigning for her? Why did he plead with his supporters(successfully, in the vast majority of cases)to support the Clinton-Kaine ticket and Democratic candidates up and down the line? Doesn't sound like the sort of thing a wrecker would do.
We lost in the EC because of the Comey attack, the weasel words on trade, and the national office's refusal to listen to the warnings they were getting from field organizers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that our lead was vanishing in those states and that more resources and candidate visits were desperately needed, as well as the effects of racism and sexism and demagogy. Bernie and his supporters(other than the so-called "BoBs", many of whom were never Sanders supporters at all, IMHO) are blameless.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Facts are important and your claims are simply not supported by the facts. Here your analysis is totally wrong yet again. Amazing wrong. Let’s look at some of your claims which are in italics.
The superdelegates were a kind of rigging.
The super delegates in the real world have never voted against the winner of the popular vote in the Democratic Primary process. The reason that Sanders did poorly with the super delegates early was due to the fact that Sanders (a) was a very weak general election candidate and (b) Sanders did not appeal to key demographic groups. I saw part of the oppo research on Sanders and he would had been destroyed by trump in a general election contest http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2658581
And yes, Hillary beat Bernie among POC(although it was a tie among AA voters under 30), but a big part of that was the relentlessly repeated lie (made at a time when Bernie, who hadn't ever wanted to run but was left with no choice when Elizabeth Warren has, er, persuaded not to run, was largely unknown to POC) that he "didn't care" about institutional racism or abour POC in general. Even though these claims were unfounded and even though Bernie had an antiracist/criminal justice reform plank on his website before Hillary did(though he should have had it there the day he declared) they had their effects.
The Sanders campaign did not appeal to many demographic groups (including the Jewish vote) for a host of reasons. One good reason is that Sanders repeatedly attacked President Obama which alienated a large number of key demographic groups. There is a vast difference in how Sanders supporters and Sanders view President Obama and how other Democrats view President Obama. I admit that I am impressed with the amount accomplished by President Obama in face of the stiff GOP opposition to every one of his proposals and I personally believe that President Obama has been a great President. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-sanders-obama_us_56aa378de4b05e4e3703753a?utm_hp_ref=politics
On one side of this divide are activists and intellectuals who are ambivalent, disappointed or flat-out frustrated with what Obama has gotten done. They acknowledge what they consider modest achievements -- like helping some of the uninsured and preventing the Great Recession from becoming another Great Depression. But they are convinced that the president could have accomplished much more if only he’d fought harder for his agenda and been less quick to compromise.
They dwell on the opportunities missed, like the lack of a public option in health care reform or the failure to break up the big banks. They want those things now -- and more. In Sanders, they are hearing a candidate who thinks the same way.
On the other side are partisans and thinkers who consider Obama's achievements substantial, even historic. They acknowledge that his victories were partial and his legislation flawed. This group recognizes that there are still millions of people struggling to find good jobs or pay their medical bills, and that the planet is still on a path to catastrophically high temperatures. But they see in the last seven years major advances in the liberal crusade to bolster economic security for the poor and middle class. They think the progress on climate change is real, and likely to beget more in the future.
It seems that many of the Sanders supporters hold a different view of President Obama which is also a leading reason why Sanders is not exciting African American voters. Again, it may be difficult for Sanders to appeal to African American voters when one of the premises of his campaign is that Sanders does not think that President Obama is a progressive or a good POTUS.
Again, I am not ashamed to admit that I like President Obama and think that he has accomplished a great deal which is why I do not mind Hillary Clinton promising to continue President Obama's legacy. There are valid reasons why many non-African American democrats (me included) and many African American Democratic voters did not support Sanders.
I understand why Sanders supporters dislike talking about demographics but the fact remain that Sanders supporters tend to not like President Obama and that dislike affected the amount of support that Sanders got from certain demographic groups. The other so called reasons advanced for a lack of Sanders support in the above post are strawmen that can be explained by the concept of projection.
Tell me this: If Bernie really had just wanted to hurt Hillary, why didn't he accept Jill Stein's offer to run as the Green nominee in the fall? He could have hurt her much more deeply in doing so. So why, instead of that, did he travel coast to coast campaigning for her? Why did he plead with his supporters(successfully, in the vast majority of cases)to support the Clinton-Kaine ticket and Democratic candidates up and down the line? Doesn't sound like the sort of thing a wrecker would do.
Again, I was at the national convention as a delegate. There was a whipping infrastructure in place that informed the Clinton delegates as to what was going on. Sanders was evidently "talked" to at the convention according to the reports. If Sanders had joined Stein, he would blow any chance to have a leadership position in the Senate. There was a great deal of resentment by many who attended the National Convention as to the conduct of the Sanders campaign and his supporters at the convention and it appears that Sanders did take some of the advice to heart.
Bernie and his supporters(other than the so-called "BoBs", many of whom were never Sanders supporters at all, IMHO) are blameless.
Again, I disagree strongly with this assertion and the facts do not support this claim. Sanders' baseless charges that the system was fixed and rigged were used by trump to great effect and hurt Clinton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rigged-system-donald-trump_us_5855cb44e4b08debb7898607?section=us_politics
I think he was able to thread a certain toxic needle. But he did win, and we’re all going to pay the price.
John Weaver, aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign
The underlying irony for those who sought to end what they perceived as corruption is that they may well have elected a president whose record through the years and whose actions since the election signal it could be the most openly corrupt administration in generations.....
And if Sanders’ rhetoric during the primaries started that stew simmering with his talk about the system only working for the rich, Trump brought it to a full boil with his remarks blaming undocumented immigrants and trade agreements that he claimed were forged as the result of open corruption.
I remember the campaign very differently compared to the claims set forth above. Being at the National Convention helped shaped my views. I was also on the Victory Counsel team and had fun helping review 6,000 trump lawsuits. In addition, I was also on a couple of fundraising committees and received the Clinton campaign e-mails sent to maxed out donors which may have affected my views. For whatever reason, I have a very different memory of what happened and I have the facts to back up my claims.
Warpy
(111,253 posts)Read up on the ACA fight and why we didn't get a public option or even a timid lowering of the Medicare eligibility age.
Hint: the Republicans had one hell of a lot of help.
JHan
(10,173 posts)And now it will be all lost.
What support did Obama have to push through more 'radical' options?
Warpy
(111,253 posts)JHan
(10,173 posts)...incremental change is better than no change at all - more people were covered, which saved lives "grinder politics"
You can't assess Obamacare without factoring partisan gridlock and the refusal to "fix the gaps" as Clinton would say...Not a single democrat has said to leave healthcare to the market alone, which is the Conservative Wet Dream, yet some progressives keep smiting the bit of progress we've made.
I've yet to read a detailed approach to single payer healthcare given the expected hissyfits by some states towards the idea, but ACA was a step in the right direction towards some form of universal healthcare - and yet this.. this.. should be our battle of agincourt because it's "third way politics" ?
See, this is why we can't have nice things.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)...because I didn't know week-from-week WHAT I was to support, and neither did anyone else I talked with. The whole process intentionally left out the hallowed (hollowed?) Base.
The biggest criticism I have of Obama and with much of the Beltway Demos around him is they did not/would not appeal to its base for support of an ACA which even they (apparently) couldn't get a handle on. He had an overwrought sense of his negotiating skills when dealing with an implaccable opposition; the Party did not trust or even want much of its base around when the "negotiation" doors closed.
JHan
(10,173 posts)I see ACA as a step forward but Obama's leadership on it could have been stronger. He needed to play hardball with the tea partiers, but treated their obstinacy as though they were playing by the same rules of engagement. Sigh.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)...and that would have required a plan in-hand. Without the latter, you cannot achieve the former.
Cha
(297,163 posts)ETA.. "FACTS"
ETA... I know what facts are.
JHan
(10,173 posts)Cha
(297,163 posts)board.. so be it. And, criticizing him with facts is not "Bashing".
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)meow2u3
(24,761 posts)He's an independent who caucuses with Dems.
Cha
(297,163 posts)that category on this board. Fine. but he still can be criticized with facts without "bashing".
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 9, 2016, 09:50 PM - Edit history (1)
As is blaming his candidacy for our failure to carry the Electoral College when he clearly had nothing to do with that.
Cha
(297,163 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And it's been proven that he didn't cause our defeat.
Cha
(297,163 posts)
hedda_foil
(16,373 posts)Because accusing Bernie of not being inclusive of all the diverse aspects of our Dem voters is quite counterfactual . Insisting he's a misogynist is bull puckey. Saying he he's not supportive of black and brown people is ridiculous. You still seem to be stuck at the bottom of the primary well, which is truly a shame because I remember wonderfully written posts of yours all the way back to DU-1.0.
Cha
(297,163 posts)means less than nothing.
Hillary won the primary with 3 3/4 Million more votes than BS without oppo research on him. his message did not resonate with enough voters.
Oh and I posted some more damn fACTs but that post is gone.
I'm not going to be subjected to that again.
Respond or not.. As for me I'm done with this.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Sanders did contribute heavily to the defeat of Clinton. I had to deal with some really disruptive Sanders delegates at the national convention whose sole goal was to defeat Clinton.
Justice
(7,185 posts)To quote and build on a prior comment -
I agreed with Sanders on many of the problems. So did Hillary.
Sanders did really offer solutions. Hillary offered solutions.
Sanders did not by himself cause our defeat, but he played a role in wounding Hillary.
JHan
(10,173 posts)There were 100 different, less damaging ways he could have joined the Dems and solidified his influence in the party, he chose the one way to drive a wedge in the party.
It's why we're all still quarreling... *something happened* .. and he chose to shake things up during an election cycle, in an incumbent year for Dems..
Pointing this out isn't hating on Sanders, it's pointing out his strategy was flawed.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)To do that would have meant forever giving up on fighting for what he stands for.
The issues that defeated our ticket had nothing to do with Bernie.
No one who voted against our ticket would have voted for it it ONLY Bernie hadn't run.
What do you want the guy to do? Apologize for even running?
Tell the people who supported him to just give up?
JHan
(10,173 posts)The problem is that he chose to attack the party he wanted to nominate him.
He kept framing "the establishment" as corrupt - in the incumbent year of a Democrat President who is part of the establishment. And then he framed Clinton as corrupt. Look at the silliness over the minimum wage - If anyone didn't agree with it being $15 they weren't looking out for the people..or not in touch with the working class..
this was damaging, it understandably upset Democrats and it gave Trump more ammo to attack the same "establishment" represented by Obama. It was political fail 101.
No Democrat would use this strategy to get a nomination. And now we see the fallout - in these very forums.
When I switched my support to HRC around April, I got serious abuse from berniacs, and bernie supporters I knew. It persisted even after the convention.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There are a huge number of people inside of this party(including many who backed Hillary in the primaries)who feel that corporate donors and their economic agenda have played far too much of a role determining what our policies are...that the party's congressional and senatorial campaign organizations have had a bias in favor of recruiting centrist candidates and discouraging progressive candidates(and that this bias hasn't particularly helpful to us at the polls) and that we have alienated a lot of younger voters and discouraged potential supporters by being a party that isn't particularly friendly to activists and activism.
If you object to the word "corruption", do you reject the idea that we have some serious issues to deal with about who has too much of a say in the party and who is unjustly left out in the cold and with working out exactly what we need to do to gain votes in the future?
JHan
(10,173 posts)Which specific party positions or policy positions exposed "Corruption" ?
As far as I see it, the truth is far more shockingly simple. I always look at the bills that end up becoming law, subsidies ( and those who use friendships as capital to influence policy makers), and the biases that shape policy position ( we on the left have our own biases)
I am thankful to Sanders for injecting an awareness of issues the party will now make central to its message. Even as I disagree with his method and solutions.
I'm not one of those young people Sanders completely captured and there are many other young people like myself who don't believe in class war for the sake of it, who want depth to policy discourse and understand we get no where demonizing fellow liberals.
mcar
(42,307 posts)of corporatist, oligarch, Wall Street tool, in the criticisms of HRC by BS and many in his camp.
And now, here we are. With an impending government run by and for Wall Street.
But some of those HRC critics happily voted for this.
Trump is a Corporatist Wet Dream.
But so many "conscience" voters seemingly preferred that to the evil Hillary.
And now we're told we shouldn't criticize them or those who voted Trump.
Sorry, but no.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)The Clinton campaign had a ton of material to work with. The GOP had an oppo book that was over two feet thick on Sanders. Sanders could attack Clinton and she had to treat Sanders with kid gloves. VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article:
When Sanders supporters discuss these attacks, though, they do so in tones of barely contained outrage, as though it is simply disgusting what they have to put up with. Questioning the practical achievability of single-payer health care. Impugning the broad electoral appeal of socialism. Is nothing sacred?
But c'mon. This stuff is patty-cakes compared with the brutalization he would face at the hands of the right in a general election.
His supporters would need to recalibrate their umbrage-o-meters in a serious way.
The attacks that would be levied against Sanders by the Kochs, the RNC candidate and others in a general election contest would make the so-called attacks against Sanders look like patty-cakes. The GOP and Kochs are not known for being nice or honest and as the article notes there are a ton of good topics available for attack. Again Trump had an oppo book on Sanders that was two feet thick. http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044
So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers....
The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.
The concept that Sanders did not hurt Clinton in the general election is simply factually wrong.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)And allied himself with some pretty flakey and divisive figures because he was desperate for support.
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)A LOT of voters didn't even know who he was before he ran. Bernie's popularity soared after he started campaigning. Had he not run, no one would have thought anything of it. Just as in every election cycle, there are people who hope a particular politician will throw their hat in the ring - but when they don't, those people move on to backing someone who is in the race.
Let's not forget that Bernie was second choice among many, who wanted Liz Warren. It was only after they accepted that she wouldn't run that they switched their support to Bernie.
"To do that would have meant forever giving up on fighting for what he stands for."
How does that work? Are you honestly suggesting that if Bernie hadn't run, everyone would have just thrown their hands in the air and said, "That's it - it's all over. We are forever precluded from fighting for what he stands for!" Seriously?
And to be honest, THAT was exactly the attitude that contributed to my distaste for Bernie and many of his supporters, the idea that he was "the only one", "the last great hope", etc. Again I would remind you that Liz Warren was touted as "the only one" and "the last great hope" before it was clear she wasn't running. Exactly how many "only ones" are out there?
"What do you want the guy to do? Apologize for even running?"
Funny you should mention - because I see a lot of posts saying that HRC should apologize for running, that she went into this knowing she couldn't win, etc.
"Tell the people who supported him to just give up?"
That's up to them. If those who supported Bernie feel that he was "the only one" they could rally around, the "last great hope" of moving the nation forward, I guess we won't be hearing anything from them in future - which means they are far less committed to their cause than they claim to be. If they are convinced that ONLY Bernie can actually DO anything, they obviously aren't interested in fighting for anything they claim they want unless they are led by ONE man, to the exclusion of all other considerations, and all other Democrats who have ideals they are willing to stand up for.
HRC won the primaries - and not by a small margin. She also won the popular vote - and not by a small margin. Apparently her message was heard and embraced by the MAJORITY of Democrats who chose HER as their candidate, and by the MAJORITY of voters who chose HER as their president. Those are two facts that some people just keep putting their fingers in their ears to avoid hearing.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I spent the fall doing all that I could to get Bernie's supporters to vote Hillary (the vast majority of whom DID vote for her, btw).
What I said was that, once Liz Warren stayed out, the choice was either Bernie running or their being no economic justice candidate in the primaries at all this year.
You are right that Bernie got in after Liz Warren chose not to run. Bernie himself had WANTED Warren to run. He was never in this for personal aggrandizement. It was just about the issues-issues that would never have been addressed this year(question-how much longer do you think we can survive NOT having any effort made to address excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and excessive corporate control of life? Those issues affect us just as deeply as choice and the other issues your candidate prioritized) and there was no reason for economic justice advocates-at the time of the primaries-to think that the candidate you preferred gave a damn about that agenda I get it that you dislike Bernie, but is it really that hard for you to credit him with sincerity?
Without Bernie, it would have been a coronation process.
We've had two "coronation" nomination processes in this century...2000 and 2004. The results of those cycles are the results we will ALWAYS have when the choice of the party insiders is nominated without serious opposition and when the platform is kept bland and generic.
And not only do coronation nominees seldom win for us.. Fall campaigns where our pitch to voters is not "here's what we have to offer", but "you HAVE to vote for us!" virtually NEVER work for us. We went 0 for 4 running that kind of campaign against Reagan(twice in California, twice nationally). We went effectively 0 for 2 with that kind of campaign against Dubya(yes, we won the popular vote in '00, but it was close enough for Bush to steal the EC because our campaign was safe and bland and empty). So why on earth did our party's strategists make us run the same campaign again? To waste tens of millions of dollars on trying to get "moderate Republican" votes when we always knew none of those people were ever going to vote against their own party's nominee, even if that nominee was Trump?
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)You just stated that if Bernie had not run, it would have meant "forever giving up". Sure sounds like you're saying "he's the only one" to me.
As for Gore being a "coronation candidate", I've got to give you credit for creativity - that's the first time I've heard that one.
I get it, Ken. You are going to keep insisting that Bernie is the only candidate who stood for anything. You are going to keep insisting that "party insiders" put a gun to the heads of MILLIONS of Democrats who chose Hillary as their nominee. You are going to keep insisting that issues that Bernie raised were never addressed by anyone before.
"Is it really that hard for you to credit him with sincerity?"
No, not hard, Ken - more like impossible. He demeaned the Democratic Party for decades, then decided to "be" one of us when it served his political ambitions, and then called them corrupt while running on their ticket and holding himself out as the saviour of a party he wanted nothing to do with until he needed their resources to launch a credible bid for the White House.
That "bland and generic" platform you're complaining about won the majority of votes. But keep insisting that it was rejected.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)1) I didn't say that Bernie was the only candidate who stood for ANYTHING. I freely acknowledge HRC stood for progressive values in some areas of policy. But her original proposals did create a natural assumption of a policy team that was fine with corporate control of politics and continued consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few. She was progressive(and convincingly so) where being progressive didn't threaten the interests of the rich or ask any real sacrifices of them. Defense of choice(while vitally important)doesn't threaten the power of the wealthy and is a bare minimum expectation of any Democrat. Neither do those parts of the anti-oppression agenda she supports. They are worthy things and I did campaign for her without hesitation in the fall-but there was a major gap. It was necessary to have a economic justice candidate to address those areas. Are you seriously going to be argue that everyone in the party should have been content with HRC's original program? Or that it would have been possible to organize an economic justice movement after getting nothing in the platform at all other than the nominee's original proposals? How could it have been?
2) I didn't say that everyone would have given up on that agenda, but Bernie couldn't have fought for it anymore if he hadn't entered the primaries. He couldn't have endorsed Hillary when she declared and still challenged corporate power. There will always be future chances, but there won't be any more for at least another ten or twenty years now. Bernie's candidacy represented, at the time, the only way to keep the Occupy spirit alive. And it clearly wasn't Bernie's fault that the results were what they were(he had nothing to do with what Comey did, OR with the GOP vendetta about Benghazi, and he campaigned hard for the ticket-supporting it to the degree that some of his former supporters(at least they implied that they had supported him) called him "Bernadict Arnold".
3) I said previous platforms were bland and generic(I think you'd have to concede the point on the '92, '96, '00 and '04 platforms, none of which had anything specific or transformative in them)-but that THIS one was better(the main problem was that the fall campaign almost never used the platform as a selling point-the ads they did pretty much only featured the things she supported at the start-I don't recall hearing the additions to the platform that the Sanders campaign contributed being mentioned much, if at all)
4) In 2000, Gore was nominated with no real opposition. The AFL-COP endorsed him pretty much before anybody voted The party essentially cleared the decks him and Bill Bradley knew he wouldn't be allowed to get anywhere close to beating him. it was over by April with no real debate anywhere. How do you figure that WASN'T a coronation? That the whole thing wasn't arranged from the start?
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)Again, your own words - spoken while your fingers are firmly plugged in your ears.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Some of the young would still have fought on, knowing that nothing they wanted would happen in the next four to eight years.
But what was Bernie supposed to do?
What other options existed, other than just vanishing?
He had no other means to be an effective change agent.
There was nothing more he could do without running for president.
There was nothing he could do just staying in the Senate that would have made any difference, or just speaking at various rallies.
There was no way he could still have fought corporate dominance or stood up for workers and the poor if he'd endorsed Hillary in 2015. He could never have worked for anything transformative again.
And we both know Trump would have won in the EC even if Bernie had stayed out.
Bernie's presence in the race had nothing to do with the effectiveness of what Comey did, and the effectiveness of Trump's demagogy.
ANYONE else in Bernie's position would have felt obligated to run.
If not then...when?
Ever?
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)Your words, Ken. In fact, he had over 30 years worth of "options" as a member of Congress. People (mostly Republicans, but some Democrats particularly here on DU) rant about Hillary's "35 years" of government work, but nobody looks at St. Bernard's rather thin record in Congress. Being a Senator may not be as bully a pulpit as the presidency, but it CAN be a powerful position with opportunities to effect real change. Bernie had over 30 years to do that. He didn't even make any real inroads.
"But what was Bernie supposed to do?"
Maybe do his job in Congress for the last 30+ years.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He was known as "the amendment king". Getting amendments attached to stuff was the only way for anyone on the progressive side to achieve anything when there was a right wing majority in Congress.
Teddy Kennedy never got any bills he sponsored passed when Republicans controlled the Senate(all he was able to do was get some Republican stuff modified-and no Republican majority in the Senate will ever accept Democratic amendments to any of its bills again). Neither did HRC(all she did was get some tiny things through, plus a couple of resolutions-and we all know what resolutions are really worth). It wasn't an era when Democratic-sponsored bills were getting passed. Period.
You can't name any Democrat in Congress in most of Bernie's era(1993-95 and 2008-2010 being the sole exception who got anything worth passing through.
And Bernie is blameless for the Electoral College loss.
And it couldn't have led to anything progressive for there to be no contest in the primaries. We still wouldn't have beaten Trump.
It never strengthens our chances in the fall to have someone nominated by acclimation. That's why I referenced 2000 and 2004.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Sanders ran knowing that he had zero chance of being the nominee and then went out of his way to hurt Clinton. Sanders ran for the sake of his own ego and the result is that we have Trump as POTUS.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)After all, look at how dramatically his support grew throughout the campaign.
If he hadn't been falsely accused of not caring about institutional bigotry and not WANTING the votes of people of color(obviously he wanted them, it's just that he didn't initially find the language that would get those votes), Bernie might well have won(all he was guilty of on that was some very early omissions on the campaign website, omissions that were corrected within a month after the campaign began). It's just that the attacks on Bernie on that issue never let up, even when he proved that the attacks were utterly without merit. Factor that out and the contest was essentially a dead heat.
And it's been shown over and over that Bernie didn't cause the fall Electoral College defeat..
And if the campaign had emphasized the good things Sanders and the nearly half the primary voters who supported him were able to add to the platform(rather than essentially acting as if Bernie's campaign had never happened and had had no influence), I think we'd have been able to get the turnout and votes we needed to carry the Upper Midwest.
If Hillary had been nominated without significant primary opposition(as some of her supporters felt she was simply entitled to be), her showing in the fall would likely have been worse. It would have been impossible to get voters with Occupy values to vote for her-I'm guessing Stein's vote would have been double or possibly triple what it was.
Bernie wasn't responsible for the Comey trick or the Russian hack and campaigned hard for the party throughout the fall.
And he rejected the recommendation for his staffers to go after Hillary on the emails, so Bernie did make a significant effort to avoid doing harm.
We can't be a progressive party if Bernie and his supporters are made officially unwelcome, as you would like them to be. There will still be a progressive wing, but it goes without saying that wing will always be kept powerless by the corporate donor wing of the party.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)No one really believed that Sanders had a chance. After the March 1/Super Tuesday primaries Clinton had a delegate lead that could not be overcome. I live in the real world. It is a nice place where facts matter and so do numbers. Sanders support was limited to a narrow demographic and Sanders lacked support from several key demographic groups. Sanders had no chance in the real world of being the nominee.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)Well said.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)Sanders ran for the sake of his own ego with no chance of being the nominee.
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)It has no basis in reality
George II
(67,782 posts).....that at the beginning of his campaign he had about 3% support. If 35 million voted in the primaries, way back at the beginning of the campaign he would have only had the support of about 1 million ultimate voters IF they were all voters anyway - so where were all these "millions" who begged him to run?
It's math, sir.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)I do not expect that you will get an answer to your post
George II
(67,782 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)That claim is simply wrong.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not as though there was an overwhelming consensus that Hillary should be nominated without opposition. There had been a lot of support for Elizabeth Warren getting into the race.
BTW, there is no evidence that getting a nomination clinched early does anything to improve the nominee's chances in the fall.
Mondale clinched his nomination early and got creamed(as Fritz Hollings or any of the other "Southern moderates" who ran in '84).
Dukakis clinched his nomination by mid April or so. We all remember how well THAT played out.
Gore and Kerry both clinched there nominations almost absurdly early...and both of them fell short of victory.
And if primary opposition dooms a candidate in the fall, how do you account for the fact that Barack Obama won a solid victory in 2008 after a primary contest that went even further down to the wire than this one?
Our ticket would have made the exact same showing, if not a weaker showing, had there been no significant primary opposition. What Comey did would have had the same effect, and Trump's demagogy would have had the same effect(as would whatever the Russians did. And since, without Bernie's presence, Hillary's platform would have been much further to the right, the vote for Stein would have been larger and you STILL wouldn't have seen any "moderate Republicans" vote for our ticket, because there is no longer any such thing as a "moderate Republican" and there never will be again-that party will be far right for the rest of eternity now).
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)The math here is clear and you are ignoring the delegate lead that Clinton had after the Super Tuesday/March 1 primaries. In the real world, it was clear that Sanders had no chance of overcoming that lead. The fact that you are ignoring this delegate lead is amusing to me. Sanders did not appeal to African American and latino voters and so had no chance of being the nominee. The race was really over after Super Tuesday but Sanders kept on attacking Clinton even though in the real world he had no chance of making up that differential . This differential was in pledged delegates and not super delegates.
At the end Sanders was reduced to begging for the support of super delegates because that was the only way that Sanders could overcome the delegate lead that Clinton built up early on. The fact that Sanders and his supporters did not realize that Sanders has no chance of being the nominee is sad to me. I saw this at the National Convention where a group of some of the younger Sanders supporters came into the delegation breakfast/meeting to demand that we condemn Hillary Clinton and vote for Sanders.
In the real world math matters. Your posts are ignoring the math and the facts here. Sanders' campaign was based on his personal vanity and not on facts or any realistic chance of being the nominee. As noted in your post, the nomination was locked up in many cases far earlier because the candidates in these races were not running a campaign based on personal vanity but looked at the math. If Sanders cared about the math, he would have dropped out in March or April because the math was clear that Sanders had no chance.
Your posts does not help your argument.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I don't have to accept the idea that Bernie was obligated to drop out on Super Tuesday just to prove that.
I don't owe it to you OR Hillary to say she was entitled to an uncontested race after that date, and it would have been a tragedy for progressives and the young to have no reason to vote in the primaries.
It's enough that I endorsed her before the convention.
Bernie would have betrayed his supporters if he'd withdrawn any earlier, and it would have been a tragedy for Hillary to have a Kerry-size majority at the convention. We gained vote in the falls because Sanders proposals(virtually all of which were popular) were in the platform.
The Sanders movement is not a heresy that must be recanted.
And you're being arrogant in insisting that the Sanders campaign had a duty to end early. Only conservatives and conservatism would have gained from an earlier Sanders withdrawal. Stein's support would have increased and Trump's support might well have, too. Our chances would not have improved at all.
I accept the results of the primaries...YOU need to accept that the primaries had to be contested and that everyone had to be given a chance to have a real say.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)I live in the real world where math and facts are important. For the purposes of this analysis we can ignore Super delegates in large part because super delegates have never voted against the winner of the popular vote in a primary and because Sanders never had any realistic hope of convincing anyone who understood politics that Sanders would be viable in a general election. Sanders would have been destroyed by trump in a general election contest.
As for the math, following the Super Tuesday primaries it was clear that Sander had zero chance of overcoming Sec. Clinton's delegate lead. In an earlier post you made the rather sad but funny argument that Clinton was weak because she did not wrap of the race in April. That claim really hurts the premise of your amusing arguments in that Clinton had wrapped up the nomination by early April and the only people who refused to recognize these realities were Sanders and his supporters. In the case you cited as evidence that Hillary Clinton should have wrapped up the process in April, the persons running in these races were actual members of the Democratic Party who understood math and cared about the Democratic Party. Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party and is in fact now running as an independent for his senate seat in 2018. The other candidates who dropped out in prior races did so because they knew that they could not overcome the delegate lead and they wanted the party to do well in the general election.
Sanders continued his campaign well after the Super Tuesday primaries knowing or should have known that he had no chance of being the nominee. The continued Sanders campaign hurt Hillary Clinton and was proof to me that Sanders does not care about the Democratic Party. Again math is a good thing. Hillary Clinton had more than 4 times the lead in pledged delegates over Sanders in 2016 than the lead that President Obama enjoyed over Hillary Clinton in 2008. Math is a good thing.
I do not have to accept your premise that Sanders had to do whatever he could to hurt the party and to damage Hillary Clinton's chances in the general election. Your premise is false. You seem to take pride in the fact that it was okay for Sanders to ignore the math and the facts. Given that Sanders had no chance of being the nominee, the sole reason for the continued Sanders campaign was to damage Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in the general election. Sanders succeeded. Sanders misled his supporters up until just before the convention about his chances of being the nominee and these actions hurt the Democratic Party. I saw this at the Democratic National Convention first hand.
Facts are important. Please do not expect people to ignore the facts.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The math was distorted by the superdelegates, who gave Hillary an artificial lead in the delegate count before anyone had even voted.
And there was every reason to believe that the email investigations might discredit Hillary as a candidate before we got to the convention. If Bernie had dropped out on Super Tuesday and something devastating HAD been revealed in the investigation, where the hell would we have been then? What chance would we have had if we'd nominated HRC when events had suddenly put her fifteen points behind(as could easily have happened)?
Bernie didn't stay in the race out of ego OR to hurt Hillary. He stayed in because of the issues(why do you always refuse to acknowledge the validity of THAT?)because his supporters wanted a chance to vote for him in the upcoming states(it would have been undemocratic to have every contest AFTER Super Tuesday be uncontested, and we both know it wouldn't have strengthened HRC-she wasn't going to gain votes by pretending the Sanders phenomenon was nothing and had never happened) and because it was necessary in order to get any of Sanders's ideas-the overwhelming majority of which were and are popular-into the platform(we'd have done far worse if NO Sanders language had ended up in the platform at all and we'd ended up with the sort of bland nothingburger that Bill imposed in '92 and '96, that Gore largely continued in '00 and that Kerry kept essentially unchanged in '04). Hillary's campaign could have embraced most of Bernie's anti-corporate agenda and could have reached out to the Sanders movement by recognizing it had a valid role to play within the party and that it represented a source. She could also have negotiated with the Sanders campaign early on to incorporate Sanders proposals into the fall program. Can you explain why her primary campaign did NONE of that?
And it's been repeatedly shown that nothing that worked against Hillary in the fall had anything to do with Bernie.
He never went after her on the emails(rejecting the advice of his campaign that he do so), he wasn't responsible for the widespread belief that Hillary would get us into a war with Russia through her insistence on enforcing a "no-fly" zone over Syria(I heard people saying that OVER AND OVER again, and while I didn't believe it myself, her policy statements on the issue didn't give people like me a hell of a lot to work with to disprove that claim), he wasn't to blame for the Democratic establishment's refusal to put an explicit "No TPP" pledge into the platform, and he had nothing to do with the Comey attack or the Russian involvement.
Bernie gave a passionate endorsement speech for Hillary at the convention and campaigned hard for her all fall. He did everything he could to help. The reservations voters had about her would not only have existed at the same level of intensity if Bernie had withdrawn after Super Tuesday, they would have existed at the same level if Bernie had never been born.
Some of us tried to tell you that it was risky to nominated someone who had been under relentless right-wing attack for a quarter of a century. What was it about her that was WORTH taking the risk of nominating her after all of that? While your wing of the party would never have allowed Bernie to be nominated, but you might at least have considered drafting Warren-she'd have been acceptable to everyone in the party and Trump would never have had anything to attack her on(the lie about her falsely claiming Native American ancestry was the only skeleton, and Trump dropped it immediately when he saw it wasn't getting any traction).
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)You are asserting facts that do not exist or only exist in your mind. There has been no proof shown that Sanders did not want to hurt Clinton and the facts are to the contrary. Sanders never had a chance of being the nominee and Sanders lied to his supporters to keep the donations coming. Sanders claims that he could still win did hurt Clinton. Sanders continued his campaign for the purposes of his own ego and not to try to win the nomination. Sanders actions were designed to hurt Clinton and Sanders succeeded.
You are simply wrong when you claimed that Sanders did not go after Clinton. That claim is false as shown by the number of times that Trump quoted Sanders in the general election. The rigged process claim was used by Trump to depress turnout and to hurt Clinton. You may have believed Sanders claims that he could still be the nominee but I saw first hand the damage that these lies caused at the National Convention. Sanders' false claims that the system was rigged and that he could win encouraged some really nasty behavior by Sanders delegates at the national convention. I was there and saw this behavior.
I am sorry that math scares you but in the real world, math is important. In one of your other posts you made the rather sad but funny claim that Clinton was a weak candidate because she did not wrap up the race in April. In the real world, Clinton wrapped up the nomination in early April and the only one who did not know this was Sanders supporters who were told false stories by Sanders. In the past cases you cited, the Democratic candidates (a) were actual members of the Democratic Party, (b) cared about the Democratic Party and (c) actually worked to help the ticket win. You can not really make the same claims about Sanders. Sanders is now running as an indie and it is clear from his actions that Sanders took actions to hurt the Democratic Party and the ticket.
I live in the real world where math is important. Please do not expect anyone to accept your amusing claims when such claims are clearly false and are not based on the facts. Again, I was at the convention and I saw the texts and reports about what Sanders told his delegates. Sanders did NOT do everything he could to help Clinton get elected. Sanders encouraged his supporters to believe that system was rigged and that claim hurt Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Again I like living in the real world where facts matter. You are welcomed to your opinion but not to your own facts.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You are simply one person with one opinion.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)You are the one who can not support their claims with facts. I know that math is scary but the math here is clear. I like math. This video is amusing because it deals with math
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You have no "facts" that back up your opinion that Bernie stayed in the race in order to hurt Hillary(and it goes without saying that Bernie didn't want Trump to win). If Bernie wanted to hurt Hillary, why would he have stated, from the moment he entered the race, that he WOULD endorse her if she was nominated? Why did he NOT attack her on any of the things Trump would attack her on later.
And the math was also distorted by the superdelegates. We will never know how that race would have played out if the superdelegates hadn't lined up for Hillary early on. We will never know if voters in the early states might have voted differently if the decision was entirely in their hands.
The "rigged system" Bernie was talking about was our economic system, not the primary process. He can't be held responsible for anything Trump said in the fall. Trump was the kind of candidate who was capable of quoting MEIN KAMPF and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK in the same speech(and would have done that if he thought it would put him over the top).
The "math" simply proves that Hillary had an early delagate lead(created, initially, by the arrogant decision of the superdelegates to try to end the primaries before they began by lining up for HRC as a bloc). It doesn't prove that Bernie was obligated to withdraw after Super Tuesday. Nor does it discredit the point that Hillary could have been fatally discredited as a candidate by revelations regarding the emails and that we needed SOME alternative in place in case that happened.
Nor does it prove that Hillary would have done better in November if Bernie had withdrawn earlier, OR if there had been no significant concessions to the Sanders positions in the platform.
I accept that Hillary won the primary and proved my loyalty by campaigning for her in the fall. I'm not REFIGHTING the primary(never have been). But I will not stand by while anyone sneers at the very idea that there needed to be a fully progressive candidate in the primaries OR that the ideas Bernie's campaign fought for have no place in this party. Because without those ideas, we will never get the allegiance of the young or of those who are alienated by the status and we will never win another election. We will have no reason to exist as the kind of party you want-a bland, passionless, cynical party of the slightly right of center status quo, a party that doesn't fight for the powerless and give voice to the voiceless, a party whose message to the newest potential voters is "You Kids Get Off My Lawn!"
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)You really should consider using facts in your posts. Sanders hurt Clinton greatly in the general election
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)That is so very amusing
alarimer
(16,245 posts)We were wrong about that. The polls were wrong and giving us a false sense of security.
Now I have no idea if someone else could have done better. Maybe, maybe not.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)when Obama did so TWICE in the GE. She was an easy target with little return fire except to go after her opponents "deplorable" supporters. You don't carve out tens of millions of voters from the electorate and call them the exception to civilized politics. That is grossly counter-productive.
I guess we will go on for some time pointing fingers, but the real question is whether or not the Party will or even wants to change to a more liberal-democratic stance. And that includes junking the elite notion of only talking to those who survived the racist/misogynist/anti-immigrant mindfield we have laid for them (read: Anyone who votes for a racist is a racist, and we don't need them). If we don't move to a greater liberalism, common good improvememts and a broader appeal, we will remain a party Coasting.
Gore1FL
(21,128 posts)He represented the liberal wing that was ignored for the past 30 + years.
Clinton lost for the same reason Jeb Bush lost: After George W. Bush, we collectively decided we are done with political dynasties. Clinton and Bush were much weaker candidates than conventional wisdom assumed them to be.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)
madokie
(51,076 posts)we'd have President elect Sanders in the wings right the fuck now.
And that my friends is a FACT
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,937 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)Cha
(297,163 posts)can claim that all they want but he couldn't even win the primary.
Hillary had 3 3/4 Million more votes than he did. his message just didn't resonate with enough voters.
Thanks Yo
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)It says so much with so little.
Gore1FL
(21,128 posts)otohara
(24,135 posts)had St. Bernard made it to the GE - it would have been so weird having Donald's pussy grabbing vs Sanders rape fantasies debate. Or, Trump's love of Putin and Sanders fondness for Latin American dictators.
jack_krass
(1,009 posts)Gothmog
(145,152 posts)The GOP had a two foot thick book of oppo research on Sanders see http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8365164
Marr
(20,317 posts)
Cha
(297,163 posts)knowing what "facts" are.
Response to Ken Burch (Original post)
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GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)besides your extra 6 years or so of membership, that makes 2 of us
alarimer
(16,245 posts)All during the primary season, where debate was curtailed.
And honest examination is what's needed, but it looks to be like the corporate wing is probably going to prevail again (from the Keith Ellison smear campaign) which means the Democrats will remain out of power, probably forever.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Excellent observation.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)I don't believe in worship or adulation of elected officials. They work for us and if we don't like something that they do, or some position that they take, we should call them on it. We have to push them sometimes to do the right thing, but that is our job.
Worshipping is for monarchies and the last time I checked, we got rid of that some time ago.
As to the DLC/Third Way, well, that has always been about sucking up to Republicans in order to garner votes. It's more than just compromise, which is often necessary; it is complete abandonment of what the Democratic Party stood for (and which they still do, if you believe the platform as it exists right now.)
A lot of this is due to money in politics. In order to keep the money for campaigns flowing, Democrats of all stripes often have to suck up to the money guys, who may be socially liberal, but god forbid you ask them to pay more in taxes to pay for services to te less fortunate. This issue would go away if we had public financing of elections and free media air time.
Certainly, criticism can be over the top, descending into name-calling. But mostly it does not.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)
ismnotwasm
(41,976 posts)For the politically naive with no real meaning or substance. It is when the nuts and bolts of actual political work and advocacy is seen as conspiracy. I rarely see "honest and legitimate disagreement" I see conspiracy theory flavored temper tantrums. It's tiresome. Even The Third Way was mocked incessantly by one of the biggest trolls DU has ever seen before he finally got a well deserved banning--but did people understand the history behind the Third way--which definetly deserves criticism, but not the whole "Third Way is Evil incarnate" bullshit that asshole was pushing. Do people know what the DLC does? Does the entire organization deserve criticism or certain choices that were made? And Blue Dogs--what the actual fuck?
In theory you have a perfectly valid point. In fact it should be a perfectly valid point.
In practice.. not so much.
otohara
(24,135 posts)No longer an organization.
ismnotwasm
(41,976 posts)I'm just irritated
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)so please spare us your attempts to come across as reasonable.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)n/t.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,937 posts)
kcdoug1
(222 posts)Are still being felt today, and will be for years to come. And, they are NOT good
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,937 posts)We have a guy heading to the Whitehouse who may turn back 100 years of progress in this country and you're worried about a non-existent entity. Get your priorities straight please.
mcar
(42,307 posts)moderate organization as the root of all evil.
Gore1FL
(21,128 posts)If not DLC, call them what you will. The people still exist and we nominated 2 of them.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,937 posts)Gore1FL
(21,128 posts)He certainly buys into Reaganomics.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,937 posts)It's not all about you.
"He certainly buys into Reaganomics." That is a load of bullshit. When did Obama ask for massive tax cuts for the wealthy?
Put up or shut up.
Response to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Reply #86)
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Response to Post removed (Reply #90)
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DFW
(54,365 posts)But it has been dead for a long time now. Kick away.
Response to Ken Burch (Original post)
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LWolf
(46,179 posts)it offends many when someone points out that the Party's problem is the neoliberal establishment. That establishment has made deflection and the blame game an art form.
"If we cannot have real conversations about this party's future OR the choices it has made in the recent past"...
I'll finish that thought, since you didn't.
"then the party becomes irrelevant and will continue to lose."
I almost posted an OP saying the same as yours early this morning, having served on yet another jury because someone decided that criticizing was "bashing." The determined effort to silence criticism and dissent does not reflect well on the party, nor does it bode well for the party's future.
Make one wonder what the word democratic means
LWolf
(46,179 posts)it means, "shut up, get in line, cast your vote the way we tell you to, and don't stray from the approved talking points."
At least, that's what DU has taught me the last 14 years.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)
ismnotwasm
(41,976 posts)How and what is.
JHan
(10,173 posts)about neo-liberalism...like, how and what.... I've been reading. It just sounds like a catch phrase now when we don't like a particular democrat .
ismnotwasm
(41,976 posts)Say "neo-liberal enough times from enough directions and no one will ask you to define it. This type of political "discourse" is very irritating and, as we've seen, very damaging to Democrats as a whole.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)unless you just don't want to.
I'll try to use short sentences and small words:
It's unregulated capitalism. Oops. Two long words. It's letting the people with all the money make more money for themselves while the rest of us make less and less, can afford less and less, have fewer rights as workers, work more and more lower wage jobs to survive, and slip further and further into poverty.
Part of that process includes using workers in countries that have fewer rights for workers. They work for less, providing more profit for the wealthy owners of our capital.
There's more, of course, but maybe you could just start with the simple basics.
And maybe you could recognize that, regardless of what label is applied to the neoliberal powers that be: DLC, "New Democrats," Third Way, "Centrist," etc., they are all neoliberals. It's an economic term. Neo-liberals, if it helps, often claim to be "socially liberal and fiscally conservative," when, in reality, they are all about economic liberalism: deregulation of capitalism.
You could look back at the Progressive Era at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and the part of progressivism that sought to regulate corporations to keep them in check. You could follow the deregulations and bipartisan trade deals during my lifetime to see how they've led to a new era of corporate greed, corruption, and control.
Or you could continue to deny the reality. 
JHan
(10,173 posts)Last edited Sat Dec 10, 2016, 08:02 PM - Edit history (1)
It's a smear word designed to attack Democrats and we need to retire it- there are other descriptions more fitting for what you describe.
Conservatives argue that Liberals want oppressive big government to intrude on business and impose regulations on industries that hurt their backers and regulations on their way of life ( e.g. enthusiastic gun ownership) And then progressive leftists blame Democrats for deregulation (????) when Democrats typically want larger government to fix problems .. So depending on what part of the ideological spectrum you stand it is a convenient smear against Democrats to whip out at a moment's notice.
In the 1980s, a faction of the Democratic party started calling themselves "neoliberals" to mean "new liberals" in the American sense. They wanted to both contrast themselves with the "old liberals" (like Ted Kennedy) and also compete with the "neoconservatives" who came to power with Ronald Reagan. The Reagan neoconservatives are more in line with what leftists mean by "neoliberal" ( see how stupid all this is?). The Democratic Party neoliberals were people like Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin and they promoted supposedly "market friendly" methods for attaining the traditional American liberal goals of equal opportunity. Whatever you think of those neoliberals, and I don't think all that much of them, they believed themselves to be following the political platform that John F. Kennedy proposed not the one advocated by Ronald Reagan. Robert Rubin who is the "neoliberal" that the left loves to hate deregulated banks (catastrophically) but now says the primary problem with the US economy is that labor unions are weak and taxes on the wealthy are too low. A great deal of left-wing polemic is written as if Democratic Party neoliberals were from the same movement as neoliberals like Margret Thatcher. If your political analysis cannot tell the difference between a Robert Rubin neoliberal and George W. Bush or Augusto Pinochet neoliberal, something is wrong with your political analysis. For some left wingers, the confusion is very convenient because they claim both groups just to be the same evil, imperialistic, capitalist, bad guys and this can all lead up to their favorite theory "Obama = Bush". Everything tied up in a simplistic story that makes left wing theorists the brave truth tellers, the heroes of their own narrative.
Over the past 8 years, we had an increase in regulations, a high corp tax rate, under a Democrat President. If ever Obama had to grind his way with republicans to reach compromise it was due to the fact he didn't have support in Congress - hard to fix the gaps in Obamacare if there's partisan gridlock. If a Democrat sees value in Trade - that doesn't make them "third way" - I am very pro-trade while seeing clearly the negatives of trade deals. However I cannot deny that Capitalism and Trade have lifted people out of poverty. Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years
Are trade deals perfect , no. Can they do more to lift labor standards all over the world - yes. Should they more resemble free market ideals where everyone is on an even footing instead of corporations enjoying max penetration into foreign markets? Yes. And as for wages, while I have my criticisms of the TPP ( such as how it creates an artificial monopoly by extending restrictive intellectual property laws) the TPP requires countries in the TPP region to unionise. An effect of trade lifting millions out of poverty can be seen in China - as the middle class expanded, and the Chinese became more prosperous, Vietnam became the prime destination for outsourcing. That will change again, until -hopefully- it becomes a global phenomenon, country by country. That's the impact of trade - exchange of goods, services and also ideas. What sets this off kilter is Corporatism- where large conglomerates - allowed to consolidate and eat up market share, and also beefed up by subsidies, dominate these markets - this is not "neo-liberalism" but the effect of corporatist culture and cronyism.
What we should not do as Democrats is smear each other because we see merit in a trade deal, or want regulatory reform ( which does not equal deregulation). The Democrat mindset is very different to the conservative and we should never confuse the two to attack each other.
"Neoliberal" is not a smear word designed to attack Democrats. It's a political demographic, and it's real. It's not going to be retired so that you can live in denial or so that the Democratic Party can continue to serve corporations instead of people and pretend otherwise.
As far as the current POTUS goes, he's always been a neo-liberal; I understood this before '08. Anybody paying attention did. I could give you a long list, but why? I'm not here to argue about Obama, and it's interesting, to say the least, that you would throw him into the pot in a desperate move to make a fantasy-driven point real.
If you need it, I'll simply point to the POTUS' support for the TPP. That's as clear as it gets.
Meanwhile, just to be even more crystal clear: Neoliberal politicians and the neoliberals who vote for them ARE the party's, and the nation's, problem.
JHan
(10,173 posts)""Neoliberal" is not a smear word designed to attack Democrats." - yeah it is
" It's a political demographic, and it's real. It's not going to be retired so that you can live in denial or so that the Democratic Party can continue to serve corporations instead of people and pretend otherwise. " -
Nothing you wrote tells me anything I didn't already know so a lil specificity would help. Yes , through legislation, and tax loopholes, D.C has given corporations lifelines, but there's no consistent record of this happening among all democrats over the last decade. In fact, during the Bush years, democrats consistently voted against tax cuts and tax loopholes.
If you're arguing about the bail out - there are complex arguments either way. We've had more regulations and the highest corp tax rate over the last 8 years. Worried about corporations "buying" politicians? There already exists words for that - like "bribing" and "collusion" ..calling this phenomenon "neo-liberal" is what's ridiculous - the word shape-shifts depending on who is using it and for what purpose it is being used, which speaks volumes.
"As far as the current POTUS goes, he's always been a neo-liberal" - Uh huh..
"If you need it, I'll simply point to the POTUS' support for the TPP. That's as clear as it gets. " - Offering vague arguments against the TPP doesn't exactly help your cause. I offered a good argument against it - Intellectual property rights.I can also point to some good provisions in the deal.
" Neoliberal politicians and the neoliberals who vote for them ARE the party's, and the nation's, problem." - sure thing.
Repeating falsehoods is a tried and true propaganda technique, but it doesn't make them true.
Neoliberalism is real, and neoliberals run the Democratic Party establishment, which is why we lost the election. Deny all you want; it doesn't change anything.
JHan
(10,173 posts)I provided details in my arguments, you are ranting so I'm not the one spreading propaganda here.
Hillary also had a better economic message that resonated with voters, I'll keep sharing this article till the cows come home:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/
She had decades of ideas to help parents, particularly working moms, and their children. She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word “job” more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word “jobs” more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce.
And we'll add your semantics and vagueness to a long list of #WhyTrumpWon -------- fits in with a bunch of other things like #hillaryspantsuits #Hillaryslaugh and #VinceFoster
LWolf
(46,179 posts)for anyone open to acknowledging fact.
I have no time for people who want to keep repeating falsehoods or introducing "talking points" that don't address the point about neoliberalism in order to avoid that acknowledgement.
JHan
(10,173 posts)plenty for those with eyes to read, ears to hear, brain cells to think with, and ethics that require forthright honesty.
Just nothing for those without the requisite skills to receive information.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)1) A fixation with passing "free trade" pacts, even though those always drive wages down and send jobs to other countries;
2) The insistence on cutting "taxes and the deficit" even when that means that the programs Democratic presidents created get cut more deeply under later Democratic presidents than they were under Republican presidents;
3) Support for "pro-business economics" even though this means working people lose ground and the rich get richer;
4) A claim that being "pro-choice", pro-LGBTQ and mildly anti-racist means that what you're doing is still "progressive" despite everything in the first three points(even though everything in the first three points does nothing but harm to women, people of color, and LGBTQ people).
JHan
(10,173 posts)in my reply http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8351111
3) Support for "pro-business economics" even though this means working people lose ground and the rich get richer;
I am all pro-business. We should point out exactly what the problems are and deal with them, not attack the position outright. How about we stop with the expensive occupational licenses that have prohibited and even killed small business ,leaving the market to predatory capitalists?
4) "A claim that being "pro-choice", pro-LGBTQ and mildly anti-racist means that what you're doing is still "progressive" despite everything in the first three points(even though everything in the first three points does nothing but harm to women, people of color, and LGBTQ people). "
That's just lying to people.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Usually "pro-business" is code for "we'll let corporations do whatever they want, without any real accountability.
JHan
(10,173 posts)We have a regulatory environment that hurts small business. In the zeal to regulate we've hurt small businesses.
The same regulatory environment designed to target big corporations has stifled small businesses. Big business can afford a legion of lawyers to skirt complicated/ complex regulatory guidelines and code, but small businesses don't have this luxury..Instead of obsessing so much about large corporations, we should give as much or even more attention to easing up the regulatory burden on small businesses.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)We should also be doing what we can to help the unemployed re-employ themselves by making it easy to start co-operative businesses. Chartering a National Co-op Bank would be a major step in THAT direction.
JHan
(10,173 posts)I'd want the Co-Op to embrace some financially savvy practices - like incorporating an investment arm. Commercial banks will still have the edge because of their range of services and products. But yeah, I'm all for a more diverse field when it comes to banking options.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)You don't seem to be able to hold up to the standard you have outlined in your op.
"Then again, when Rahm talks about "an economically robust message"...
...he means MORE trade deals and MORE tax cuts for the rich(and, if he really had his way, a REDUCTION in the minimum wage)." Ken Butch
I think there would be less of an issue if you held yourself to the standard outlined in your op.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And even then, it was about the position that individual expressed, not his hairstyle or choice of breakfast cereal.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)You forgot to mention hairstyle and cereal in your op.
It's commonplace.
"I don't support Rahm(he's a reactionary scumbag and I never liked him)" Ken Burch
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)of SUPPORTING Rahm in his comments.
You know me well enough to know how absurd the very thought of that is.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Long-time trend. It's also completely unnecessary to make your argument. But you know that.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)in order to respond.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)"I don't support Rahm(he's a reactionary scumbag and I never liked him)" Ken Burch
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)....are Democrats.
Call it criticizing, call it "bashing", whatever.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)by Democratic presidents.
OR if you think people should be punished just for being on public assistance.
George II
(67,782 posts)...in social spending, wait until early next year.
As it is, just today we got our Social Security / Medicare statements for next year. Social Security is going up 0.3% and Medicare is going up $7 a month (5.8%).
Net? For one of us exactly the same payment as this year, for the other about $3 a month increase. No biggie for us, but it could turn out to be an issue for others who are getting lower SS payments than us.
We'll see what it is in 2018.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)n/t.
George II
(67,782 posts)But why bring either of those up here in 2016?
elmac
(4,642 posts)it doesn't have what it takes to stop the fascists. They just gave up on their first fight, the government shutdown. I have no faith in the party nor this countries future.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)
spooky3
(34,441 posts)Giving people a label or attributing a trait to them, rather than spelling out the exact policy position or behavior they are taking and why you disagree with it, seems more likely to be questionable, seen as bashing, and unhelpful in generating a good discussion.
It's the same principle in when you manage people at work. The research says you shouldn't criticize someone based on a trait you think they have ("you're lazy"
; instead point out the behavior they are engaging in with specific examples that you want to change.
leftofcool
(19,460 posts)How's that for not bashing. Andy by the way, the DLC hasn't existed since about 2011.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's about the pointless insistence on continuing to try and restrict open discussion here.
We NEED an open, honest discussion. That's the only way we can move forward.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Just because.
And one should never have discipline. Sow discord and discontent, which is good for the soul.
Smh.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Obama has done a lot of good and is light years better than Chitolini.
But go back to his campaign in 2008...he hit hard at policing the abuses and fraud of Wall Street that led to the crash. He said he would hold them accountable, would prosecute offenders.
Then he did nothing of the sort. Not one Wall Street Big shot Bankster went to jail for obvious blatant textbook fraud on a massive scale. Not one. At best a few firms were fined 20 million or whatever, like fining most of us ten dollars with no admission of guilt. Are you kidding me?
The whole system is now based on legalized bribery. If I bribe somebody for personal gain I go to jail. But it is the way Congress works.
Again, the democrats are way better than the odious right but they are not the democrats of my youth or my parents youth. We have to get money out of politics.
.
FreakinDJ
(17,644 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)Republicans don't do that. They stand up for whoever it is no matter what. It helps them win that we engage in all this soul searching. We have to simplify things. All the bashing gets into the ether and makes people less supportive of Democrats. If they hear all that, something must be wrong. It really does not help elect candidates.
killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)I didn't think I bashed democrats or said anything that controversial.
If "don't bash democrats" means "don't dissent" then what good is this place?
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)They think they are protecting the party by keeping it unified, whatever that means. What they are really doing is crippling the party by ensuring we keep making the same stupid decisions over and over and over again.
Gothmog
(145,152 posts)I disagree strongly with your attempt at analysis. Deciding that some democrats are better than other democrats is not a smart move
Rex
(65,616 posts)I could really care less what they think since they are never right about anything under the sun.
coco22
(1,258 posts)and who this relates to the most is Harold Ford.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Criticizing Independents is not bashing Democrats. Bashing Independents is not bashing Democrats.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)Like for instance making up a lie about cuomo ratfucking teachout.
That's lying, creating conspiracies, bashing democrats.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,109 posts)responding to the nightmare the preceding two years has been, voting out any and all republicans, or the propaganda machine has won, for good.
The big problem for some voters, who are not educated or informed enough, is they will demand a perfect candidate whether that is for the House, Senate or White House.
Bernie has created a "model", template, and many folks seem unwilling to vote for anything less. This is suicide of course, but not sure how to tell them. Not Bernie's fault, mind you, but this did happen.