Bernie Sanders voters helped Trump become President

[applegrove]

Newsweek

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/bernie-sanders-voters-helped-trump-become-president/

"SNIP............


Bernie Sanders supporters switched their allegiance to Donald Trump in large enough numbers last November to sway the election for the real estate billionaire, according to an analysis of voter data released Tuesday by the blog Political Wire. Since Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton, much discussion has focused on the degree to which passionate Sanders supporters’ refusal to embrace Clinton led to the Republican winding up in the White House.

.....

According to the analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, fewer than 80 percent of those who voted for Sanders, an independent, in the Democratic primary did the same for Clinton when she faced off against Trump a few months later. What’s more, 12 percent of those who backed Sanders actually cast a vote for Trump.

The impact of those votes was significant. In each of the three states that ultimately swung the election for Trump—Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton was smaller than the number of Sanders voters who gave him their vote.

..............SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Maybe it was Trump's promise to undo NAFTA and like trade deals.

[Hoyt]

10. That would make them Nationalists. So yeah, that might be a factor and would fit in with other

Trump supporters like those running around Charlottesville.

[concreteblue]

490. Oh FFS....

"Bernie supporters are Nazis"
How did I know I would see that here?

[Hoyt]

502. Nationalists, American Firsters, screw the rest of worlders, Our jobs are more important than

otherers, no Vietnamese should have a chance to share in the world's wealth if it comes at the expense of Americaners, we taken the majority of the world's wealth and resources but we want morers, short-sighteders, or whatever you want to call it.

[Honeycombe8]

90. Maybe not a for-Trump vote exactly. A not-Clinton vote.

Susan Sarandon was refusing to vote for Clinton, on principle, she said. Then she talked about all that was wrong with Clinton. So maybe some of Sanders supporters made an anger vote, or a non-Clinton vote. Not really a for-Trump vote, exactly.

[yardwork]

113. What exactly was wrong with Clinton, according to the actress?

[sheshe2]

133. Crickets

Sad

[paleotn]

183. Yep. We've not heard much from Susie of late.

[Warren DeMontague]

217. She certainly has a fan club here!

She gets more mentions on DU than most celebrities get on IMDB.

[yardwork]

238. I didn't bring her up.

[Warren DeMontague]

172. "Sarandon"!

[QC]

182. You know, if you look in a mirror and say "Sarandon" three times.... n/t

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

306. hahahaha!

[disillusioned73]

419. lol..

nicely done...

[Docreed2003]

228. Easy Buddy...I figured that bottle of Jack you downed earlier would have done you in..lol!!

[EllieBC]

206. Her "principles" were informed by her privilege.

As a very wealthy white woman, she had NOTHING to lose. Trump wasn't going to change anything for her. She still has more than enough to keep herself housed, fed, clothed, and medical needs taken care of. She's not of child bearing age but even if she was, a woman of her means and position would still be able to very easily procure an abortion even if the choice became outlawed.

[delisen]

225. Sarandon is like a politically passionate 5th grade teacher

I think she should run for councilwoman in a medium sized midwestern town with growth issues.

She will whip 'em into shape. I'll always remember her towering over Dolores Huertes chastising her for supporting Clinton, and screaming about Monsanto.

Anyone who can get in the face of the leader of the Farmworkers Union and preach hatred of her political candidate should be able make get some small town humming again.

[JI7]

343. She Supported John Edwards so it wasn't about purity or principles

[Warren DeMontague]

358. Anyone who backed Edwards ... well, that's a historical embarassment, to say the least.

However, if we rewind back to 2008, Edwards was perceived to be the candidate out of the "big 3" - Clinton, Obama being the other 2- who was most speaking the language of economic concerns, "2 Americas" and all that.

So I'm not sure Sarandon supporting him back then proves anything except she was willing to support someone who had voted for the IWR- which was my red line, personally, being the reason I preferred Obama over the other two listed there.

[JI7]

359. it shows she is full of shit . it doesn't matter what edwards was seen as . yeah, he had dumbfuck

supporters who claimed he was something . that doesn't make it so. he had an actual voting record which leaned more right than clinton . he also joined a hedge fund which he excused by claiming it was to learn about poverty. and in 2004 attacked kerry for wanting to throw money at the problem which is what right wingers always do. and attacked bill clinton on the lewinsky crap.

i don't care what he was speaking. there was an actual record .

and this is all after what happened in 2000.

at least she will get her tax breaks and she can feel like she voted her consciencce and is above most others as morally superior without having to give up anything.

[Warren DeMontague]

371. Next time I see her, I will pass along your displeasure with her.

[JI7]

372. just tell her she is full of shit and i can see through it

just like jill stein, will pitt and others who love to profit from republicans in office .

[onit2day]

440. All those independent & republican voters for Bernie

went to Trump instead of Clinton...who knew. They give their prejudice away when they write "Bernie Sanders, an independent"...got that "independent" in there when he was a democrat when he ran in the primary. 2 things should always be taken into consideration in these discussions. 1) Trump ran as a democrat, saying everything dems believed in..."Bush lied us into a war, he would never cut or touch SS, Medicare or Medicaid, Get out of all these trade agreements, Health care for all that would include everyone etc etc etc. 2)the opposition had been bringing down Clinton for years with pure lies and propaganda surrounding her with so much baggage keeping her on the defensive making people believe she was a wall street democrat and a war hawk. Constantly trying to blame Bernie
Sanders supporters for her loss is beyond insulting and so stupid in its insinuations. Like I said, so many Bernie supporters were republicans and independents he was pulling away from Trump who never were going to vote for Hillary anyway. About 12% which begs the question: why would you even post such inflammatory crap? Jill Stein was actually in the GE and Trump won by the number of votes made for her. Bernie and his supporters brought the democratic party back to life. We even have progressives in charge of the DNC now and the most progressive party platform ever. All thanks to Bernie

[Lithos]

470. Not all of Bernie's supporters were Dems

The assumption Newsweek makes is that they were aligned more with the Democratic Party than with another message such as non-alignment. Bernie campaigned as an outsider in the Democratic Party; Trump did as well in the GOP. They would never have voted for Hillary.

The Newsweek article also sins by omission by suggesting in its headlines that these were the only voters which caused Hillary to lose. It conveniently overlooks the huge amount of Voter fraud (Systemic by Voter Purges, Comey, the Media favoritism of Trump - aka free ads, Barriers to voting, FUD, outright theft and of course the Russians) which occurred which likely took many more tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of votes out of the system. It also omits the faults of the DNC and Hillary campaigns to actively organize in key States even though the local heads were begging her team to show up.

That said, Susan Sarandon - you suck. Stick your PUMA up where the sun does not shine. There are big differences between the parties and you and your ego need to learn that. Work with us, do not sit on the sidelines complaining and doing nothing.

L-

[lark]

478. So, they really thought Drumpf was better?

Really? So 12% of Bernie voters are pure idiots? I'm sorry, I just can't fathom how anyone who supported Bernie's actual policies could think that orange assface was closer in his policies and actions that matter to him than Clinton, it's totally beyond me. I voted for Bernie in the primaries and most of my friends did too. 100% of us voted for Clinton in the GE, because we care about progressive ideals and she was closest to the pin.

Any person who calls themselves progressives, including Susan fucking Sarandon, are just liars and care more about their personal pique than the good of the country. They are part of the problem and make me sick.

[world wide wally]

492. I apparently overestimated the intelligence of Bernie voters.

[Honeycombe8]

503. Here you go. Here's a clip of her on "All In"

Right after the start of the clip, which is after the election, Chris Hayes shows a clip of her statements BEFORE the election. She still thinks her statements were valid, which goes something like this:

She doesn't know what she's going to do. She knows Bernie wants people to vote for Clinton, but that's because he has no ego. But some people just can't bring themselves to vote for Clinton. She thinks that a vote for Trump could bring the revolution, so to speak, that she feels is necessary. Like Lenin. If you were running for maintaining the status quo, when clearly everyone was calling for change, you're going to lose.

She self-describes as an activist. Activists don't always take pragmatic positions. Activists agitate. That's what they do. Until they get whatever it is they want.

This is the same thing that Ralph Nader and his supporters did in the 2000 election. It ended Nader's political career, to the extent he had one. It was all ego, IMO, and not concern for the country. Nader's position was that both parties, both candidates, were equally bad. That was a very close election. We know what happened, unfortunately.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

507. "She thinks that a vote for Trump could bring the revolution, so to speak,"

That attitude just makes me sick.

She means if we make things shitty enough maybe people will vote for Bernie Sanders or a like minded candidate the next go around.

Never mind the people who get hurt or that the US Supreme Court may lean further to the right. She's wealthy and won't get hurt.

[lark]

513. Yeah, drumpf wants to bring about a revolution.

But it's not the one she wants. I still have total disdain for her, assholes like her are why we have a total criminal traitor as the head person in our country. We have someone who wants to be a dictator and who's trying to turn us into Russia/Nazi Germany and who has through Russia, the electronic capability of making this happen. That's what she and the other non-Clinton voters totally whiffed on. Unless Mueller can take down the entire top of the Repug party, Drumpf, Pence, Ryan and McConnell, nothing will be done to stop Russia's stealing every election and the US will effectively cease.

[SunSeeker]

181. Hillary also promised to reform NAFTA. Why the fuck would anyone believe a Trump promise?

[LovesPNW]

2. .

.

[calimary]

460. Welcome to DU, LovesPNW!

And welcome to a most illuminating thread. We're capable of some real humdingers of discussion and debate and dispute, for sure.

[lapucelle]

3. You'd better duck...

[Honeycombe8]

91. He didn't write the article. nt

[lapucelle]

98. I didn't say he did. N/T

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. They sure did.

[Tom Rinaldo]

391. In 1968 RFK voters ended up voting for Gorge Wallace

I still remember those days vividly. After Bobby was assassinated some of his rural white support shifted to Wallace in the General Election. Most of his voters ended up voting for Hubert Humphrey, but not all of them.

I neither blamed the overwhelming majority of Kennedy voters nor Bobby Kennedy himself for the fact that he managed to win over some dubious voter to his side during his quest for the Presidency, who later defected to a non progressive candidate. I credit Bobby for ever having reached them in the first place. That is how societal change begins. Bobby's murder robbed our nation of a much brighter future.

[ollie10]

405. Sarandon is no RFK.

For one thing, after RFK won CA primary, he became the odds on favorite to get the nomination before he was shot.

Sarandon is just a spoiler.

Trump thanks her very much!

[Tom Rinaldo]

412. The voters in the rust belt talked about here have little in common with Sarandon

Her type wouldn't have voted for Wallace in 1968. RFK won over some of the right wing populist voters of his day before his death sent most of they scurrying over to someone like Wallace. Sanders to some extent did the same, and with him out of the race many of those types who had supported him reverted over to Trump. Leftists who refused to support Hilary fit a different profile and were a much smaller group.

I believe RFK was on his way to the Presidency before he got shot, and we would be living in a better world had he made it there. But there were those at the time who faulted him for even running against LBJ's heir apparent on the Democratic side. I wasn't one of them.

[calimary]

465. Welcome to DU, ollie10!

The sad thing, as I recall, was what America was denied, long-term, by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. What could have been. I wince when I say that (or think that), to this very day. I was a big fan of the Kennedys. I still am. I think Bobby would have been THE candidate, beating Hubert Humphrey to the nomination and going all the way.

It would have been a very sexy campaign. Absolute catnip, Viagra, caviar and champagne for the news biz. All the notes of a repeat of Kennedy vs. Nixon in 1960, the news media would have had multiple orgasms every day. It would have been utterly irresistible. RFK would have conjured up all the yearning among many Americans - for what might have been if his older brother had lived. I think he would have won. Which would have spared us Nixon, even if only for a term or two. Nixon probably would have tried again after another defeat (to another Kennedy).

The odd thing is, knowing what I know now, having seen so much of this play out because I've just been around this long, Nixon doesn't look quite so bad these days. Hell, george w. bush doesn't even look so bad these days! Compared with what we're stuck with, now, that is. I told my husband the other day that the happiest man in the country, at present, has got to be dubya. Because, thanks to trump, #43 now is no longer the proud holder of the "Worst President Ever" title, on many lists. And trump actually makes Nixon look like an oddly noble statesman. Ironic, isn't it!

[thesquanderer]

431. IOW, Sanders appealed to the needed Independents, whom Hillary could not win over.

Headline spin implies Sanders cost Hillary the victory. But I think it's that Sanders appealed to Dems and Independents (not all of them, of course, but most), Hillary appealed pretty much only to Dems and relatively few Independents. In the future, I hope we're more cognizant of nominating someone with strong appeal outside the base, because the base is not big enough to win. With her unfavorables outside the base, in theory, the writing was on the wall... we were only hoping to be saved by the fact that Trump's unfavorables outside his base were comparably bad.

[chwaliszewski]

448. Well put.

I voted Bernie in the primary and Hillary in the general. I wanted Bernie as president and didn't want Trump. My point being that I wasn't doing somersaults with the thought of Hillary being president (I've voted Democrat in the general election every year since 1990, btw) but I also know that having Dolt45 as president would be horrible. I doubt the accuracy of the article in that I think a lot of Bernie supporters didn't vote Trump but instead just didn't vote. Additionally, any of those votes that did migrate from Bernie to Trump I don't think Hillary ever had anyway so it's a moot point. My 2 cents.

[thesquanderer]

486. re: "any of those votes that did migrate from Bernie to Trump I don't think Hillary ever had anyway"

I agree.

[dajoki]

450. Comey cost Hillary the election

with his October 28 letter to congress. It never should have happened. All the polls had Hillary comfortably ahead before that, then it was over, even with the help * got from russia she would have won.

[thesquanderer]

487. That, too. There were many individual things that contributed...

...and the sum was too much to overcome.

[MarianJack]

469. Sorry, but Sanders would have taken a coast to coast THUMPING!

That's why so much Republican money went to his primary campaign. There would have been a smear campaign against him that he lacked the smarts, self discipline or mental toughness to ever withstand. I might not have been as bad as 1972 or 1984, but quite probably like 1988.

We nominated the best candidate.

PEACE!

[thesquanderer]

488. I think virtually every Clinton voter would have voted for Sanders over Trump. But...

...Sanders would also have picked up the Sanders voters who were not potential Clinton voters (i.e. the ones being discussed in this thread). Clinton voters plus Sanders voters beats Clinton voters alone, and so likely beats Trump.

IMO.

But I do have a hard time imagining many Clinton voters either voting for Trump or staying home, if Sanders had been the Dem nominee.

[MarianJack]

505. Yes, I would have held my nose and voted for Sanders,...

...but he was thoroughly un vetted and would've been buried in the negative avalanche that would've been inevitable.

Many of his primary voters were attempting to rat fuck the Democratic primary process.

Even before this revelation, I had ZERO interest in Sanders as a 2020 candidate. The road back to the White House does not run via a non Democrat who'll be79 on Election Day.

PEACE!

[calimary]

455. Yep.

He did more to divide us Democrats than anyone I've ever seen in all my 64 years. Even more than Ted Kennedy did, in weakening Jimmy Carter's case for reelection - so reagan could slither in and win. I love Ted Kennedy and deeply honor his memory, EXCEPT for that. He wound up doing mortal damage to our nation that's had VERY bad repercussions ever since. He gave wavering Democrats a reason NOT to stand with the standard-bearer. And it left us bitterly divided when we should have been in lockstep together, shoulder-to-shoulder, to head off the reagan onslaught and ensure Carter a second term. And, dammit, he held out 'til the bitter end, too, because baloney. Same thing for Eugene McCarthy. He did that, too, back in the late 60s, giving rebel Dems reason not to band together again, and support Hubert Humphrey. And so we went into the general election divided as a party, and it got us Richard Nixon.

I'm old enough to remember this. I watched it play out because I was a news junky very early-on. I will try to forgive Bernie Sanders, just as I did with Ted Kennedy, and Gene McCarthy before him. But I WON'T EVER forget. All three of them meant well, originally. But I suspect it soon became an ego thing, that led them to put themselves ahead of the good of the country and the party that would elevate and protect America and all the people in it, not just the rich, the white, and the privileged. Bernie Sanders did the same thing. Absolutely.

[Eliot Rosewater]

458. Thanks for this.

We wont be on the right track until we realize "why" people are doing what they are doing.

When we can admit to ourselves the REAL reason they are doing it, we will then and ONLY then be able to fix it.

Even if people like me are wrong about motives, what difference does it make anyway, motives dont matter if the results are the same.

I have said too much already.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

5. Puhhleeease!

[TubbersUK]

6. +1

[liquid diamond]

38. Thank you for that thoughtful

and well-researched rebuttal.

[lunamagica]

68. ...

[paleotn]

135. Care to argue with the data?

Would love to hear your detailed analysis.....if you have one.

[leftofcool]

156. I think your argument is with Raw Story

Or data

[virtualobserver]

7. Assuming that this is actually true....hopefully the DNC will learn a lesson from this....

If they are going to secretly favor one candidate over another....make sure that they keep it a secret.

[woolldog]

18. The lesson the DNC should learn is not

to allow non-Democrats to run in the Democratic primary.

[MrsCoffee]

28. Exactly.

Let's hope it sunk in.

[Tarheel_Dem]

33. +2

[liquid diamond]

34. This. If they allow another non-democrat

to run, they won't see a dime from me in 2020.

[Maven]

426. "Bernie supporters they cheated"

Whatever you need to tell yourselves. Oh, and, fuck JPR.

[lapucelle]

449. ...

[zentrum]

309. If they shut out people who

...caucus with them, help them pass their bills and who have traditional Democratic policies and values, they won't see a dime from me in 2020.

The Primary exists for a purpose. She won the Primary. That seems to not satisfy you. Tell the DNC to not allow the Primary process to go forward ever again and that they should just announce the candidate they want for the General.

Let the Republicans debate. The Dems apparently cannot tolerate it or the primary process. That's all Bernie did. Like O'Malley. Challenged her in the Primary. Then he supported her. Instructed his supporters to do so.

You don't see the Republicans re-litigating the existence of challengers to Trump in their primaries. Only the Democrats hold grudges against Primary challengers.

Wish we had had Warren. She would have won. A woman and a populist and always authentic.

[Tarheel_Dem]

365. "You don't see the Republicans re-litigating the existence of challengers to Trump..."

Wrong. You see it all the time, especially if you watch MSNBC & CNN. Ana Navaro, Jennifer Rubin, Charlie Sykes and all the other "Never Trumpers" re-litigate their primary everytime they appear on TV.

[BrooklynTech]

441. You Just Said the Magic Word

"authentic"

[liquid diamond]

446. I'm all for challengers in the Democratic primaries.

As long as they are democrats.

[liquid diamond]

447. $100 million wasted.

Democrats only in democratic primaries.

[Omaha Steve]

452. The socialist wing of the DU says

[GulfCoast66]

54. You win the internets today!!

[stopbush]

58. Bingo! We have a winner.

[lunamagica]

73. +3

[Gore1FL]

84. Because you'd rather see a third party split the vote in the general?

Brilliant strategy.

[missingthebigdog]

186. How would the outcome have been different?

If Bernie had run third party and split the vote, wouldn't we be exactly where we are now?

[NanceGreggs]

229. No, we wouldn't.

What Bernie supporters refuse to recognize is that had he run third party, he never would have gotten the attention he got as a potential nominee of a major party. Many voters would never even have heard of him.

Ergo, he wouldn't have raised the money he did, nor would he have had the huge rallies he held.

Bernie complained bitterly that he didn't get the media coverage he deserved (a debatable point). How much coverage do you think he would have gotten as "that crazy old guy from Vermont" who thinks he can beat both the Democratic and GOP nominees - and you know that's exactly how he would have been portrayed by the media, the odd time they mentioned him at all.

If you think Bernie would have gotten any traction without being on the (D) ticket, think again. He would have been "the wacky also-ran right" out of the gate. There would have been close-to-zero publicity, which would have resulted in close-to-zero donations and small rallies attracting a tiny fraction of the crowds he garnered as a (D) candidate.

That's nothing against Bernie - it's just the reality of a third party run by anyone.

[R B Garr]

494. THIS is it, exactly. He would not have gotten the traction

and he knew it. What a shame we had to endure all that damaging negativity.

[Gore1FL]

239. Bernie didn't split the vote. Instead he campaigned for and endorsed Clinton.

Third party candidates are a joke with mathematically implausible paths to victory. They can only be spoilers. Had Sanders run as a third party, threads like these might be justified. He didn't.

The way presidential elections work in this country is different than the way a parliament elects a prime minister. In a parliamentary system, the election is held and coalitions are created as a result. The design of our electoral college system inherently creates a two-part race. Therefore in our system we build our coalitions before the general election via the party nomination phase. In order to have the voting block we need for a general, we include left voices to participate in an effort to make sure our coalition has the votes to win.

Sure, we can tell people to fuck off over one litmus test or another. If we do, we lose their votes. One need only look at the microcosm that was DU in the general election phase to see why Clinton failed. Or for that matter, in threads like these today.

It's foolish to push away our natural allies. When we do we lose. It's that simple.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

311. Yes, and made Hillary a better candidate... how quickly they forget.

[Honeycombe8]

317. I wouldn't say he made HRC a better candidate.

She was well known by the whole country (part of her problem, actually), and had a loyal following and solid base. Someone endorsing her or not would have no effect on her status as a candidate. It helped that Sanders endorsed her, to the extent that it swayed some of his supporters to vote for her.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

318. Take it up with President Obama... I agree with him wholeheartedly.

[missingthebigdog]

335. Thanks for the little lesson on how our democracy works

And for the deft moving of the goalposts.

I believe we are skating on the edge of refighting the primaries here, so I will keep it brief:

Your post raised the issue of the "brilliant strategy" of allowing a third party to split the vote in the GE, implying that, had he not been permitted to run as a democrat, he might have run as a third party candidate and split the vote.

Now you seem to be saying he would not have done that, or if he had done that, he would have been considered a joke.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. She did not fail. She was brought down by an unprecedented set of circumstances. The Sanders campaign was only one piece of that.

As to your assertion that Sanders is a natural ally, much of his behavior, during the campaign and recently, calls that into question.

[Gore1FL]

370. Explaining how our system works isn't moving the goal posts

3rd Party Candidates have never been successful. That's because the system is one of two parties. Clinton isn't in the White House. She did not succeed. Sorry. To suggest otherwise ignores the reality of how the system works--and popular vote isn't part of that.

If you don't believe the left of political spectrum is not an inherent ally of the Democrats I can only laugh (or cry). Ignore them at your (our) peril. There is no simpler recipe for an 8-year Trump term.

[joshcryer]

464. It took him 2 months and 3 days to endorse Hillary Clinton after she won.

As opposed to Hillary Clinton endorsing and campaigning for Obama in 4 days after he won.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2681335

Sanders is a very significant reason for Clinton's loss. The far political left were played like fools. How do you even muster the logic behind getting a Sanders supporter to vote for Trump? It was all over social media. All over it. Young men unapologetically saying they'd never vote for Clinton and were Trump supporters.

[Gore1FL]

474. No Sorry.

The only reason Bernie did as well as he did was because of Clinton's negatives. It didn't help that her base was in "We'll do it without you Berniecrats!" mode rather than trying to unite the party.

You assume that some huge quantity of Sanders supporters voted for Trump. Surveys show that number to be between 6-12% of hiss supporters. Not only were those voters spread out across 50 states and DC, but also include people he energized to vote at all.

It's a bullshit divisive argument designed for and by people who need scapegoats.

But hey, let's complain about our natural allies and see if we can get more to leave our coalition, right! Great strategy!

[sheshe2]

92. +1000

[Warren DeMontague]

109. Yes, if only we had had a broad field of DEMOCRATS to choose from in 2016

You know, all two of them

[bettyellen]

171. You know, I thought we had a decent field compared to the competition....

Liked O Marlley too, wonder how he would have done since it looked like they couldn't find as much fake dirt in him as they could other Dems? Ugh.

[Warren DeMontague]

176. Sure, two apples is preferable to seventeen turds.

But I think we should all stop playing the game where no one can figure out why it just happened that O'Malley was the only other (D) in the race.

Come on.

[bettyellen]

185. Wasn't it five or six? A bunch dropped out early. Webb, Chaffee and ?

God, that was such an innocent time.

Do people really think people working at the DNC aren't going to have opinions? That three decent candidates isn't good enough? I don't get why anyone would think it comparable to the shit show that was the GOP primary.

[Warren DeMontague]

215. The GOP field is irrelevant. I'm suggesting that if we want to look at what WE can do better

next time, maybe more choices should be something we consider.

[bettyellen]

247. I think it felt that way only because a couple dropped out very early- people forget they were ever

there. I thought it was unusual that so many dropped so early.

[Warren DeMontague]

276. I suspect if Senator Warren had run, Bernie wouldn't have gotten in.

And then all this stuff about the damage caused by non-Democrats being involved in the process would be moot.

[bettyellen]

282. I can't get away with rehashing the primary here, as even when I talk about the GE I get frivolous

Alerts. But Warren is and was a Dem (although not always) and was about supporting the party. Most Dems are, so yeah.

[Warren DeMontague]

286. I'm focused on the future, anyway.

And at the risk of repeating myself, more than anything I want a big broad field and a vigorous, issues-based debate for 2020.

[bettyellen]

294. So do I. I think a bigger field would have been better but not clown car big like the GOP.

That shit was ridiculous.

[Fresh_Start]

119. +3 nt

nt

[uponit7771]

139. +1

[BlueMTexpat]

149. +4 or so!

[Skittles]

161. correct

[Sparkly]

197. + whatever -- I agree.

[jrthin]

235. Yep! Let's hope it's a lesson learned. nt

[progressoid]

245. So he should have run as an independent and split the vote even more?

[brush]

268. No national platform of the Dem party equals no funds for big rallies...

Last edited Wed Aug 23, 2017, 11:32 PM - Edit history (1)

no national TV debate appearances, no name on the Dem primary ballots, no name recognition because of all that — yeah right, running as an independent would've split what vote?

That miniscule vote between him and Stein?

[progressoid]

310. I've lost count of the number of threads that blame third party candidates for our losses.

Hell, start a fuck you Ralph Nader thread and you'll still get 50 or 60 recs. Third party candidates are easy targets for blame.

Nobody wants to talk about the millions of Democrats who didn't vote or voted for Drumpf. They want a scape goat. And Bernie is it.

[brush]

313. Come on, Bernie running as an independent would have had litte impact...

Last edited Thu Aug 24, 2017, 12:21 AM - Edit history (1)

on the election.

You have to know that, just as Stein had little impact.

I just responded to the idea that him running as an independent would've split the vote. That's just not the case. Few would've even been aware of his campaign.

He ran as a Dem and had an effect on the vote sure enough, but the actual direct scapegoat if you want to talk about it, IMO, was Comey.

Some Sanders supporters might have switched to trump but Comey's letter is what swung the election in those 3 states. And Hillary still got more votes.

[Justice]

269. Agreed

[thesquanderer]

430. I'd say the lesson is to not nominate someone with almost no appeal outside the Dem party. (n/t)

[emulatorloo]

453. Clinton's favorables were in the high 60's when she left State. Not just Democrats

[Cuthbert Allgood]

435. I don't get it.

So non-Democrats were drawn in to the Dem party to vote for Sanders. They didn't want to vote for Clinton. If Sanders had not run, those people would never have been in the Dem party and Trump would still have won. It was Clinton's job to make sure they stayed and voted for her, it would seem.

[Weekend Warrior]

39. Their intellectual reaction was to vote for Trump?

Yeah. That's the reason.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

66. It obviously was not based on intellectual reasoning. Not based on policies.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

74. Wonder if Hillary will mention this in her book splainin "What Happened"?... Doubtful.

[lunamagica]

101. She's not making the claim. It was an analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey

[Warren DeMontague]

170. I wonder if she'll speculate as to why the only other Democrat in the primary race

was mostly unknown Martin O'Malley.

Gee, what an amazing coincidence, that so many big name Democrats all decided to stay out of the race. Fascinating!

[emulatorloo]

349. You seem to forget HRC's favorability numbers were in the high 60's when she left State

I would imagine that might have something to do with why some Dems chose not to enter the primary.

Clinton Webb Chafee O'Malley Sanders. Not just O'Malley. No that is not a "wide field" but it was not just a couple.

[Warren DeMontague]

352. Could be.

I had pretty much assumed she was gonna be the nominee for years, so did a lot of other people.

But let's be honest, here. Sanders only got in the race after it became apparent Warren wasn't going to run. Because there was a strong desire for a candidate perceived to be on the more progressive side of things- I mean, Webb and Chafee weren't gonna fill that valence.

I can't speak to what went on behind the scenes- I've read accounts, I know what my hunches are, but it's irrelevant at this point. More important, I think going forward for 2020 it's vital that we have a big, broad, diverse bench and a vigorous discussion of issues.

[emulatorloo]

353. Yes agreed on Warren and Sanders scenario you've laid out.

Was very excited when Sanders announced because he articulates and explains progressive values, ideas, and policy goals so well.

I think we are going to have a lot of great candidates in 2020.

[Warren DeMontague]

355. I do, too.

I'm excited about Booker, Harris, Warren, Newsom, Inslee... just to name a few off the top of my head.

I like Al Franken but I don't think he wants to do it.

Either way, I agree.

[emulatorloo]

356. ...

[joshcryer]

467. There was a social media psyops war going on at that time.

If you read reddit at the time there were literally groups of Sanders "supporters" claiming Trump was a better candidate because he lost. But I suspect, which is why I use the word "psyops" a lot of it was social engineering by certain interested groups.

[joeybee12]

57. BS

That is all. Jpr would appreciate this, but not rational people

[Skittles]

166. "BS" indeed

[virtualobserver]

193. Unfortunately it is not BS

They needed to be transparent, or they needed to be fair. They would have been better off not letting him run if they were not going to be fair.

[Squinch]

196. How, exactly, did they do that? If you are going to say Brazile gave Clinton debate questions,

no one ever seems to have read the rest of that email that was supposed to be such a bombshell of corruption.

The rest of the email said that Brazile told Clinton, during the Flint Michigan debate that occurred during the Flint water crisis, that there would be a question about the Flint water crisis.

That is the big smoking gun. Are you really gong to say that this constitutes favoring one candidate over another?

[virtualobserver]

205. If you aren't familiar with all of the things that the DNC did to favor a particular candidate.....

I won't convince you of it now.

[Squinch]

212. Name three.

[virtualobserver]

233. The three biggest....

1. the biggest is the revealed debate question.....not because the question decided the primary, not only because it was a confirmation of favoritism toward a particular candidate that had already been suspected....but this was actual cheating, which made it worse. Plus, Donna Brazile initially denied that she had done it.

2. and 3. are related to the debates

2. small number of debates, scheduled 8 months later than the debates in 2008. Since only one candidate had name recognition, this had a big impact on all of the lesser known candidates.

3. a ruling by the DNC that local debates that were not sanctioned by the DNC could not be attended by candidates. If they did, they would not be allowed to participate in the sanctioned debates. DWS refused absolutely to add additional debates.

Then later in the process, when Bernie was gaining momentum....when Hillary wanted more debates, suddenly DWS was on board with them.

[NanceGreggs]

250. Do you honestly believe ...

... that Hillary didn't anticipate that there would be a question about the Flint situation? Seriously?

It was all over the news, and HRC had visited there while on the campaign trail. Do you seriously believe that had Brazile not told her the subject would be raised, Hillary would have been unprepared to respond?

[virtualobserver]

260. That isn't the point.

The question that we are debating is why some of these people voted for Trump.

DNC showing favoritism to one candidate was offensive to some Bernie voters who were new, or who had no affiliation.

The image of the Democratic party is important. We want people to believe that we are "little d democratic" as well.

[NanceGreggs]

270. You brought it up ...

"the biggest is the revealed debate question"

I'll ask again: Do you seriously think that HRC didn't fully anticipate a question about Flint? Do you think Bernie didn't anticipate it as well?

This is just silliness, e.g. "Hey, Hill, there's going to be a question about the economy - just a heads-up, because you probably didn't realize the topic would be raised."

[virtualobserver]

275. It isn't just about how effective the cheating was....

but every article that I read indicated that she forwarded MULTIPLE questions.

Plus she initially denied doing it.

Not a good way to build trust.

[NanceGreggs]

287. This is the first time ...

... I've heard about "multiple questions" being forwarded - any links?

I appreciate the irony of Bernie supporters insisting that he was "cheated", the nomination was "stolen" from him, etc. - and yet it's often the same people who insist that Hillary's GE loss was completely her own fault, and her supporters should stop blaming that loss on anyone or anything else.

[virtualobserver]

300. I don't think that it was stolen.

Donna Brazile did cheat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/donna-brazile-is-totally-not-sorry-for-leaking-cnn-debate-questions-to-hillary-clinton/?utm_term=.84c58d8ec705

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/donna-brazile-wikileaks-cnn.html

DWS tilted the playing field, and it didn't just affect Bernie. That does not mean that I somehow "know" that Bernie would have won the nomination if it was a level playing field. I simply believe that he would have won.

As for the GE loss, every candidate has a unique set of circumstances that they have to deal with.....If they lose, it is always technically their "fault", because they couldn't handle whatever occurred.

Personally though, I think that the "loss" occurred because of the barriers that Republicans place on voting. They do everything in their power to throw people off of the rolls, create long lines in certain districts, create ID checks or implement last minute location changes and precinct consolidations and splits that force the use of provisional ballots. Beyond that, I always worry that I can't really know if vote counts themselves aren't being hacked.

[emulatorloo]

327. Tad Devine said Brazile did a lot for Bernie as well n/t

[Squinch]

384. One question. About the water crisis in Flint during the Flint debate. And the Times article

quotes the CNN debate moderator as saying that Brazile had no access to the questions in advance of the debate.

Your sources support my argument that the whole "debate question" debacle was a bot trap and a certain segment of Democrats fell for it hard.

[virtualobserver]

392. so why did she email the Hillary campaign and say that " a woman with a rash"....

will be asking a question?

[Squinch]

383. No. None of the articles mentioned multiple questions. And Brazile probably initially denied

doing it because no one in their right mind would have thought a mention that there would be a question about the water crisis in the Flint debate constituted giving away questions.

Those who bought into that nonsense fell for a bot trap.

[virtualobserver]

390. yes, they did mention questions- plural

from the Wash. Post article - the title says "questions"----plural

from the article itself - "Donna Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary - plural in both cases

What she said was, that "a woman with a rash" would be asking a question - which would allow Hillary to prepare a very specific "spontaneous" response.

This was not nonsense.

[Squinch]

394. One question is all anyone has ever referred to, and it is all the source email ever discussed.

Brazile, who had no access to the debate questions, said that a woman in a rash would ask about the Flint water crisis in the debate in Flint Michigan.

That is what the bots based their whole conspiracy theory on. And the outcry that followed sent the dumber among us directly into a vote for Trump(R) and put us in the situation we are in today.

Those who used the event as a chance to vent their Hillary hate spleen handily handed the presidency over to Trump(R).

[virtualobserver]

397. argue with the article

it says questions and topics - plural

[melman]

396. So basically what you're saying is

The reason she lied is probably because who could have thought giving away questions is actually giving away questions.

And of course, when someone might have anticipated the question anyway it totally doesn't count.


Wow that is some argument.


And by her own(very belated) admission she shared multiple 'topics'. Topics with and 'S' on the end. As in plural.

“Among the many things I did in my role as Democratic operative and DNC vice chair ... was to share potential town hall topics with the Clinton campaign,” writes Brazile.

“My job was to make all our Democratic candidates look good, and I worked closely with both campaigns to make that happen,” she wrote. “But sending those emails was a mistake I will forever regret.”

A pair of emails from March 2016 showed Brazile advising Clinton’s communications director that Hillary would get questions about the death penalty at one debate and the Flint, Mich., water crisis at a second.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donna-brazile-finally-admits-giving-debate-questions-clinton-article-1.3002221

[Squinch]

399. All your article adds is that she shared "potential town hall topics" with the Clinton campaign, but

Tad Devine readily admitted that she did the same with the Sanders campaign. There is nothing wrong with that.

[Squinch]

382. The favoritism was imagined. And the vote for Trump(R) was revenge for their little fever dream.

Those who voted for him were idiots before, in their manufacture of things to hate Hillary over, and idiots while they pulled the lever for Trump(R).

[virtualobserver]

386. it wasn't imagined, it was blatantly obvious....

and then it was confirmed.

[emulatorloo]

454. Nope, it was Wikileaks spin. "Confirmed" by clickbait exploitive bloggers and Russia Today

[Squinch]

381. That is nonsense.

If the debates were earlier, people would have said the fix was in against the lesser known candidates. As it was, they were later and people STILL say the fix was in against them.

And the DNC didn't sanction non-DNC debates. Isn't that remarkable! Someone must be cheating!

Ridiculous.

[Lil Missy]

277. No, the DNC should never let a non-Democrat run as a Democrat.

[BainsBane]

325. What lesson? Only allow white men to vote?

I am sick to fucking death of this self-entitled bullshit. The dates on those DNC emails were changed. It's not bad enough we spent the election inundated with Kremlin propaganda, but you repeat it even today--propaganda created and disseminated by Kremlin to put a White Nationalist in the White House.
You have to know those emails were changed. Eichenwald has reported on it. http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044 Those emails were written long after it was clear Sanders had LOST.

Almost every email that set off the “rigged” accusations was from May 2016. (One was in late April; I’ll address that below.) Even in the most ridiculous of dream worlds, Sanders could not have possibly won the nomination after May 3—at that point, he needed 984 more pledged delegates, but there were only 933 available in the remaining contests. And political pros could tell by the delegate math that the race was over on April 19, since a victory would require him to win almost every single delegate after that, something no rational person could believe. Sanders voters proclaimed that superdelegates, elected officials and party regulars who controlled thousands of votes, could flip their support and instead vote for the candidate with the fewest votes. In other words, they wanted the party to overthrow the will of the majority of voters. That Sanders fans were wishing for an establishment overthrow of the electorate more common in banana republics or dictatorships is obscene. (One side note: Sanders supporters also made a big deal out of the fact that many of the superdelegates had expressed support for Clinton early in the campaign. They did the same thing in 2008, then switched to Obama when he won the most pledged delegates. Same thing would have happened with Sanders if he had persuaded more people to vote for him.)

This is important because it shows Sanders supporters were tricked into believing a false narrative. Once only one candidate can win the nomination, of course the DNC gets to work on that person’s behalf. Of course emails from that time would reflect support for the person who would clearly be the nominee. And given that their jobs are to elect Democrats, of course DNC officials were annoyed that Sanders would not tell his followers he could not possibly be the nominee. Battling for the sake of battling gave his supporters a false belief that they could still win—something that added to their increasingly embittered feelings.

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.

And even if the dates hadn't been changed. How do you figure the views of a couple of DNC staffers changed the votes of 4 million Democrats? The DNC, whose entire fundraising total for the year, including for the Convention, was only 1/10 of what Sanders' was for the primary alone. How exactly do you think those DNC staffers convinced 16 million Democrats to vote for Clinton, to ignore $180 million dollars worth of corporate ad buys from the Sanders campaign? What exactly is this magical influence the DNC has?

Then there is the fact that the people claiming DNC staffers "stole" the primary from Bernie, denying his birthright, deny that the multi-billion dollar Kremlin operation had any influence. Such an argument is more than hypocritically, it's morally and intellectually bankrupt. It reveals an impenetrable sense of entitlement that denies and disrespects the rights of the majority of Democratic voters, who just coincidentally are overwhelmingly people of color and women and therefore have substantially less wealth and privilege than themselves.

What the data in the article demonstrates is that Sanders attracted the support of white nationalists and others who identified race as their primary area of concern. Those are the people who voted for Trump. If they moved from Sanders to Trump, it's because they preferred a Nazi enabling, sexual predator and narcissist over a candidate and party that sought to represent all Americans rather than just the white male middle class. Now you may badly want to see those voters dominate the party. You way prefer a party of tiki torch carrying Nazis to one comprised of women and people of color. But that's not the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is one that values the votes of all Americans, not just the white, affluent, and privileged.

Bernie ran on the Democratic ticket by running against the Democratic Party. People who hated the Democratic party and ESPECIALLY Democratic voters could well have found him appealing, but that doesn't mean they were ever going to vote for a Democrat. There are some right-wing fucks who were once Democrat but now pretend to be progressive, who hate progress and hate the fact the Democratic party does not focus on white men to the exclusion of everyone else. The say the Dem party left them, and they are right. It left them in 1965. It left them again with the election of a black man as president, but when they nominated a woman, that was too much for the knuckle-draggers to take.

If those fascists who voted for Trump (or Stein, Johnson, or did a ratfuck write in) point to Kremlin doctored emails as an excuse, they are LYING. They voted for Trump because they hate people of color, because their limp dicks shriveled up when faced with a strong, competent woman, 1000x more accomplished than they will ever be.

You have had every opportunity to stop spreading Kremlin propaganda. The truth about those emails has been known for a very long time now, as long as a year. Yet you insist on repeating lies, lies propagated by the Kremlin in order to undermine American democracy and install a White Nationalist regime in the White House. Yet you repeat it anyway, with no concern for truth, with no concern for the fact that it is one of the many lies that put a Nazi in the White House. And here you are, insisting the DNC ought to "learn the lessons" so as to win back the Nazi vote.

November, 2016, America stood at a historic crossroads. 67 million of US stood up against fascism. The rest chose fascism. They chose racism and sexual predation and narcissism because that is who they are.
When people wonder how Germans could allow someone like Hitler to rise to power, they need look no further than this past year. And here you are, repeating the very propaganda that put him there, even after the tiki torch mobs and deaths from hate crimes. It is unconscionable, reprehensible.

[BainsBane]

424. WRONG, FALSE

That is the most tired, weak, and transparent excuse. It's also false. This is from the very same article that talked about the emails altered by the Kremlin, the very emails you again rely on.

The first big criticism this year was that the DNC had sponsored “only” six debates between Clinton and Bernie Sanders in some sort of conspiracy to impede the Vermont senator. This rage was built on ignorance: The DNC at first announced it would sponsor six debates in 2016, just as it had in 2008 and 2004. (In 2012, Barack Obama was running for re-election. Plus, while the DNC announced it would sponsor six debates in 2008, only five took place.) Debates cost money, and the more spent on debates, the less available for the nominee in the general election. Plus, there is a reasonable belief among political experts that allowing the nominees to tear each other down over and over undermines their chances in the general election, which is exactly what happened with the Republicans in 2012.Still, in the face of rage by Sanders supporters, the number of DNC-sponsored debates went up to nine—more than have been held in almost 30 years. Plans for a 10th one, scheduled for May 24, were abandoned after it became mathematically impossible for Sanders to win the nomination.
11_14_democrats_myths_02

Notice that these were only DNC-sponsored debates. There were also 13 forums, sponsored by other organizations. So that’s 22 debates and forums, of which 14 were only for two candidates, Clinton and Sanders. Compare that with 2008: there were 17 debates and forums with between six and eight candidates; only six with two candidates, less than half the number in 2016. This was a big deal why?The next conspiracy theory embraced by Bernie-or-Busters was that the DNC-sponsored debates were all held on nights no one would watch. Two took place on a Saturday, two on Sunday, three on a Thursday, one on a Tuesday and one on a Wednesday. In 2008, the DNC scheduled two on a Monday (one was canceled), and one each on a Sunday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Thursday. Not including any of the 2016 forums, there were 72 million viewers for the DNC-sponsored debates, almost the same amount—75 million viewers—as there were for every debate in 2008, including those sponsored by other organizations. And those Saturday debates, which Sanders fans howled no one would watch, were the third- and fifth-most watched debates (one of them was 3 percent away from being the fourth-most watched).In other words, the argument that the DNC rigged the debates is, by any rational analysis, garbage.
http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

I could say a lot more, but I'll bite my tongue.


https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029507592

[krawhitham]

363. Like don't let a non democrat run for the democratic nomination

[NurseJackie]

374. Yes indeed! That's a good one.

[virtualobserver]

377. If you aren't going to run a fair race, you might as well just eliminate primaries.

Smoke filled rooms would solve the "non-Democrat" problem.

[Squinch]

385. If many Dem voters are going to listen to bot conspiracies that let them express their

hate of one candidate, we might as well just give Trump(R) a presidency for life.

[virtualobserver]

393. your denial of what the DNC actually did....

makes it hard to discuss this with you.

[Squinch]

395. Conspiracy theories ginned up by bots that resulted in an outcry against a good candidate by her

own team, and that contributed a great deal to the presidency of a madman, make this a subject that breaks my heart.

[virtualobserver]

398. listening to Democrats denying reality breaks my heart.

I expected much more from DWS and the DNC.

They proved to be far more cynical than I ever imagined.

[Squinch]

400. I see the cynicism coming from an entirely different location. And I see a lot of dumb people

who fell for it.

And it is THAT cynicism, and that stupidity on the part of certain Dems, and not the DNC, that gave us the Trump(R) presidency.

[virtualobserver]

401. alienating voters is a bad strategy

My hope is that the DNC will not do that in the future.

[Squinch]

402. I guarantee that no matter what the DNC does, certain idiots will be alienated because they

like to be alienated. They'll believe anything they are told against the Dem candidate and they will toddle off to the dark side as they did this time. The problem is that this time the bots brought enough more into their camp that it affected the results and gave us the disaster we are now in.

As a voter, listening to bot nonsense and not seeing past one's nose is a bad strategy. I hope the stupider among us in the Democratic party will not do that in the future.

[virtualobserver]

403. Is Martin O' Malley a bot? Did he toddle off to the dark side.....

when he said this?


Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley laid into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in a speech to its annual summer meeting for what he called a “rigged” primary process in Hillary Clinton’s favour.

“The Republicans stand before the nation, malign our president’s record of achievements, denigrate women and immigrant families, double down on trickle-down, and tell their false story,” the former Maryland governor said. “We respond with crickets, tumbleweeds and a cynical move to delay and limit our own party debates.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/28/martin-omalley-democratic-national-committee-hillary-clinton-primaries

[JHan]

432. Oh that's why he lost the primaries too?

Because there weren't enough debates ?

Cool story.

[emulatorloo]

459. Wikileaks dishonest spin isn't reality. It is spin.

As you know, Bernie Sanders said he lost the primary fair and square.

[Hoyt]

8. Was there really any doubt? Everything in the world was against Clinton -- Comey, Russia, Nazis,

etc. Yet she still won popular vote and would have won electoral vote except for OP, Comey, Russia, racists, etc.

[Egnever]

11. She was running against the most despised politician to ever run

A sandwich could have won the popular vote.

[ismnotwasm]

15. Bullshit

[Egnever]

16. Which part?

You aren't seriously contesting the fact that there has never been a politician running for president with higher negatives .

Or the fact that she was the second most negatively perceived to ever run?

Those numbers are well documented.

[ismnotwasm]

36. The part about a sandwich.

It's annoying.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

71. Insulting too.

[JHan]

51. He also beat a slew of republican "talent" conservative media raved about for years.

[ismnotwasm]

56. He's talking about sandwiches

Not actual political analysis

[JHan]

61. I read lol. ....... SIGH

I can't tell you the number of times I have had to repeat that to people: The republican primary was crowded with so called republican stars.. including the affable Kasich.

[ismnotwasm]

79. That must be the mayo in the sandwich

[JHan]

154. lol!

[sheshe2]

103. Bolonga?

bologna

[ismnotwasm]

117. And mayo

Lots and lots of mayo

[sheshe2]

129. My....

Ya ...mayo.

[Ligyron]

131. On white bread.

[ismnotwasm]

142. Yup.

[JHan]

187. I need my mayo seasoned...

minced seasonings: a bit of minced garlic, canned chipolte and just a touch of chilli powder or sauce..with the mayo.. blended up.

If the sandwich consists of seasoned mayo.. he may be on to something.

[ismnotwasm]

191. Yum--That's sounds good. Plain mayo is pretty dull

Not particularly healthy for you either, it's best to have a taste for variety

[JHan]

195. I am an authentic hipster.. I make my own.

Very easy with an immersion blender - like SUPER EASY.

I can't eat mayo plain.

[ismnotwasm]

211. My daughter does that too--she's cooks real good and real healthy

I don't like mayo plain, I'll mix a little brown mustard in with it.

[JHan]

214. mmmm I love brown mustard..

and grainy mustard.

I make my own mayo mainly for the taste - homemade mayo tastes sooo much better.

[ismnotwasm]

221. I'm thinking about baking some bread

A nice whole grain brown bread--yummy, And I won't spoil a bit of it with plain 'ol boring mayo.

Mayo, your time in the sun as sandwich king is past.

[JHan]

224. very wise! I'd rec your post if I could :P

[George II]

291. Sounds like pumpernickel.

And this (excuse the xxx language)!

[George II]

251. Reminds me of my analogy elsewhere.....

....of a sandwich overstuffed with baloney between two pieces of stale white bread.

[ismnotwasm]

271. Yes

[kerry-is-my-prez]

62. A lot of it was an emotional reaction probably. Anger. Maybe some didn't like a female candidate.

There is a reason we haven't had a female candidate before.

[Not Ruth]

82. Does not seem to be keeping the 3 big names for 2020 from holding back

[kerry-is-my-prez]

178. We shall see when the election happens.

[lunamagica]

106. It is well documented that MILLIONS more voter for her over trump

[Egnever]

207. Her whole margin came from California

A state that will always vote D Obama had the same spread.

We can't win the presidency with California alone unless we eliminate the electoral college.

Take California out of the mix and she loses by 3 million.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

308. Yes, the electoral college must go... someone needs to lead the fight for this.

[lunamagica]

102. Another well-thought and reasonable reply

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

108. A PBJ for sure... but ham? idk

[paleotn]

152. Tell that to rest of the Rethuglican field...

Shit Stain struck a racist nerve and won the support of the white snowflakes. They're sooooooo oppressed, you know. The assholes and neophytes had a tantrum during the Dem primary and the general and now they've got to pay for it....and everyone else for that matter. Shades of the Nader morons in 2000.

[Egnever]

199. It wasn't like it was hard

He took the racist block. 30% of the Republicans enough to take a divided field


The Republicans split their vote and the racists won. The same 30% still support him.

This board seems to want to rewrite history by pretending he blew out the Republican field. He didn't break 40% till his competition had mostly dropped out. By that time it was too late.

Hillary should have won and likely would have if not for all the hijinks . That said people who would not have voted Republican took a chance because they hated Hillary.

Many regret it now but it is too late.

Still the second most disliked candidate to ever run barely took the popular vote and that margin almost entirely came from California a state that would vote for a ham sandwich if it had a D next to it over any Republican.

Pretending Hillary lost only because of the Comey/ Russia stuff is dangerous she was a deeply flawed candidate deservedly or not. A candidate that did not have the baggage she did would have taken it.

In a change election we sent the consummate insider as our standard bearer. It was a catastrophic mistake. Still it was only 240k votes that handed Trump the white house. A candidate with lower negatives would have easily covered that spread.

[Control-Z]

230. Your post is almost entirely fact free.

Nice.

[Egnever]

295. Which part do you dispute?

I am happy to provide you links.


Maybe you can't dispute it so you went with fake news instead?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

315. Your points are well taken.

[KTM]

241. +1

Well, he hovered around 40%, barely broke it in some polls, but that looks correct. Once the field narrowed he locked it up.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/national-primary-polls/republican/

And the bit about first and second highest negatives looks right too...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/

Not sure why this is being called fact free.

[bettyellen]

273. He was not a politician and the media fawned on him and made him a star.

[emulatorloo]

332. He was a star before he started. He's been a celebrity for years.

Sadly, The guy has charisma that has his fanbase mesmerized. Dunno why folk keep pretending he doesn't have charisma.

[bettyellen]

422. He's repulsive. I tend to think he's like looking at a train wreck but all publicity is

Good publicity- in that it makes him seem to be someone significant. I guess his rep as a person supersedes the TV show in NYC. We've always known who he was, sadly the rest of the country looks at him as a star- believed his schtick.
He's a media personality. Stars have talent.

[emulatorloo]

329. Trump had 100% name recognition and charisma

Not a charisma that appeals to you and I, but clearly appeals to his devoted cult.

I still gotta wonder. This Newsweek article is not about you or any DUer. All DU Sanders supporters voted for the Dem in the general.

Why so angry and defensive about an article that isn't at all about you? It makes no sense.

[Egnever]

339. I am defensive?

Because I said Trump was the most despised candidate to ever run for president and could have been beaten by a sandwich with a D?

Um ok.

[emulatorloo]

341. No I meant you are defensive about an article that isn't about you or any of us Bernie primary

Supporters.

DU Sanders primary supporters voted for the Dem nominee in the General.

We are the majority of Sanders supporters.

This Newsweek article is about the >minority< of Sanders supporters who didn't vote for the Dem in the General.

So why get so angry about an article that isn't about you or our fellow DU Sanders supporters?

[Egnever]

342. I wasn't replying to the article

Couldn't really care less about the article.

I was not a big fan of Bernie or Hillary. I voted for Hillary in the general but sat the primary out cause I honestly didn't care wich of them won.

I was replying to the idea that winning the popular vote was an achievement when she was running against Cheeto Jesus.

Her popular vote lead came almost entirely from California. Getting a democrat elected in California is not a heavy haul.

Throw out california and it was almost a dead heat.

[emulatorloo]

346. Ok

My error following the thread chain. Thanks for the reply clearing it up for me.

[gopiscrap]

75. and fucking cheating and vote rigging

on the republicans part in 3 states

[BigmanPigman]

9. I am pissed off at a friend who voted for Sanders.

I told her she helped 45 to win and her excuse was, "I thought Hillary was going to win". Fuck that!

[Salviati]

145. Hopefully this has impressed upon her that there are times and places for symbolic votes...

... and the general election is not one of them.

[Skittles]

163. that is sheer stupidity right there

[redstatebluegirl]

421. Then there are the ones who were so mad Bernie did not win the nomination

that they either stayed home, voted for Stein or Trump because they "wanted to blow up the system". I know a couple of those, both in their 20's.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

12. or the 50% of registered voters

who couldn't be bothered to vote. They might have had something to do with it too,,,,,,

[Weekend Warrior]

88. +1 GOTV nt

[progressoid]

256. Yup. But it seems people here would rather pick at that old scab

rather than let it heal.

[Gothmog]

13. Thanks for posting this

[Weekend Warrior]

14. This is really going to get nasty when Sanders is the first to throw his hat in the ring.

First big name, anyway. I think three others are already in.

Our common enemy is Trump. We can't lose sight of that.

[liquid diamond]

43. He is not running again.

[Weekend Warrior]

49. He is spending more time outside of the state he represents than in it.

I'm of the opinion he's already running.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/events

[liquid diamond]

59. He will be too old.

He can't attract enough POC to vote for him. He has pissed of millions of Americans and former supporters with his post primary behavior. No way he runs again.

[SaschaHM]

72. You listed reasons why he wouldn't win the nomination.

Those aren't reasons why he wouldn't run again and try to drag some more concessions out of the eventual runner. Politically, he made off pretty well even though his supporters will most likely suffer under 4 years of Trump/Pence.

[riversedge]

96. you made a good distinction in your first sentence and I agree. As far as

your second sentence-unless one is well off, most will suffer to some degree. then their is the environment, the arts, the sciences, etc etc. It all add up. sigh.

[liquid diamond]

157. The listed reasons show

that he would be wasting his time to do so. He isn't stupid.

[Weekend Warrior]

77. As I said, I'm of the opinion he is running.

If he was too old now he would have been to old last year(When he would have been running in the general)

If there are multiple solid names going at it no one will have to depend on an individual demographic. It's not a hinderance to entry, anyway.

Next time won't be a two person race. Those angered simply won't be voting for him. Again, not an impediment to entry.

[sheshe2]

114. 80 is to old and tired.

I am almost 65 and this is not ageist.

[Weekend Warrior]

134. I didn't say it was an ageist argument.

Our current President is six years older than you and four younger than Sanders. Ego's are not exclusively dependent on age.

[Susan Calvin]

136. It's not just numbers,it's the individual person.

I know a couple of 80-year-olds who can run circles around me, and around people 20 years younger than me. I'm 65.

[rpannier]

150. Jerry Brown

Governor of California. Governor of the 6th largest economy in the world. Born 1938.
Bernie Sanders b. 1941.
Tell me about age again. Because it sounds like you think Jerry Brown, probably the most effective governor in the United States, is too old to be governor

[MrPurple]

140. I agree that he'd be too old to be starting a 4 year term & if Warren runs, wouldn't he stay out?

Bernie got in for 2016 after Elizabeth Warren announced she wasn't running because he wanted the issues to be represented. He probably didn't envision doing as well as he did.

[lunamagica]

115. I'm almost certain that he will run. His ego is to big to see the negatives you listed

[Weekend Warrior]

190. This. Nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

65. No doubt... and why not? Bernie's only the most popular politician in America today!

And no wonder... he's out there every day leading on the progressive issues middle class working people care about.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

[kerry-is-my-prez]

138. He's lost a lot of his following, including me. I don't have much love for him anymore. He did not

help the Democrats win in that election or in any other ones since. He's been more of a hindrance than a help. What is he all about? I had loved his message but I not sure what he's really trying to do.

[sheshe2]

144. ...

Thanks for the laugh. I needed one.

[emulatorloo]

337. Popularity can be short-lived. HRC's popularity was in the upper 60's when she left State

Republicans decided to drive her numbers down with smears. None of our Dems are immune to that. I would not count on popularity because it can be destroyed and taken away.

[Vetteguy]

445. Best not get ahead of yourself

There are a few things he will have to explain that he didn't before.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

456. No one splains it better than Bernie, especially to overflowing crowds at his rallys.

There's a reason he's so popular.

[Vetteguy]

461. LOL

You know who else loves rallys. lol

[leftofcool]

158. Not on a Democratic ticket anyway

[vdogg]

48. I only vote for Democrats in the Democratic primary

And I have a long memory. He will not get my vote for 2020.

[Weekend Warrior]

53. Our field would have to be extremely weak for him to get my vote.

I don't see that happening.

[vdogg]

63. In hoping Warren throws her hat in the ring.

She seems to be the most effective when handling Trump and doesn't have too much baggage.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

123. Elizabeth would be awesome! Unfortunately a lot of ageists here will disagree.

[rpannier]

143. Then I guess mine will off set yours

As it stands now, if he were to run again, I'd likely vote for him again

[Warren DeMontague]

155. I don't want Bernie, Hillary, or Biden to run next time.

But I'd like a broad field, beyond that.

There should be no single "marquee" candidate sucking the air out of the room and bullying the rest of the party into staying out of the race.

[Weekend Warrior]

189. Agree with what you have said here. Nt

[Control-Z]

234. Who bullied the rest of the party

into staying out of the race? And which race?

[Warren DeMontague]

246. Oh, I'm just speaking hypothetically, of course!

Last edited Wed Aug 23, 2017, 10:41 PM - Edit history (1)

[Control-Z]

258. That gif is obnoxious.

It's enough to trigger migraine so I imagine it must be enough to trigger seizures. I suggest you remove it out of concern and courtesy.

[Warren DeMontague]

274. Sorry.

Most people like Jon Hamm, but YMMV.

I replaced it with something less traumatizing, hopefully.

[Control-Z]

285. Thanks

That's better.

[disillusioned73]

420. lol..

I like your style Warren..

[BarbD]

259. I agree.

We don't have to make a 2020 decision today. We absolutely have our hands full dealing with what is happening now. We need to stay in the moment and not get ahead of ourselves.

[Heartstrings]

173. Let's set our sites on the MIDTERMS

and not get ahead of ourselves......

I can't help typing the word MIDTERMS in caps enough these days! Sorry...

[PatsFan87]

17. The most interesting part for me-

Another factor, however, was that of those who switched their allegiance from Sanders to Trump less than 10 percent considered themselves strong Democrats, while less than 50 percent even leaned Democrat.

So basically, over 50% of the Bernie to Trump voters in WI, PA, MI leaned Republican/had no preference toward a party. What we should be asking is why these people like Bernie but don't like Democrats.

Also interesting- only 12% of Bernie voters went to Trump while 25% of Clinton voters went to McCain in 08 (as per the article).

[bettyellen]

22. They don't like "establishment" politicians and that's part of Russia's attack on our institutions

And norms. It's all of a piece. The fake shit about Dems and arepubkicans being "the same" and "everyone is corrupt". Russia weaponized those ideas with the left wing as they did with the RW.

[pat_k]

30. Strength attracts votes from across the spectrum -- even RW reactionaries.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9506502

[paleotn]

180. Tantrums and much pouting....

The political ineptitude of many Americans is truly astounding. Instead of ID laws, how about a basic understanding of American civics in order to vote? Maybe some political history and current events thrown in. Being up to date on the NFL and WWF doesn't count in the current events category.

[progressoid]

261. 25% of Clinton voters went to McCain in 08

Let's not talk about that. This is the shit on Bernie thread.

[stevenleser]

279. How does whataboutism change the facts in the OP?

Undocumented whataboutism to boot.

[progressoid]

296. There is a not too subtle implication that Bernie supporters aren't loyal.

The irony and hypocrisy that Hillary supporters were even less loyal is lost on most here.

[redgreenandblue]

368. The facts of the OP are that Sanders voters are more loyal than "usual".

Less of them switched over than voters of candidates in previous elections

The number 12% means nothing in isolation. Only when comparing this number to "typical" numbers, say to those of primary supporters of Hillary Clinton in the 2008 election, one can have a chance to infer anything at all from it.

[JHan]

437. You cannot draw any such conclusion:

Trump was an even worse choice than McCain - anyone calling themselves progressive and voting for Trump should not call themselves progressive. McCain in 2008 was a moderate (except for his views on foreign policy)

In 2008, third party spoilers were not a factor either - it would be interesting to follow discontented Sanders primary supporters who went for Stein or did not vote : a vote for Stein ,especially in the States that mattered, was a vote for Trump...and how? You vote, not only for best option available to you, but to also " cancel out" the opposition - and they failed to understand this very basic strategic concept.

[YCHDT]

340. Good, point ... Brings Russia back into the picture

[Nay]

409. This is the point many wanted to make -- Bernie actually attracted independent

and Republican voters. They fell away when he did not win the primary, so of course many of them voted for Trump. They were not Democrats to begin with.

[Major Nikon]

19. Makes a good case for just doing away with primaries entirely

We'll just let the DNC leadership appoint our nominees and be done with it.

Since the margin of victory was so narrow in those states, I wouldn't be surprised if you could make an equally compelling case for the prevalence of Fruit Loops vs Raisin Bran TV commercials or all sorts of other meaningless random shit.

The so-called "analysis" is quite lacking, and definitely not enough to form the conclusions being made.

[bettyellen]

20. Well they were targeted to suppress the vote in the general according to our IC....

And.... sadly it worked. youre going to get alerted on- even though everyone knows this is discussing the GE and not the primary.

[GaryCnf]

21. Is this the same story where

They pointed out the TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT of 2008 Hillary primary voters crossed over and voted for McCain?

Pontificate at your own risk.

[stevenleser]

280. See my #279 above. nt

[GaryCnf]

407. Trust me, you do not want to discuss facts.

And, as is usual when you are confronted, you will not discuss them here.

The statement that 25% of Clinton 2008 primary voters crossed over and voted for McCain is not only stated in the source article for the OP, the source article cites the study upon which it is based. IF the article lacks credibility on that score, it lacks credibility on the claim that 12% of Sanders 2016 primary voters crossed over and voted for Trump.

If we are to take the article as factual and based upon sound research, pointing out this fact has nothing to do with "whataboutism" and everything to do with whether the 12% of Sanders voters supposedly crossing over to vote for Trump is "proof" that Sanders' primary campaign hurt Clinton in the general election or, as another poster pointed out, it is "proof" that Sanders' 2016 primary voters displayed a far greater loyalty to the Democratic Party in the general election than did Clinton's 2008 primary voters.

However, neither the self-righteousness of those touting this article as proof for their "Blame Bernie" obsession, nor the above-average/HC2008 loyalty to the Democratic Party of Sanders supporters, is what I consider the most revealing aspect of this study. It is the exceptionally high number of NEW voters Sanders brought to the Party. While I see some consider this a negative, the fact is that a huge percentage of Sanders' supporters either only slightly leaned toward the Democratic Party or had never before considered themselves as Democrats AND STILL they came out and voted in a Democratic primary for likely the first time in their lives AND only 12% of them voted Republican even after Sanders was defeated. CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME claimed during the primaries, Sanders brought NEW BLOOD to the party during the primaries and most of them stayed with us during the general election.

Now you can go back to Comey, and Russia, voter suppression, or, heck, maybe even the campaign (btw, ZERO goes on Clinton. Candidates don't run campaigns and she did not make a single significant personal miscue during the entire GE), for explanations for 2016, but the "but Berrrrrrrrrinie" ticket don't sell to anyone without an agenda.

[emulatorloo]

498. Not seeing anybody arguing Bernie or his campaign had anything to with this small minority of voters

If anyone is then they do not represent the majority viewpoint at DU

However I will note Trump made a big play for disaffected Bernie or Busters by co-opting progressive language used by Bernie and pushing the false narratives.

Donald Trump thinks he can win over disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/donald_trump_thinks_he_can_win_over_disaffected_bernie_sanders_supporters/

Trump's Bernie gambit
The GOP nominee’s constant overtures to Sanders backers are increasingly caustic and likely to bring him few votes. But his goal is just to keep them mad.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-bernie-sanders-strategy-226403

-------

The majority of Sanders supporters like us didn't fall for that. I don't know if it was effective with Busters or not.

The fact that most of us who voted for Sanders and voted for the Dem nominee in the general while a minority did not is not really controversial.

My confusion is over the apparently defensive nature of posts by some of our fellow Sanders DU supporters, who mistakenly believe criticism of Busters is criticism of the majority of Sanders supporters.

Since you brought up the Puma's, I do not recall any post on DU by Hillary or Obama supporters in 08 that were upset and defensive when Puma's were criticized.

If you weren't a Puma you knew posts that were critical of Puma's weren't about you.

I am not a Bernie or Buster and posts critical of Busters are not about me, nor are they about you.

Nor are they about the rest of DU's Sanders primary supporters who are definitely not Busters.

[pat_k]

23. Strength, unwavering principle, and courage of convictions...

... attracts people from across the political spectrum. And Bernie demonstrated the sort of strength that attracted people to the Democratic Party from across the political spectrum. Even so-called Right Wingers who aren't really "right" at all. They just vote Republican because they see Republicans as the "Strong ones."

Howard Dean's "liberal" base included a high percentage of people who formerly identified as Republican too.

This goes to the heart of the problem with the Democratic political advisors and office holders who continue to buy into the DC group think/"conventional wisdom" that we must stick to the center and "moderate" our tone to win votes. If you are busy "moderating" your tone, you cannot speak out in the powerful terms, or draw lines in the sand on principle that demonstrate the strength that voters are looking for... particularly when they are insecure.

“When people are insecure, they’d rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right.”
-- Bill Clinton

If we want to win the kind of majorities that can get things done, more Democratic leaders need to stand and fight, win or lose, for the changes they tell us they want to see -- like the goals set out in the Democratic platform. And that means fighting for the Whole Loaf, not just the measly pieces of bread they have decided are "feasible" or "practical."

It is not a left/moderate/right "divide." It's more like this:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2594053

[JHan]

153. I want a vigorous debate of ideas..

and I think the electorate may respect that, what one Democrat may view as strength of conviction and the right path forward- I may not see it the same and I may disagree on the details of the focus.

Peter Boghossian once put it this way

"He's a man of great conviction."

Translation:

"He's unwilling to revise his beliefs."

Whenever I hear it in politics, I think of a politician blinded by ideological beliefs .. because sometimes horsetrading maybe necessary, in less than ideal circumstances, and even FDR sought to find balance in his views and approach to governance , details many conveniently ignore today. I know my views may not be typical.

Still, the primary concern should be how the dem message is disseminated. It's not the message itself that's the problem, it's the fact dems lost the meme wars. Trump didn't use traditional tactics. The bulk of his tactics were online- His digital team were frighteningly effective and Democrats had no response to it: none.

We HAVE to understand this terrain. Young people follow facebook, instagram, twitter - we're not going to follow cable news networks, many of us don't read print publications. We love memes - And Trump dominated these spheres, helped by the popularity of libertarian leaning "dank" memes that were already in circulation.

We could have all the great ideas in the world, and see them wither to nothingness because of ratfucking and relentless propaganda. This will damage our candidates, it doesn't matter who.....of course with Hillary republicans had been primed and ready , through decades long swiftboating, to weaponize data against her -a woman who would have been a radical reformer as a president ( for what's its worth I don't care for revolutionaries). And I haven't even touched on voter suppression...

So Dems have to play dirty too, Dems have to change tactics, because this is war.

And really , we have to tackle this conundrum: How do you appeal to people who willingly vote for those who make their lives worse? Who vote for representatives whose votes facilitate the rapaciousness of predatory industrialists: who despise renewable energy initiatives, as extractive industries pollute water systems and wreak havoc on their landscape.

How do we explain republicans or even some independents ( who are actually embarrassed partisans) on state disability and medicare, who complain about poor service, while voting for representatives who implement service cuts and vote against healthcare expansion? Listen to some of these folks and all they can complain about are tax-and-spend liberals. Or they may have a relative in need of good healthcare access, but LOVE the idea of Trump's wall - not thinking of the cost to the taxpayer because Mexico ain't paying for no wall, but they will complain about co-payments for health services ... And when you scratch the surface, their complaints about liberals are that people of color get the same benefits they do - not the benefits themselves, not the "Idea" itself.

[pat_k]

249. Of course "horse trading" is necessary. But preemptive surrender is NOT.

The Democratic strategy of preemptive surrender has not been working for us because it is a losing strategy. Dedication to the principle of "Can't win, so don't fight" is why we have been sliding further and further backwards.

Just a few examples. The leadership says they want universal health care, but make NO concerted effort to get out there and fight for it. That is, they don't get out there and make a powerful case to We the People. They don't make any effort to inspire and instill the belief that we CAN get it done. They make no effort to engage "people power." And getting people on board is how you move things forward and get things done. Tragically, for too long, too many of our candidates and elected officials do the opposite. They go around telling us how impossible this or that is. Effectively, their message is "you have no power." And having told voters they have no power over and over and over again, is it any wonder that more and more of them don't bother to get to the polls?

That is the type of strength I am talking about. Standing up and speaking out, and making the case for the things they believe our country needs to do to "make a more perfect union." It means making the cases, and telling people you are dedicated to getting them the Whole Loaf. That inspires people to get out and vote for you, making it more likely that progress toward the goal will be made.

Of course, the big stuff never happens overnight, and no one expects that. The notion that Bernie voters believed they'd get free tuition right after election day was utter bullshit. They voted for Bernie because he would fight for it and work to drum up a level of popular support that would push legislators to do something, even if just incremental. You can't drum up the level of popular support for the increment. What voters are starving for is leaders who are fighting the good fight for the big stuff, getting us on board, and thereby making progress. In one election cycle, maybe all you get is a few "slices" of the loaf, but you don't stop there. You keep talking about, and engaging people, in working to achieve the REAL goal, through the next election cycle, and the next.

Instead, we have people running for office telling us we the whole loaf is a pipe dream, but that they're gonna get us a couple measly slices. And if they do, they declare victory, and call it a day.

Obamacare should not have been the end, it should have been a beginning. The fight to fix it by adding the public option should have been waged from our side from the day it was passed. Because there was no concerted effort to do that, we have had NO counterpoint to the "abolish" people. And make no mistake, if the voices for universal health care in congress don't get a lot louder, the Repubs WILL succeed in taking us backward. Obamacare has been throughly demonized. Simply trying to protect it is a big fat loser. Dems need a counterpoint. A fix of their own. And the best bet for that is the public option. But I digress from the larger point.

You don't start a negotiation asking for what you think the other side will let you have. You start from what you WANT, and then work from there. For too long, Dems keep starting from what they think the Republicans will "let" us have, while the Republicans start with what they want. For example, they want to make it impossible for women to get an abortion. They NEVER lose sight of or stop talking about that goal. That is what they run on. And Lo and Behold, they have made ENORMOUS progress toward that goal. There are now swaths of our country where abortion is so difficult to access it might as well be illegal.

There are many, many, other ways Dems could have demonstrated strength and courage of conviction that would have inspired and brought people to the Democratic Party. Like fighting to impeach Bush for torture, win or lose, because principle demanded it. Like joining a filibuster to actually STOP Alito, instead of claiming to "oppose" him by voting against him on the floor while refusing to join a winning filibuster that actually would have stopped him.

The list goes on and on.

[JHan]

333. Yes, but what kind of Universal Healthcare do we want?

How can we speak with conviction when there's barely been a proper debate about it?

These days, talk is Single payer should be the only option, but there are many different versions of Universal Healthcare and now there is a litmus test by some progressives instead: accusation instead of discussion.

You can't make a case without details. It doesn't help when there's jostling for a power play in the party, where single payer has become a political bargaining chip among progressives.

And with regard to the ACA, isn't it more than passing strange that instead of the blame put at the foot of republicans for their obstruction to fix the ACA, Democrats - who are trying to improve access to healthcare for Americans - are the ones "without the message" ? Obama's push for the ACA was him at his most idealistic, yet the meme from greens and some progressives was that the ACA was just a handout to Insurance companies, and these are self described "people of conviction" by the way, who missed the point of keeping insurance companies incentivized to participate in exchanges and run different plans. And have we forgotten the difficulties getting the ACA passed? I recall the public option was omitted because blue dog dems didn't want it included ( Still Hillary included the option in the Dem presidential platform): Obama's rhetorical powers failed in that regard, but the ACA passed and it was an improvement, even while imperfect, for millions of Americans. After 2010, real fixes didn't come because Democrats stayed home in a census year, lost the house, then Obama faced obstruction after obstruction.

The tea party crazies claimed that more healthcare coverage for Americas created a toxic swamp in Washington that needed to be drained - how were they able to sell the ACA as a bad thing, implement cuts in their own states, prevent expansion in their own states, and STILL turn around and blame Democrats, even after they worked hard to hamstring fixing the ACA ?

Now let's look at what's on the table before us right now: Medicare for All - worth noting at this point the origins of Medicare in light of all the criticism the ACA received, as Jonathan Chait wrote about a month ago:

Today the left holds up Medicare as a shining example of health-care policy designed by social democrats, before it was corrupted by the modern Obama-era party and its suborning of the insurance industry. In reality, powerful financial interests deeply influenced the design of Medicare. The law’s sponsors had hoped to achieve universal health insurance, but retreated from that ambitious goal in large part because insurers wanted to keep non-elderly customers. (They were happy to pawn the oldster market off on Uncle Sam.) Likewise, the law defanged opposition by the powerful American Medical Association by agreeing to fee-for-service rules that wound up massively enriching doctors and hospitals. And the creation of Medicaid as a separate program for the poor relegated them to a shabbier and more politically vulnerable category.

Fast forward a couple decades, and you'll still find healthcare a priority for Democrats. Conyers has had a Medicare for all bill in existence for ages and Sanders has one as well: How would you want it funded? At Federal level or State level? Details are requirements, not afterthoughts, this is a significant chunk of the economy we're talking about and slogans are not enough. And how do you change the system yet again when barely a decade has passed since passage of the ACA?

And even with Medicare for All what would be the challenges? Administrative costs will go down, but it will not be easy, given the American framework. Any system will require Government bargaining for bulk medical supplies and prices, and see to the health of the fund invested in by workers and employers to offset healthcare costs, especially at retirement age... And this barely addresses other challenges like supplement plans and associated co-payments and deductibles.

It will not be easy, and it not a question of Democrats not "Trying" hard enough, or capitulating, the problem is the expectation that there are easy answers and simple fixes where there are not.. I couldn't put it better than this:

"And maybe there’s a better way still that hasn’t yet been discussed. The fight for a universal health-care system in the United States is now in its 105th year, and if we don’t admit that financing any kind of universal system is going to be especially difficult given how much we spend, or acknowledge the role that loss aversion plays in the politics of reform, then we’re going to fail again the next time we get a shot at it.

Above all, progressives need to learn something from the Republicans’ effort to replace the ACA. They promised that facile slogans like “freedom” and “choice” would magically increase coverage and bring down costs. They were selling snake oil, and one way or the other, it’s going to come back and bite them.

We shouldn’t make promises that we aren’t going to be able to keep. “It’s not going to be easy to do,” Jacob Hacker says, “and anyone who tells you that the most expensive health-care system in the world is going to undergo a sudden shift to highly efficient and low-price medicine has not been studying American medicine.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/medicare-for-all-isnt-the-solution-for-universal-health-care/

The problem is not a politician understanding these challenges and crafting sensible legislation, and taking an incremental approach to healthcare reform. The core difference between Dems and Republicans are the way both solve problems: Dems address problems by tending social institutions, Republicans believe the market solves everything, and whatever can't be solved by the market, must remain a problem. What we could do better is communicate that essential difference more aggressively by countering the propaganda about liberal ideas.

[pat_k]

344. Build the political will first.

Focus on defining the goal, and why we, as a nation need to achieve that goal. That is leadership. Kennedy didn't seek to engage the nation in a debate about how we'll get to the moon. He set the goal and inspired Americans to invest in making it happen.

The case for universal health care is grounded in the question of what it is to be a moral nation, and whether we, as Americans, want to live in a moral nation. Until you build the political will to achieve the goal no proposal will get off the ground. With the political will, possibilities that are "impractical" today open up.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8773578

[JHan]

439. Getting to the moon was already part of a strategy..

Of American global supremacy.

You're arguing what most democrats already agree on: that universal healthcare is a goal we should endeavor to make possible. Most dem politicians in leadership articulate this, the issue has always been how that is received - especially by folks in red states who hear a dem politician talk about expanding healthcare and then interpret it as dems giving "those people free stuff" even though they benefit from "free stuff" as well.

I do agree that Dems should continue to hammer home the necessity of universal healthcare coverage but the question is how, ..what is the best approach. The reality of implementing it demands more than slogans.

[UT_democrat]

24. Boo

this narrative is still wrong

[mcar]

29. Something wrong with facts?

[Major Nikon]

47. Just the conclusions

[trof]

25. Naw, it was the Martians who illegally voted for tRump.

[NurseJackie]

26. This is very compelling. Well worth the read and...

... perhaps there are some VALUABLE LESSONS to be learned.

Someone here (I forget who) often posts about "learning lessons" and having "honest open discussions" so that we can "learn from our mistakes". I believe that this is one of those teachable moments, and I'm glad that Newsweek is talking about it.

[mcar]

27. Finally the truth is out

Enough Sanders supporters ( not all, of course) threw the election to the Nazi.

Can we stop arguing the point now?

[AlexSFCA]

35. the problem is

bernie is still around and hammering dems; he lost, time for new leadership

[leftofcool]

159. As usual

[Old Vet]

46. Makes sense for sure, Sanders people were really pissed clinton got the nod.......

[mcar]

50. Some were, as this report shows

Many followed Sanders' lead and supported HRC.

I suspect many of those who voted Drumpf were never Democrats. Yet some of them are still trying to control the party

[Major Nikon]

52. Kinda like all the pissed off Clinton supporters who voted for McCain in 2008

..except there were a shitton more back then, so undoubtedly the problem would be much worse had Sanders won the nomination.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/26/clinton.backers/

[kerry-is-my-prez]

203. I was a Clinton supporter but would never have dreamed of voting Repub. I have as much disdain

for them as I do for the ex-Sanders supporters who didn't vote Dem. At least Obama won though.

[Major Nikon]

213. Regardless many more did, and the election was projected to be much closer

I don't remember too many Clinton supporters complaining about that at the time.

Primary elections are almost always contentious. Always has been and always will be. That's part of the political process and it happens on both sides. The whole thing is a mental masturbation exercise, especially since Sanders didn't run on in the general election and campaigned quite heavily for Clinton. If you really want to play what-if, consider what would have happened if Sanders never entered the picture and didn't motivate as many as he did. The result could and probably would have been skewed even more against her.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

232. I wasn't aware of those stats. That is seriously fucked up! A distant friend did this but she was

a Republican-leaning Indy. I was pissed at her.

[karynnj]

151. You are making assumptions

I would argue that part of the reason that Sanders ended up with about 45% of the delegates rather than the 5 to 10 percent that most would have thought his maximum likely number was because for many they were not fiercely for HRC, they were at best resigned.

In addition, you ignore that Sanders support included some loyal Democrats, some swing voters and even a fewRepublicans w libertarians who had never voted for a Democrat. It was the latter two groups that split between HRC and Trump. Even if Bernie never ran, it is not clear that they would have voted differently in the general election. I would bet there were more in that group who were influenced by Bernie to cast a vote for HRC that they otherwise would not have cast than people who voted for Trump, who would have voted for Clinton had there been no primary challenge. (look at the charts upthread - the Bernie and then Trump voters had a very low approval rating for Obama - these were Republicans who Bernie had won over. )

[liquid diamond]

32. There were many reasons why

Hillary lost, but those mentioned bernie supporters helped tip the scale in the fuhrer's favor. What was their goal? To punish us for rejecting their candidate? We will all suffer now. Did they think we would vote for bernie next time or someone like him? Even some who voted for him in the primaries have said they won't support him again. Fucking the country is no way to gain support for your causes. You just pissed off millions of Americans.

[Tarheel_Dem]

37. Which is why I don't want to listen to them bitch about Trump now. This happened in 2000, and...

I never thought we'd be dumb enough for a repeat after that. But, you live & learn. No outsiders on the Democratic ticket in the future is the lesson I hope we learn from this.

[crosinski]

473. From you lips to the DNC ears! n/t

[Lazy Daisy]

40. Yes yes

Us Bernie supporters are the scum of the earth, hell we're not welcome in the Democratic Party.
We're all racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, bigoted assholes who should all go kill ourselves.
We get it.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.


Give it a fucking rest already! Or do you want to push people away? JFC

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

83. +1,000,000

[Dr Hobbitstein]

127. Totally not what the article or anyone in this thread is saying. nt

[kerry-is-my-prez]

218. If you voted Dem. in the end, you shouldn't have to feel bad. I supported Clinton over Obama

but voted for Obama in the end. Anyone who wants to criticize the Clinton voters who voted for McCain or third party - I say have at it! They are idiots just as the Sanders people who refused to vote for Clinton.

[Kimchijeon]

41. LOL yeah whatever

Sure, sure, try and divide us. Nice try. Good for a laugh though.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

86. So much for the "big tent."

[stonecutter357]

42. K&R

[left-of-center2012]

44. When will these continued attacks on Bernie stop?

2016 is behind us.
Stop fighting the last election.

Get over it, and move forward.

[YOHABLO]

60. Yes, there is no reason to continue this argument. Learn the lessons and move on.

[GulfCoast66]

95. Perhaps when he stops attacking the Democratic Party

From the outside. Do not like parts of the party, join it and work within the Democratic Party rules to fix it.

But it is so much easier and requires none of that yuckie compromise to throw rocks at the party when you have no skin in the game.

Because then you can look like the knight in shining armor with no sullied areas.

I would welcome him in the party. And like many other members of the Democratic Party would fight against many of his ideas.

And he would have to compromise thus losing most of his enthusiastic following.

Have a nice evening.

[vdogg]

45. In other news

The sky is blue...

[YOHABLO]

55. I'm sorry but I am completely skeptical of their data. Anyone else?

[liquid diamond]

67. Fake news?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

97. Ya think?!

[SaschaHM]

64. It's almost like empowering and raising up surrogates that go on to support a 3rd party or...

actively tell individuals that both sides are the same is a terrible campaign strategy.

If Bernie decides to take a page from my nightmares and run in 2020, I hope he picks better surrogates this time around.

[liquid diamond]

70. He is not running again. Many won't forgive 2016.

[Docreed2003]

69. A very small percentage of Bernie voters...

The majority of Bernie supporters in the primary supported Hillary in the general. But let's keep on fighting and picking at scabs from 2016 because that seems productive. There are folks here that absolutely hate Bernie because some of his people acted like asses, and at times he levels criticisms on Dems that is headscratchingly misplaced, and I get that...I can also appreciate people who supported Bernie in the primary who want to push the party to the left and don't feel their voice has been heard by the DNC at large, either because they don't understand how liberal the DNC platform was in 2016 or they feel the party was only paying lip service to the platform.

I do think that it's interesting that every time the Dems seem to be uniting against Trump and pushing beyond this episode, a new batch of shit stirring stories come out to further serve to divide and fuel the fires of animosity.

I honestly don't know what it will take to heal the deep seated divisions amongst us on the left, and by that I mean those who would vote and align with democrats. I pray it can happen.

[progressoid]

237. +1

[emulatorloo]

338. The article says the majority of Bernie supporters voted for the Dem in the GE

As all DU Bernie Supporters did.

[byronius]

76. This narrative is a Russian favorite.

Oh, they love this.

[emulatorloo]

462. Nah, "Hillary is evil" is a Russian Favorite. Trump favorite too.

That the great majority of Bernie supporters voted for the Dem nominee while a small minoritydid not isn't really controversial.

[Gore1FL]

78. How did I help, again?

I thought donating to and voting for Clinton in the general was helping. I'm sorry.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

128. Guilt by association I guess. I too voted for Hillary despite all the condemnation of Bernie...

No regrets... my conscience is clear!

[Weekend Warrior]

130. I don't think anyone is making you out to be the point.

Fact is this shows you were a part of the majority. It's in the op.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

227. It did. Thank you. I think the majority of us only have problems with the ones who didn't vote Dem.

in the general.

[milestogo]

80. Aren't we done beating this dead horse?

[Gore1FL]

87. Apparently not. I expect a couple dozen anti-Stein and anti-green threads before the week is out.

DU lost it's collective shit in 2016.

[Warren DeMontague]

107. If someone doesn't say "Sarandon" here at least 5 times a day

i start to suffer from the DTs

[tonedevil]

168. I can't believe that...

has been tested. With that as a drinking game trigger cirrhosis is much more likely.

[bettyellen]

188. Well some polls came out- so its current events. About the election, not the primary.

[Honeycombe8]

81. 12% is a sizable chunk of voters. Wow.

I think Sanders asked his supporters to vote for Clinton, though (maybe unenthusiastically, if my memory serves). So it's not his fault.

It's people like Susan Sarandon, I guess.

I doubt they'll be admitting it publicly.

[m-lekktor]

85. Yeah, it's everybody else's fault.

[emulatorloo]

334. Article's not about you. All DU Sanders supporters voted for the Dem in the general

Unsure why you so defensive about a Newsweek article that isn't about you

[4now]

93. Hopefully we have all learned somthing from the past

and we don't need to drag out this bullshit.

[lunamagica]

94. I never doubted it. Their disgraceful display during the convention spoke volumes

Those people who didn't vote for Hillary are either rich spoiled brats who won't suffer the consequence of their actions and don't care if others suffer, or so monumentally stupid that they give new meaning to the saying "cut your nose to spite your face" Either way, they are just as deplorable as the true trumpsters, and I despise them as much

[TeamPooka]

104. Now we know. The answer is closed primaries. Reg as a Democrat and you get to vote

if not, screw that shite

[NurseJackie]

255. Yes! Definitely! Absolutely!

[leftstreet]

105. I didn't know Sanders was the candidate against Trump

I thought it was Trump vs Clinton

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

116. Who knew? Regardless, Bernie has moved on - quite well I might add - and is leading the resistance.

Good for him!

[leftofcool]

175. And bashing Democrats along the way?

Not that I care because the ones that are in leadership now appear to be not doing much.

[dwilso40641]

111. They had to know that

voting for 3rd party would give 45 the win. They consumed the gop cool aid.
I thought that friends would realize that all of the lies and phony charges from the gop were bogus.
People I know said that they could never vote for Hillary. Look what that got us.
Denny

[TubbersUK]

112. Am I missing something?

Is there any reason to think that a certain amount of post Primary switching is other than par for the course?


For example, from the article:

While much was made of the so-called Bernie-or-bust phenomenon, the number of Sanders supporters who crossed party lines to vote for Trump in 2016 may not be that unusual. A 2010 study in Public Opinion Quarterly found that in the 2008 election 25 percent of those who voted for Clinton in the Democratic primary ended up voting for Republican John McCain, rather than Barack Obama, in the general election.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

147. Well I'll be damned!!

[Awsi Dooger]

169. Sounds normal to me

I may not like it but I certainly would predict this trend. I'm surprised it dipped well into the responses before several people mentioned earlier examples.

There are not many very close primary battles. But when they happen I have no doubt the bitterness carries over. I don't doubt that some Reagan supporters in 1976 either ignored the general election or -- gasp -- voted for Jimmy Carter.

In 2008 Hillary was the presumed nominee for years so no kidding that had to carry some extra dismay and anger when an upstart jumped in and essentially stole it from her with more astute strategy. Sanders, in contrast, was always the underdog so there wouldn't have been as quite the degree of refusal to back anyone but him.

In tight elections there are numerous demographics and variables that could have tipped the matter if everyone cooperates the way the study/article proposes.

Give me all of his apples and all of her apples and suddenly I'm no longer short of apples. Amazing how that works.

[TubbersUK]

194. Nicely put, thanks. n/t

[jalan48]

118. Bad Bernie! Bad, bad Bernie!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

132. Yes... 50 lashes for the guy who's currently the country's most popular politician.

[Squinch]

202. Clearly the article is talking about BS's followers who did not vote for Hillary, not BS himself.

[emulatorloo]

345. And all DU Sanders Supporters voted for HRC in the general. Not understanding the overreaction

of some of my fellow Sanders supporters in this thread.

The article is not about Bernie

Nor is it about those of us who supported Bernie and then voted for the Dem nominee.

I don't get why people noses are so out of joint about this Newsweek article.

[Squinch]

387. It's as predictable as summer following spring, but I don't understand it either.

And it pisses me off that all the bot-originated Hillary hate stories are always retold in these threads.

[riversedge]

120. graph. Yet the majority voted for clinton....

Hard to think that it made a difference.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[KTM]

216. So, we each make of this what we will...

But it seems to me that this could easily also show two things:

1) There were voters from the elusive "middle" who at some point said, "You know what... I think I could support this Bernie guy..." and then later, after we nominated Clinton, said "Well, I was considering voting Democratic, but I could never vote for that particular Democrat."

2) Polls from May 2016 may have been correct, based on that information.

Not gonna go further into that, but there is more than one way to interpret this information.

[Hoyt]

231. That last tweet makes it clear. Sadly, nothing is going to change the fact we have Prez Trump now.

[Dem2]

121. Not this s*** again

[NurseJackie]

289. What shit again?

It's time to have an honest and frank discussion. Why discourage honesty and deny reality?

[Dem2]

297. Is it productive?

Last edited Thu Aug 24, 2017, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Or do people just dig in their heels?

[NurseJackie]

369. ???

297. Is it productive?
Our do people just did in their heels?

Sorry, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

[Dem2]

433. Freaking autocorrect

Lol. I fixed it

[andym]

122. No doubt some Sanders' voters helped Trump, but some former Obama voters made a bigger difference

Last edited Wed Aug 23, 2017, 09:51 PM - Edit history (1)

in the swing states especially. Take a look at the two articles below-- surprising numbers of Obama voters went for Trump. Look at the second one for a county by county breakdown. Many of these voters are not the radical left but rather swing voters who are now swinging more Republican than Democrat. Some of these of course may include some of the Sander's voters in the OP, but it is very unclear. it's interesting that Obama actually received Republican support that did not translate to Hillary Clinton.

The Obama-Trump Voters Are Real. Here’s What They Think.
Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn AUG. 15, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-real-heres-what-they-think.html?mcubz=0

"But the national vote doesn’t count, and Mrs. Clinton is not the president. She lost primarily because of the narrow but deep swing among white working-class voters who were overrepresented in decisive battleground states.

Just 74 percent of white Obama voters with a high school diploma or less backed Mrs. Clinton in the voter study group cited by Mr. Milbank.

Similarly, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that Mrs. Clinton won just 78 percent of white Obama voters without a bachelor’s degree. The figure was even lower in the key Rust Belt battlegrounds."

Those are big numbers. This article is worth reading-- lots of interesting points about racial resentment, souring on Obama, etc to help explain what happened in the election-- all backed up with strong data.
------
Here is the county by county breakdown from just after the election:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/obama-trump-counties/
These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump
by Kevin Uhrmacher, Kevin Schaul and Dan Keating
"Across swing states — and others previously thought to be safe for Democrats — Trump colored dozens of counties red that hadn’t gone Republican in decades.

Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House, a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump.

Trump also won 194 of the 207 counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012."
The data speak for themselves..

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

141. Well wutta ya know!

[progressoid]

301. Oh pshaw.

That doesn't fit the blame Bernie narrative.

[emulatorloo]

347. WAPO: "Theres no such thing as a Trump Democrat"

Quick Summary: Those Obama voters who switched to the Trump were largely Republican to start with. The abberation wasn't their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama.

-------------

Opinions
There’s no such thing as a Trump Democrat

By Dana Milbank Opinion writer August 4 at 3:37 PM

Do you believe in mermaids, unicorns and fairies? If so, you may have taken interest in a new mythical creature that appeared during the 2016 election: the Trump Democrat.

It has become an article of faith that an unusually large number of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012 switched sides and voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. It follows that Democrats, to win in the future, need to get these lost partisans to come home.

But new data, and an analysis by AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer that he shared with me, puts all this into question. The number of Obama-to-Trump voters turns out to be smaller than thought. And those Obama voters who did switch to Trump were largely Republican voters to start with. The aberration wasn’t their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama.

It follows for Democrats that most of these Obama-Trump voters aren’t going to be persuaded to vote Democratic in future; the party would do better to go after disaffected Democrats who didn’t vote in 2016 or who voted for third parties.

<snip>

And those Obama voters who did cross to Trump look a lot like Republicans. The AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer analyzed raw data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study , out in the spring, and found that Obama-Trump voters voted for Republican congressional candidates by a 31-point margin, Republican Senate candidates by a 15-point margin and Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 27-point margin. Their views on immigration and Obamacare also put them solidly in the GOP camp.

“Democratic analysts who are looking to solve the party’s problem by appealing to this small group of Obama-Trump voters are pointing themselves to a group that by and large is a Republican group now,” Podhorzer told me. “The bulk of Obama-Trump voters are not fed-up Democratic voters; they are Republican voters who chose Obama in 2012. As such, few are available in 2018 or 2020.” Democrats should instead appeal broadly to working-class voters, he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-trump-democrat/2017/08/04/0d5d06bc-7920-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html

[andym]

367. Yes. This is what is discussed in the first article I wrote as well-- here are some quotes:

"Mr. Milbank’s choice (article quoted in your post) to use nationwide figures obscures the degree of the defection of white working-class voters from the Democrats to Mr. Trump. That shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, the national results would seem to make the 2016 election one of the least interesting in history. Hillary Clinton would be the president if the national tallies counted, and the shift from Mr. Obama’s 51.9 percent of the two-party popular vote to Mrs. Clinton’s 51.1 percent was the smallest change in major party vote share since 1888.

But the national vote doesn’t count, and Mrs. Clinton is not the president. She lost primarily because of the narrow but deep swing among white working-class voters who were overrepresented in decisive battleground states................

A separate analysis from the voter study group found that many of these voters are Republicans whom the Democrats can’t win back. That question — whether the Democrats can lure these Obama voters back — is the important one.

The data from these surveys sends a mixed message. Strong evidence suggests a lot of these voters will lean Republican for the foreseeable future, and certainly will lean toward Mr. Trump. But Democrats can still win a meaningful and potentially decisive share of these voters, many of whom probably voted Democratic down-ballot in 2016."

They then discuss the CCES polls for reasons and chances of getting these voters back: look at the sections
SOURING ON OBAMA, SUPPORT FOR TRUMP’S AGENDA, FAIRLY STEADY SUPPORT (of the 65% of of Obama/Trump voting in the 2016 primaries, 54% voted for Trump in the primaries-- agrees with your article), LEANING REPUBLICAN (18% shift here!), RACIAL RESENTMENT (strongest predictor of a switch!), MANY REMAIN PERSUADABLE (23% are still Democrats!, 30% if you include Democrat leaning independents).

The article concludes that a portion (at least the 30% above) of the Obama/Trump voters can be won back.

[kimbutgar]

124. I thought we weren't going to not go back over the last election

But this study didn't surprise me.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

137. True dat!

[Not Ruth]

160. That election is over, but there is a lesson

The primary has very little to do with the general election

[leftofcool]

162. But Democrats didn't want him.

I thought that was obvious after the primaries.

[aikoaiko]

179. I think Hillary supporters in the primary would have voted for the Democratic candidate

even if it had been Bernie. Lots of them said so when confronting Bernie or Busters.

[liquid diamond]

201. 4 million more votes for HRC. You don't

play in a championship game if you don't win in the semifinals. All this talk of what he would have done in the general is bullshit.

[stevenleser]

283. With 4 million votes less in the primaries and no support in key states? Virtually impossible. nt

[NurseJackie]

290. LOL

[Bleacher Creature]

126. Yes, they most certainly did. And now we're all stuck with the fallout. NT

[leftofcool]

165. Yes, we sure are.

[mdbl]

146. what kind of a loonball would vote for trump after listening to his BS for 6 mos?

if any Sanders supporters thought that was a good idea, they need to have their heads examined with trump.

[Susan Calvin]

148. And then there's...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029504327

Much bigger impact, I think.

[uponit7771]

164. +1

[snowybirdie]

167. Let's all

quit reliving the past. Move forward and resist the idiot in chief!

[JonLP24]

174. I voted for Sanders and Clinton

If you want someone to blame blame those assholes that stole the election.

[Xipe Totec]

177. I racked my brain trying to come up with a witty reply.

All I can think of is

FUCK YOU!

I supported Sanders in the primaries, and when he lost, I supported Hillary.

So, sincerely,

FUCK YOU!

[Warpy]

200. You said it so I don't have to

There's plenty of blame but the lion's share should be directed at the corrupt corporate press, especially broadcast media who reported on Clinton only in connection with made up scandals while giving Donny a free ride on all his bullshit and the Russians, who clearly were in the middle of the scandal mongering and could very well have hacked some of the most vulnerable machines. People who thought Clinton was a shoo-in and saved themselves the trouble of going to the polls are also to blame.

Third party and write in voters who were wrong, not so much. They made up a tiny fraction of overall voters.

[applegrove]

204. I don't disagree. There were numerous reasons Hillary lost. We need to own all of them and

work to mitigate them in the future.

[ChubbyStar]

220. Begs the question...why did you post this? n/t

[applegrove]

240. Because it is one of the reasons we lost. There are 19 others. I've posted

about them too. This is the first time I've done a Sanders 2016 voters post. I've done one Tim Kaine post. And about 200 Russia posts. I have done a Jill Stein one too. This Bernie voter post has research to back it up. Look at the responses. Let's not be afraid of the facts. Or a sober fact based discussion. Bernie has changed the heart of the Democratic Party for the better. Let us not be afraid of anything negative. There is good and bad in all our heroes. I've learned from this post that some of that 12% were in fact republican voters who were attracted to Bernie's message and honesty. That is good to know for the future too.

[ChubbyStar]

243. Cool story

I like Santa too.

[applegrove]

278. I have no rightious indignation. I knew Bernie was an issue here when I posted.

As long as we stick to the facts we will do okay. And understand more. Bernie got some republican votes. Isn't that good to know that some swing voters really liked him?

[Fiendish Thingy]

184. Don't care

Who is this Political Wire anyways? Never heard of 'em, and I question their data and analysis.

Doesn't change my opinion of Sanders one bit, only those foolish enough to vote for Trump

[applegrove]

198. PW lists 7 or so of the most salient political stories a day. It is an amalgamation

of interesting news stories from other news sources. The above story is originally from Newsweek, through Raw Story.

[heaven05]

192. ++++

I figured as much....along with putin's meddling....it was a done deal for the idiot potus.

[George II]

208. Holy crap, this was posted barely two hours ago and already there are 200 responses!!!

You're a brave soul (haven't started wading through the responses yet)

BUT, many have been talking (quietly) about the premise of your OP, which is 110% correct.

[woundedkarma]

209. What the **** is going on with DU?

Blame.

Blame blame blame.

We lost.

I personally think the election was stolen by Putin.

Suppose, we lost through some other means.

We lost.

You can't win by fighting that battle again.

There's a new battle you can win. It's the more important battle. It's the battle in sticking together as a party. You are LOSING again.

Every time there is an anti-sanders, anti-clinton, anti-soAndSoWhoVotedTheWayTheyWANTED you are destroying the community, the togetherness, the ability to communicate among ourselves.

THIS is the most important battle.

There is NOTHING that Putin wants more than to split everyone apart in America. He has succeeded immensely. We practically border on having a race war right now. Trump is the catalyst but the true power behind all of this, the true root cause is PUTIN.

All you guys can do is focus on losing and blaming.

And Putin is laughing.

Breathe. Forgive. Let go.

Then fight the real battle.

[40RatRod]

210. IMHO...

..If he, Bernie, runs again and splits the party, we will have a next president worse than Donald John Trump or EVEN a Donald John Trump as a second term president. It is time to move on. We must not make that mistake again.

[applegrove]

219. In Canada the left is split and that is when conservatives win elections.

Trudeau was an pationate new face so he won.

[guillaumeb]

222. And can anyone blame Sanders for the string of GOP victories at the state level?

And is he also to blame for the apathy?

[progressoid]

262. this

[QC]

265. Give them time. n/t

[guillaumeb]

302. So much for the admonition to not refight. eom

[Freethinker65]

223. So 12% of Bernie Sanders voters were anyone but Hillary voters. Who cares? She is not running again.

Also, there was social media micro-targeting done by analytics firms to influence particular subsets of voters and Russian interference, and the media's incessant coverage of Hillary "scandals".

Blaming a minority subset of Bernie Sanders supporters now is a waste of time and it seems pretty obvious it is being done to pit the always for Hillary voters against the majority of Bernie Sanders supporters that did vote for Hillary.

Anecdotally I know several staunch Republicans that did not vote for Trump that during the next election will most likely return to vote Republican. How many voters like that were there? Does this matter?

The next race will not be Hillary vs. Trump. I am all for learning from setbacks and defeats, but the Bernie bashing is tedious.


FYI : I voted for Bernie in the Primary and Hillary for President. I am still numb and in disbelief that Trump won.

[billpolonsky]

254. Best not to blame Sanders with a midterm coming up.

This might be the time to circle the wagons and work with like minded people

Bernie hit a nerve with voters and surprise of surprises, garnered supporters from all parties.

Hilary is not running again and she is not in government.

Sanders is out there busting his butt for a progressive agenda in America.

From a foreign perspective smacking him about is infuriating.

But hey, it's your country and party, feast away. What could go wrong?


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_geoffrey_skelley/just_how_many_obama_2012_trump_2016_voters_were_there

[zentrum]

226. Then cancel the Primary Process.

The Primary was a primary as usual. Should she have been anointed, with no other Democratic challengers?

As soon as he lost the Primary, he threw his help behind her. So he also helped elect her.

What people are mad at is that he was so popular, had huge rallies with huge enthusiasm and even now is the most trusted politician in the country. Martin O'Malley's critique of Clinton was as strong as Bernie's during the Primary.

Sick to death of Democrats blaming him for being in the Primary.

His name was not on the ballot in the General.

If we'd had a stronger candidate in the General, history would be different.

If HRC hadn't run, I think we'd have President Warren today. If Warren had been in the Primaries, I don't think Bernie would have also run because his message wouldn't have been needed.

I think we missed Warren, a true change agent, because she did not want to buck Hillary or what is called the Clinton machine.

The country was looking for change, and rightly or wrongly, they saw HRC as a return to a status quo.

Warren would have covered it all--been a candidate of change both because she'd have been the first woman and also because she would have been perceived as a true populist.

[Glamrock]

236. No surprise there

I know 4 Republicans who were excited about Bernie. He lost the nomination to Hillary, who they hate, and voted for Trump to keep her out of the white house. At this point, 3 see the mistake for what it is. But, you know, too little too late.

[Owl]

242. Unrec. -1

[Lordquinton]

244. More Sanders bashing

The innacruacies in the story, and inaccessible nature of the study cast a lot of doubt.

Also of note is that Sanders attracted Republican voters, so it's natural that they went back to their party after the primary.

[applegrove]

248. That is good to know isn't it? That some republicans will be attracted to

Last edited Wed Aug 23, 2017, 10:43 PM - Edit history (1)

an authentic progressive message.

[Lordquinton]

253. Reading to the end shows Sanders voters are more loyal to the party, actually

Maybe amend your op with the last paragraph?

A 2010 study in Public Opinion Quarterly found that in the 2008 election 25 percent of those who voted for Clinton in the Democratic primary ended up voting for Republican John McCain, rather than Barack Obama, in the general election.

[progressoid]

263. Shhhh. Don't ruin the righteous indignation.

[Lordquinton]

267. Oooh

[applegrove]

284. I'm not indignant. I like Bernie. I've liked him for decades. I knew this

Last edited Wed Aug 23, 2017, 11:31 PM - Edit history (2)

thread might be a hot one. Are you not happy it looks like republicans felt the Bern? Means he can appeal to a much wider group than simply Democrats. That means the progressive message can. One thing to remember in the next election.

[progressoid]

299. I'd venture to say that a majority of

the people that rec'd this thread did so with satisfaction. It supports their loathing of Bernie and/or his supporters.

[melman]

303. Of course

and that's exactly the reason the thread was posted.

[applegrove]

305. No it is not.

[applegrove]

307. This is just a piece of the puzzle. Has me thinking if the most honest

politicians wins the next Democratic primary we will do well.

[BainsBane]

443. The responses to the thread don't help

[NurseJackie]

272. LOL

Looks like it's critical of the voters.

[Lil Missy]

281. No, it's current news, and factual. Bernie does not get a free pass.

[pnwmom]

504. The fact that he attracted some Republican voters is most likely due to a common practice

in open primaries.

When a partisan knows that his preferred candidate is safe, or doesn't have a preferred candidate, or the selection has already been made, then s/he feels free to cross party lines and vote in the other party's primary -- to help elect the candidate s/he sees as the weaker one.

Then in the general, the voter returns to vote for the preferred party.

[ucrdem]

252. Yes and no.

Yes, I thought the primary battles were unnecessarily vicious and damaged a fragile campaign. Very strong candidate, but battered by decades of RW assaults and further pummeled in the run-up. That I hope we can all agree on.

No, because I think the 3 states that swung it were rigged, not by Russians, but by the same crooks who rigged 2000 and 2004 and probably the rest going back to Lincoln. Sanders, Comey, even Putin are in my view largely kabuki covering up the real theft.

If you'll pardon my tinfoil!

[CaptainTruth]

257. Ignorant voters helped Trump become President, period.

[ImpeachTheGOP]

264. My parents were all for Bernie and then voted Тяцмр in the general.

They absolutely despise Hillary Clinton. No amount of pleading and reasoning would change their minds.

My mom totally hates Тяцмр now. My dad won't watch the news at all. They both just keep saying that Hillary shouldn't have run.

It's maddening.

[ornotna]

266. obsess much?

[relayerbob]

288. The Sanders online groups ...

were filled with trolls, many of whom may well have been plants who never intended to vote for Sanders.

[applegrove]

293. That was reported last fall I think.

[relayerbob]

298. Yep

[jpak]

292. Fake New- because this primary Bernie voter voted for Hillary in the general

And anybody that voted for Bernie would never vote for the Orange Douchebag.

Word.

[Jamaal510]

312. K&R

[Jim Lane]

314. If all of Bernie's voters had written in Bernie in November...

then Trump would not only have become President, he would have carried some additional states, and would even have won the popular vote in reality instead of just in his own fevered imagination.

It was Bernie's voters who gave Clinton her margin over Trump, even though many of those voters (raises hand) voted for Clinton with, shall we say, less than complete happiness.

The Bernie-Trump voters, evidently dissatisfied with the status quo, were the flip side of the Wall Street types who wanted a candidate from the establishment. Early on, when Bush was thought to be a strong contender, I read an article about these voters. In a Sanders-versus-Bush matchup, they'd back Bush. If it were Clinton-versus-Trump, they'd back Clinton. In Clinton-versus-Bush, they'd feel comfortable with either. They were nervous about Sanders-versus-Trump because neither could be counted on to continue business as usual. it was rumored that, in that circumstance, Bloomberg might enter as an independent. (Somewhat paradoxically, he would be running outside the two established parties but as the candidate most committed to the status quo.)

It's not surprising that some people not in the 1% gave priority to supporting a candidate who would upend the status quo. (Note to jurors: I'm not endorsing this attitude. I think those people erred. They should have listened to Bernie and paid more attention to ideology, to see that Trump was diametrically opposed to Bernie in many ways.) In fact, it was predicted before the conventions, IIRC, that Trump had a "time for a change" appeal that would get him some of Bernie's voters.

And, as others have noted in this thread, Bernie's voters gave less support to Trump than Clinton's voters in 2008 gave to McCain. It's simply the case that some people have weak or nonexistent party identification. There's no reason to assume that everyone who votes in a Democratic primary will vote Democratic in the general.

[Flying Squirrel]

316. Here's the problem, as this relates to DU:

Those 12% (if those numbers are in fact accurate) of Sanders supporters who ended up voting for Trump, were not Democrats and probably not even lefties of any kind. Nobody left DU and then turned around and voted for Trump out of spite. No DUer (trolls excepted) would have voted for Trump, period. No DUer in any crucial swing state would have withheld their vote in the GE. Many Democrats may have done so, but not those so invested in politics as to be members of this website.

This is conveniently ignored or actively denied by those who have too much invested in their own divisiveness (and in making Trump be someone else's fault besides their own) to let this non-issue die, and perhaps allow some kind of healing to occur.

It's pretty damn sad.

[applegrove]

320. +1

[still_one]

350. Actually enough of them voted for Stein or wrote in someone's name other than

the Democratic nominee, and it didn't take much.

Hillary lost Wisconsin by .3%. Jill Stein received 1% of the vote in that state. Similar results occurred in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the other critical swing states.

Obviously, those self-identified progressives who refused to vote for the Democratic nominee didn't care about the Supreme Court, Women's rights, Civil Rights, the environment, healthcare, social security, medicare, etc., because actions speak louder than words, and those actions said they could care less if a RACIST, SEXIST, BIGOT occupied the white house, and by proxy, then own it

[Flying Squirrel]

361. Again, I'm talking about DUers.

And you are continuing the practice of blaming actual DUers by proxy for something they probably didn't do, and for what purpose? Besides to drive them further away? There can be no constructive purpose for this continued shame-and-blame game. Shaming and blaming never works in any context.

[still_one]

388. Actually, there were a good number of DUers who LEFT DU because they refused to vote for the

Democratic nominee. and most of them went over to JPR, where they are proud of those actions

Any self-identified progressive who refused to vote for the Democratic nominee as far as I am concerned, didn't care about the Supreme Court, Women's rights, Civil Rights, the environment, workers rights, healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, etc, because the differences on just those issues where the Democrats stood, verses where the republicans stood was night and day, and they knew it.

I don't want anything to do with those folks who refused to vote for the Democratic nominee.

[emulatorloo]

351. Well you've summarized the article well. It isn't about DU Sanders supporters, or Bernie

Last edited Thu Aug 24, 2017, 02:46 AM - Edit history (1)

It is about a minority.

To me it is odd that our fellow Sanders supporters are making claims that it is about Bernie or the majority of Sanders supporters.

[still_one]

357. Exactly, and it only took a minority of them, and the minority that did it mostly voted for Stein or

wrote in Sanders. Hillary lost by about .3% in those critical swing states while Stein received around 1% in those states, so yeah it was minority.

There were a good number of Sanders' supporters on DU who left because they refused to vote for the Democratic nominee. A lot of those supporters migrated over to another site, JPR. Just looking at the posts over there it is very clear that the vast majority over there either voted for Stein, or wrote in Sanders. They didn't vote for trump, but their actions contributed to the same results.

[Flying Squirrel]

362. Lots of actions contributed to that result.

But some people for some reason feel the need to keep the laser-like focus on Bernie supporters, why? Perhaps to avoid the focus being on themselves for supporting the flawed candidacy of Hillary in the primaries which ALSO contributed to Trump's victory? Again I say, it's time for both wings of the Democratic Party to stop blaming each other, because blame-and-shame is a completely unproductive, energy-consuming waste of bandwidth that could be used to find a way forward that might bring us closer together again instead of driving us further apart.

[still_one]

380. There are NOT two wings of the Democratic party. Those who refused to vote for the Democratic

nominee, are not Democrats. They are selfish, self-centered, arrogant people who didn't care about the Supreme Court, Civil Rights, Women's Rights, workers rights, the environment, and a whole list of other issues that put people's lives at risk.

This isn't about the majority of Sanders supporters who voted for the Democratic nominee, or Bernie himself, who not only voted for the Democratic nominee, but said WITHOUT AMBIGUITY to his supporters that anyone who supported him needs to vote for the Democratic nominee.

The actions of those self-identified progressives who refused to vote for the Democratic nominee is unforgivable. Cornell West is the perfect example of that behavior. He said to Bill Maher that Clinton is "better than Trump,", yet he still voted for Stein.

That is the epitome of self-destructive arrogance.

Jill Stein, Susan Sarandon, Cornell West, William Pitt, and those who refused to vote for the Democratic nominee, have NO STANDING when they criticize trump, They have lost that privilege.

Noam Chomsky said it best: Progressives who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton made a ‘bad mistake’

"Legendary linguist and activist Noam Chomsky thinks that progressives and left-wingers who didn’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton this year have badly miscalculated — and will now pay a very dear price.

“I think they [made] a bad mistake,” said Chomsky, who reiterated that it’s important to keep a “greater evil” from obtaining power, even if you’re not thrilled with the alternative. “I didn’t like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump’s on every issue I can think of.”

Chomsky also attacked the arguments made by philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who argued that Trump’s election would at least shake up the system and provide a real rallying point for the left.

“[Zizek makes a] terrible point,” Chomsky told Hasan. “It was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early ’30s… he’ll shake up the system in bad ways.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/noam-chomsky-progressives-who-refused-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton-made-a-bad-mistake/

That is why there will not be a reconciliation with those that refused to vote for the Democratic nominee.

They can take their purist all or nothing bullshit, and create their own party, because they made it quite clear they didn't want to work within the Democratic party

[sheshe2]

414. For you.

[betsuni]

512. Uh oh, looks like the person you're replying to is flagged for review.

Operation Counteroffensive is on holiday for the time being. The Flying Squirrel has landed.

[HughBeaumont]

376. Changing the article's headline might go a long way in remedying that.

At first glance, it looks like an all-inclusive blaming.

[Cary]

379. Show me, please, how sowing discord and discontent helps Democrats

Someone in the article quantified how it hurt us. If your perspective has merit you could quantify it.

[Greybnk48]

319. Divide and conquer. Scott Walker is smiling. n/t

[applegrove]

323. Did you read the whole article? It is normal that the middle doesn't hold. And some in the

middle or soft republicans liked Bernie a lot. That is good information for us to have.

[Blue_Tires]

321. No great shock

Given how many of them on Twitter were openly celebrating Hillary's loss...

[applegrove]

322. Those were likely trolls. I don't think any real DUers celebrated Trump's win.

[Blue_Tires]

324. I was actually referring to Twitter

Which is a whole different animal

[applegrove]

326. So you know they were Bernie fans on Twitter? I can't quite take the pulse of Twitter.

[Blue_Tires]

406. Yeah... the bots and agitprop merchants are easy to spot

The vast majority of Bernie folks I saw celebrating were legit... Some are even semi-famous names in the liberal punditsphere....

[brewens]

328. There you have it. Had Bernie been our nominee, he would have beat Trump handily. We tried

to tell you.

[applegrove]

331. Thank you. That is a plausible take.

[Egnever]

360. You were right

I underestimated the extent of the hate for Hillary..
I thought Trump was so despicable it wouldn't matter.

Without Comey it may not have.

[Maven]

427. "This is your fault. If you had just paid our ransom, we wouldn't have had to kill the country."

To hell with that. Also "Bernie would have..." is bullshit, completely unsupported by facts.

[lunamagica]

485. Please. He didn't even get enough votes to win the primary. In fact he never came even close.

Saying he would have beaten trump is just absurd

[flibbitygiblets]

330. Divisive and unhelpful post. Look forward or get out of the way.

We have important work to do and the time is right. Please stop with these divisive posts.

[still_one]

348. Those Sanders' supporters that refused to vote for the Democratic nominee, bear the

responsibility for putting trump where he is today

The Supreme Court wasn't reason enough for them to vote for the Democratic nominee.

The environment wasn't reason enough for them to vote for the Democratic nominee.

Civil Rights, women's, rights, healthcare, workers rights, social security, medicare, and on and on were not reasons enough for them to vote for the Democratic nominee.

As far as I am concerned, if those self-identified progressives couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Democratic nominee for the reasons I mentioned:

Then I say the same thing to them, that they said to those of us who DID VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1280104210

[NurseJackie]

408. There's only ONE reason for anyone to be upset with the OP...

... and I'm pretty sure you know what it is, so there's no need for me to elaborate further.

[still_one]

417. Yup

[Ken Burch]

354. What it actually was was that some voters who backed Bernie out of alienation in the spring..

...did the same with Trump in the fall.

If Sanders hadn't run in the primaries, they would still have been alienated and would have voted Trump, or Green in the fall anyway.

They wouldn't have voted HRC no matter what, and they wouldn't have simply vanished.

The article you link to provides correlation without causation.

[krawhitham]

364. Lets be fair at least 12% of his voters were never democrat voters they were Bernie voters

So why should they ever vote for Hillary, they were not democrats to begin with they owed us nothing

They were voters that did not like the status quo, they felt left behind. Hillary bear hugged Obama and promised to continue the path he set. I liked Obama's path so I liked Hillary's strategy, but I understand these people had good reason to not like the status quo.


Instead of blaming Sanders' voters maybe try blaming the Russians for wikileaks & the GOP for attacking Hillary for 30 years to the point people believed the BS wikileaks was putting out

[BainsBane]

444. Your points are good

and how people voted is how they voted. The problem from my perspective is those who insist we must orient the party toward that 12 percent and other GOP voters.

[redgreenandblue]

366. Maybe we should call them racist and sexist some more. That might persuade them. nt

[JI7]

373. if they voted for trump they are racist and sexist. no need to persuade them of anything

but we aren't going to let them deny the facts about what they were voting for.

[Daxter]

378. We Need To Stop Attacking Our Own

If we don't stop the infighting, we will keep losing elections to the republicans. We need to support our own when Election Day comes. It is time for the democrats to get on the same page on the issues when it comes time to stand behind a candidate on the issues. I want to win elections again so we can make the positive changes that this country needs.

[NurseJackie]

425. Good grief! Nobody is attacking "our own."

Anyone who voted for any candidate OTHER than Hillary Clinton are not "our own". Stein voters are not "our own". Johnson voters are not "our own". Trump voters are not "our own". Abstaining voters are not "our own". Write-in voters are also not "our own".

Are you defending these people? (It sure sounds like it to me.)

[Daxter]

475. You clearly didn't read what I said

And you are doing exactly what I was talking about. Stop with the divisive language, we need to all stick together and stop fighting each other.

[NurseJackie]

476. LOL

475. You clearly didn't read what I said

Yes I did. I read it and understood it perfectly.

[Daxter]

479. Definitely didn't

[NurseJackie]

482. Of course I did.

[samnsara]

389. well they got what they paid for...

[democratisphere]

404. Thank you Newseek.

Sometimes you can learn from the truth.

[vi5]

410. Remember when people on here were saying.......

variations on the "Hillary doesn't need their votes anyway. She'll win without them."

I wonder which statement was more incorrect. That one or the even more often repeated "Hillary has been through the wringer. She can handle everything that they'll throw out her. She's been fully vetted."

I don't recall any caveats about James Comey or Russians added on to the end of THAT one.

Bottom line is we should stop fighting the primary and start looking ahead at what voters we DO need and try to win them over.

[Atman]

411. I'm sure this has been alerted upon a hundred times, but...

...what is the point of this? Is this news to anyone? I would have preferred Bernie, but when the time came I voted for Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is intended to be a lesson regarding the pitfalls of party purity tests. Whatever. It's time to deal with the horrible, horrible piece of shit currently occupying the White House. We can also focus on messaging and candidates for 2018/20. We really can walk and choose issues at the same time.

[MuseRider]

413. Can't understand it myself

but perhaps we did not have a candidate that was even palatable to them?

They were looking for change and we gave them entrenched.

[R B Garr]

508. Or maybe people smeared and lied about Hillary

to make her not palatable. Never again.

[MuseRider]

509. Good lord really?

If we do not look inside we will never learn.

Of course she was smeared and lied about. Who isn't? She was unable to get out in front of it and frankly they should have been ready. Who did not know with all the Clinton baggage there was not going to be smearing and lying? This was one of the worst elections I have ever seen.

[R B Garr]

511. Good lord is right!

The Russians copied the endless smears. I saw Clinton being absolutely savaged and there was no excuse for it. The attacks were used by the Russians to continue degrading her on every level.

She deliberately could not "get out in front of it" because she could not alienate people. Good lord is right! Never again.

[GeorgeGist]

415. Putin voters helped even more.

[R B Garr]

416. Yup. This article states the obvious and what we all saw.

They even had a planned strategy for it. Bernie or bust is what they called it.

[NurseJackie]

423. It makes sense that those are the SAME ones who are pissed-off at Newsweek and...

... pissed-off at "Raw Story" and the OP. Now I know we don't have those type posting here any longer, but it's confusing to me why some people continue to defend that type.

[R B Garr]

428. Right, it was their own strategy, so why can't they just

acknowledge it and take responsibility. Sanders should lead by apologizing for the divisiveness since it was actually Hillary supporters who were cheated, not the other way around.

This is why you don't willfully damage a nominee by prolonged empty slurs since it obviously turns people away! That's just common knowledge and basic common sense. Now look what we have.

[disillusioned73]

418. Ahhhh..

I see the smear campaign is still in affect.. I guess untill 2020

Note; He is still the most popular politicain in the country - it's time to get over it & fight for single payer & $15 min..

[Omaha Steve]

429. PAID FOR by Jill somebody or other?

For almost a year it has been Jill's fault!

[IronLionZion]

442. Why won't voters do what we want?

Stupid voters ruin everything.

[FiveGoodMen]

451. What do we know about the source?

Bernie Sanders supporters switched their allegiance to Donald Trump in large enough numbers last November to sway the election for the real estate billionaire, according to an analysis of voter data released Tuesday by the blog Political Wire.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/bernie-sanders-voters-helped-trump-become-president/

I clicked on Political Wire in the article and was taken to the front page of a members-only blog.

Do we know their track record?

Do we know how they determined who voted for whom?

[Mike Nelson]

457. I recall...

...being excited, when the primaries began, seeing long lines and hearing about new voters. My excitement dimmed when I learned they were mostly Trump supporters. Some of them did say either Trump or Sanders would get their vote. Bernie ended by supporting and campaigning for Hillary. He was a little later than he should have been, but he did his job and brought along the voters that were there to be had.

[LiberalFighter]

463. How many of them "Bernie" voters...

were actually Republicans trying to mess with the election?

[applegrove]

499. It was reported that some Bernie supporters were in fact GOP trolls.

[vkkv]

466. That block of Sanders voters NEVER WOULD have voted for HRC anyway. So it's a moot point.

Right?

Don't you see? it is no loss for HRC.

I voted for Bernie in the primary but for HRC in the G.E.

That particular group of Sanders supporters must have found HRC awfully distasteful to have voted for a CREEP like Trump instead of HRC.

[paulkienitz]

468. proud to be part of the 80%

...and not in the mood to hear mainline Dems try to blame progressives and those who are woke to wealth concentration as the reason Hillary lost.

[mjvpi]

493. Please give me the top five issues that you care about

And the approach that you think our party should take? I'm not interested in rehashing a horse race with you.

Seeing as how this site was hacked and if all you want to do is drive a divisive narrative, your response to my post feels more like an agitation than an interaction.

I'm serious, please give me some instight into what you care about.

[SunSeeker]

497. I see you can't answer that question either.

Last edited Fri Aug 25, 2017, 02:09 AM - Edit history (1)

Asking about the "top 5 issues" I care about sure sounds like a diversion. Seems like the only time people have asked me about other issues is to avoid talking about the issue at hand.

[lins the liberal]

472. I am so sick of this

I was a Bernie supporter. Still am. But I voted for Hillary, and was very glad to do so. And Bernie himself stumped for Hillary.

Just seems like there are those who simply can't let this go. But need to stir the pot frequently.

I come here every day and read. I've been a member since 2001. But I wish to hell I hadn't come here today to once again read this crap.

[Tarheel_Dem]

477. If you really "voted for Hillary", then the article isn't about you, now is it?

[lins the liberal]

480. No it isn't but it is time to let it go

I am just sick of the whole subject. And yes indeed I voted for Hillary and I helped some others decide to vote for her. You questioning me is part of this problem. Some how if we ever supported Bernie, then this is held against us.

[SunSeeker]

483. You voted for Hillary. No one is questioning you or holding anything against you. nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

489. I'm having a hard time figuring out why some of you are protesting so much if you all "voted for...

Hillary". It's just mind boggling why you guys have become so defensive whenever the name Bernie Sanders is broached in other than absolute fealty. No one is holding your support for Bernie against you or anyone else, but the fanaticism surrounding him is still as creepy today as it was back then.

[crosinski]

484. No matter how much you want it to be different, this is the truth:

'In each of the three states that ultimately swung the election for Trump—Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton was smaller than the number of Sanders voters who gave him their vote.'

I live in Michigan.

[mudstump]

491. We are going to lose...

every election to the republicans because so many are addicted to the drama of infighting. Go ahead and keep attacking the very people needed to plan a strategy and win. What you will be left with is life lived in a republican run country. Good luck with that.

[Tarheel_Dem]

501. Au contraire. We may lose, but it won't be because of "attacking the very people......". If you..

take exception to the o.p., then you obviously didn't vote for Hillary, because that's what the article is about. If you did, as has been repeatedly proclaimed throughout this thread, then the story has nothing to do with you.

[hauweg]

495. I'm so tired of

reading here again and again that I'm responsible for Trump becoming President. I rarely ever post, but I read every day and every time this comes up it makes my blood boil. Yes, I supported Bernie in the primary and 100% Hillary afterwards and once again I'm responsible for Trump being president. Just the headline "Bernie Sanders voters helped Trump become President" makes me sick to my stomach. I'm done here

[klook]

496. Man: Look! I came here for an argument.

Mr Barnard (calmly): Oh! I'm sorry, this is abuse.
Man: Oh I see, that explains it.

Trashing thread.

[pecosbob]

500. Horseshit...

the media virtually ensured Gump's election...with assistance from the FSB.

[Lanius]

506. Let's hope the Bernie supporters who voted for Drumpf feel good

about their protest vote. I'm sure these privileged people are patting each other on the back for teaching the DNC and other "false liberals" a lesson.

In the meantime, Trump will ban transgender people from the military, push for massive tax cuts for the rich, keep fighting to ban Muslim refugees from entering our country, pander to the white nationalists, gut environmental regulations, and continue to divide our country with his hateful and hyper-partisan rhetoric. Despite her problems, Hillary would have done none of these things.

[Tarheel_Dem]

510. +1