Bernie Sanders: Why Democrats Can't Win Midterms 2018 Without Him (or with him) - Newsweek

[progressoid]

"Please do not think these are somehow radical, or unpopular, or extreme or fringe ideas,” Bernie Sanders tells me. It’s early May, and the once-and-perhaps-future presidential contender is ticking off progressive policy proposals—his policy proposals—that, in the two years since his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary, have rapidly remade the Democratic Party: universal health care, tuition-free public college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage. When he’s told that some believe his ideas may be better suited to Finland than Nebraska, Sanders bristles. “Look at the polling,” he snaps in his thick Brooklyn accent, which decades in Vermont have not diminished. “You don’t have to believe what I tell you.”

By many measures, he’s right. In the two years since his insurgent campaign for the White House succumbed to the Clinton juggernaut, Sanders has gone from cult hero to mainstream dynamo. ­Larry David can mock him on Saturday Night Live as a cranky, quixotic septuagenarian, but when Sanders endorses an idea, many of his peers in the Senate listen without laughing. The American public has become increasingly receptive to his brand of democratic socialism; once-skeptical centrists have seen the polls and have followed accordingly.

This has resulted in a high-stakes ideological war to out-Bernie Bernie. In March, for example, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York endorsed a pro­posal that would ensure the government guarantees a job to every American. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey followed with modest legislation, before Sanders bested both lawmakers with a national plan (pay rate: $15 an hour, of course).

More...http://www.newsweek.com/2018/06/01/bernie-sanders-clinton-democrats-939875.html

[sunRISEnow]

1. Ha ha. Democrats are winning great races across the country, without Bernie. His people lose.

[RandySF]

2. We sure as Hell cant win with him.

[Eliot Rosewater]

10. Boy do we know that now MORE than EVER!

[dalton99a]

13. +1

[dawg day]

3. Can't win with him or without him?

Then I guess the point is... we can't win?
I think this is to be ignored.
And the notion that "Bernie is the only progressive!" is ill-informed and biased against the many people in the Democratic party who are just as progressive on economics but even MORE progressive on other issues.

Plus, seriously, not all potential Democratic voters are "progressive". I live in a red state, and no one's going to win here yelling "free college!" (I'm all for free college myself, but most people don't go to college here.)
but you know what? Obama won here (once). He did it by getting out the base in the cities (that is, typical Democratic voters, not just Bernie's).

I hope Bernie Sanders can get his voters out to vote for Democratic candidates. But they have to vote not just for the Bernie-style "free college" candidates, but the worker-safety/strengthen Medicaid/let's not cut defense spending ones.

[marylandblue]

4. Bernie's ideas helped pull the Democratic party to the left.

But now that it happened, it is no longer about him.

[murielm99]

8. Those were not Bernie's ideas -

at least those mentioned in the OP. Bernie took those ideas from others and claimed them.

It was never about him. He is the past. We need to look at what is happening now. And contrary to what Bernie is saying, we have been winning a lot. The candidates he endorses usually lose.

[BlueStater]

5. That must be why so many of his favored candidates have been winning their primaries.

Oh, wait...

[BlueWI]

6. Banks that are too big to fail are too big to exist.

A lot of elected Republicans and Democrats failed to hear this and backslid on financial reform. Good thing Bernie's voice and Elizabeth Warren's are advocating for the consumer and the main Street economy.

[Cha]

9. Our Democratic Party's

WINS are doing great without him. And, we'll continue to do so.

[Eliot Rosewater]

11. Yes OUR party, I made the mistake of calling it MY party once and WHOA

Funny how that shit works.

[QC]

12. MEANIE!!!!!!!!!!

[Blue_Tires]

14. Virginia says hi...