Top 10 Reasons Not To Vote For Bernie Sanders

[TalkingDog]

[daleanime]

1. K&R.....

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Excellent

[CorporatistNation]

19. Ass Kick'n Mother Effin Post!!!! K and R This MoFO BIGTIME!!!!!

Showing the bots where they live with this one fer sure fer sure!!!!

[MeNMyVolt]

3. Deep. Kinda embarrassing the board here, no?

[Ned_Devine]

10. How so?

[SusanCalvin]

25. No. nt

[Fawke Em]

60. How is sarcasm embarrassing?

[GoneOffShore]

65. Thanks for your concern.

Not.

[SammyWinstonJack]

71. Embarrassing for some, I'm sure.

Feel the Bern.

[Warren DeMontague]

116. Wow, what an impressive retort.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. LOL!

[LWolf]

5. lol

[roguevalley]

6. love this. facebook bound

[99th_Monkey]

64. Ditto n/t

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, TalkingDog.

[senz]

8. 11. If the lower middle class starts feeling safe again

they might start stirring things up like they did in the Sixties.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

20. It was by design that the cost of higher education went through the roof

Nixon would have had a stroke if he saw 87M Millennials who were either

- not struggling 24/7 to make ends meet
- not in prison, or on the path towards it
- not enlisted as cannon fodder
- had the free time and comfort zone to question authority

[SusanCalvin]

26. At the very least, it was very conveeeeeenient. nt

[Akamai]

28. Thom Hartmann also regularly points out that Reagan asked why

he should pay for college for kids who disagreed with him. Thom also notes that Right Wing Russell Kirk was opposed to raising wages for people in general because this would free up the Middle class.

So the basic view of the Righties is to oppose increased wages for people because it would free them to do the things that they think are important. Like black rights, women's rights, etc.

Oh by the way, GO BERNIE!!!

[SusanCalvin]

21. Yep, that would be a problem.

To the PTB.

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. knr

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. Hilarious!

[restorefreedom]

12. *snort!* nt

[Paka]

13. Love it!

[brooklynite]

14. The top reason not to vote for Bernie Sanders

Not having the financial and political resources to run a national GE campaign against the Republicans.

[SusanCalvin]

22. Huh?

I'm a Bernie supporter, but yes it does. Or at least can and has, albeit indirectly.

[SusanCalvin]

29. Good grief.

I hesitate to voice this, but are you aware of how the system works?

[HubertHeaver]

35. He's a clever one.

Eight posts in < 24 hours. And he knew enough to self-delete.

[SusanCalvin]

42. Didn't say anything terrible,

Just appeared to believe that "buying elections" meant handing out cash at the polling place. That's so 19th century....!

[HubertHeaver]

128. He apparently said something terrible enough to get himself dismissed.

Not as clever as he thought he was.

[SusanCalvin]

129. Interesting. Must have gotten more obstreperous elsewhere. nt

[SusanCalvin]

32. If he wins the nomination,

then the party should throw everything it can behind him. Since he will then, of course, be the nominee of the party.

[brooklynite]

49. As will I...but I won't be under any illusion that he'll have much of a chance.

[SusanCalvin]

51. Thanks for the support,

And, probably needless to say, hope you are wrong about the chances.

One thing that really has encouraged me just now is the conscious realization that Bernie's just a symptom, albeit an excellent one.

[LiberalLovinLug]

100. Debbie and the DNC would be, even if reluctantly, forced to throw everything behind him

Because it would mean that the majority of Democratic primary voters voted for him.

And once in the general he has just as much of a chance as Hillary. All polls show either of them beating all Republican contenders.

[pangaia]

50. Ooooooo kay.

[MrMickeysMom]

58. Your post is not accurate and is unsourced...

But, if you want to go on believing this, it's your choice. It's an incorrect assumption that meanwhile holds no water.

[Armstead]

88. And Hillarty's "resources" would come from where?

Big Money/Wall St. /Big Business?

Political resources? So the Democratic party ("Vote for us or else suffer the dire consequences&quot would deny him the resources and the "anyone but the GOP" partisans would throw him under the bus in the GE?

[rhett o rick]

99. Money isn't everything. We need a change from the culture that big money rules.

We need to get our country back from those that worship the wealthy.

[Enthusiast]

15. Pffft!

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Babel_17]

16. Nice use of humor on some very important points (nt)

[stevenleser]

18. Nope, that is actually one reason, maybe.

#10 - Republican house won't pass it
#9 - Republican house won't pass it
#8 - Republican house won't pass it
#7 - Republican house won't pass it
#6 - Republican house won't pass it
#5 - Republican house won't pass it
#4 - Republican house won't pass it
#3 - Republican house won't pass it
#2 - Republican house won't pass it
#1 - I've seen several situations where his behavior wasn't honest, but I will give you this one for arguments sake since all the rest don't work out.

[JonLeibowitz]

23. I have it on good authority that cowardice is a good strategy, so you seem to be on the right track.

[stevenleser]

52. So then why havent you made Republicans vote our way if all it takes is courage?

Why haven't you done it?

[JonLeibowitz]

56. That is not the point. You don't run away from your beliefs because people oppose you.

[SusanCalvin]

24. Right you are, so

The presidency alone won't do it. No argument there. Nevertheless, the presidency is a start. Bernie getting national exposure is a start.

[DhhD]

36. The Down Ticket is a start too. Bernie is asking for Democratic Revolution-Down Ticket so he will

begin to have the support that Obama had in 2008-2010. Sanders is telling us what he needs-that is part of his campaign message.

[SusanCalvin]

40. And, as you said,

OMG, is it needed in Kansas.

[sonofspy777]

44. AND Nebraska

AND Ohio
AND Wisconsin

ALL these f***ing Koch experiments!

[SusanCalvin]

47. Yep.

Still getting over the self-deleted poster in this thread who said money doesn't buy elections. Hopefully this cycle of such is coming to an end. It's sure done enough damage.

[passiveporcupine]

30. Funny how many things Obama has managed to get done,

in spite of "The republican house won't pass it".

But keep on throwing out those thoughtful posts.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

31. Obama, briefly, didn't have a Republican House

And flat out, none of the things Sanders is talking about is something the President can do on his own.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[SusanCalvin]

34. Of course the president can do very little on his/her own.

Applies to any candidate, not just Bernie. I'm hoping for coattails.

BTW, I am grateful to this thread for the boost to my morale.

[cascadiance]

61. Right you are... He needed a lot of Republicans' help to pass TPA to get TPP passed later...

... whether it is under his watch or the Republican he tells them might get elected to get that power he wants them to have as well next term.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

67. Well you go right ahead and hold your breath for the TPP to be passed

Personally, I don't think it will happen.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[SusanCalvin]

86. Sure hope you are right. nt

[Duval]

90. So do I. nt

[kenfrequed]

101. Uhm...

A lot of that had to do with the fact that some of those Democrats were blue dogs that gave the most obstructionist political minority in political history fillibuster cover. Yeah, maybe a few of those bastards should have stood up for our president.

Also didn't help that a dozen of those people were disciples of Rahm, imagine what would have happened if we had elected actual progressives during that period.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

106. Lieberman wasn't a Democrat

At all. Period.

And we needed a 60 vote majority to pass basically any legislation, which included him.

But look, you guys managed to get all those Blue Dogs that only supported 80% of the party platform, with Republicans who support about 5% of it, so you're happy now, right?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[kenfrequed]

111. Lieberman was a Democrat

Past tense. Yes, he ran as an independent eventually as he moved further and further to the right wing but he was a conservative Democrat.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

113. When Obama was in office, he was not a Democrat

Which is what this topic is about. Lieberman was, at the time, a member of the "Connecticut For Lieberman" party. So bashing Obama for his not getting some far-left agenda done, when they tried and failed, to push him out of office, is silly.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[kenfrequed]

114. I'm not bashing President Obama

I am bashing every blue dog bastard that gave filibuster cover to the most egregiously obstructionist minority party in modern American history.

These people stood in the way of actually getting change accomplished and they should rightly be ashamed of how they squandered a historic opportunity.




Edit:

Though nice frigging try in your attempt to spin my disdain for blue dogs and conservative Democrats into being somehow against the president.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

115. Ah, so you don't consider Obama to be a conservative?

Interesting. You should keep that to yourself among the Bernie supporters on the DU.

Also, just FYI, the Democrats briefly had 60 votes in the Senate - including then Senator Lieberman. There wasn't a single defection. So your "bashing every blue dog bastard that gave filibuster cover" is an empty set. It doesn't even include Lieberman. Thought you should know.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[kenfrequed]

118. Really?

Because I seem to clearly recall President Obama's first two years rather well.

There were more Fillibusters than at almost any time in American hisotry. So yeah, there were Blue Dogs that DID provide fillibuster cover to the Republicans.

Stop trying to rewrite history to cover for the mistakes of the conservative democrats.

Of course then maybe you might have to take some damned responsbility, considering your nom de ordinator.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

119. Yes really

> Because I seem to clearly recall President Obama's first two years rather well.

You clearly don't, because otherwise you would have recognized that Democrats held a filibuster-proof majority for a grand total of five months that stretched across a period is traditionally an extended recess for congress. And even then, absolutely everything we got through during those five months came because Senator Lieberman agreed with it, as Republicans were filibustering just about everything.


> Stop trying to rewrite history to cover for the mistakes of the conservative democrats.



Okay, pal. Go back and actually learn about that history you think you know so much about. Senator Sanders would get absolutely jack-shit through this Republican congress, and he would have done considerably worse with the congress Obama had in 2009.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[DhhD]

33. Just What The Down Ticket Needs In Kansas-Republicans have destroyed this state and won't

pass needed bills; Enough is Enough.

[Ken Burch]

39. Exactly. Unlike HRC, Bernie actually WANTS the down-ticket races to go well for us. n/t.

[SusanCalvin]

48. I hope Hillary cares about down-ticket races. She should.

We all should.

[TexasBushwhacker]

37. You're assuming the the GOP will retain both houses

of Congress. I don't. If Bernie is elected, it means people are ready for change - big change. Every member of the House is up for reelection and a third of the Senate. I expect a shake up.

[SusanCalvin]

43. I sure hope you are right.

Bernie is just a symptom, albeit an excellent one.

[stevenleser]

55. No, I'm not. I know they will retain the House through 2023 because of redistricting.

The senate is up in the air, potentially, the House is not. That's why I said "The Republican House" in the post to which you responded.

[uponit7771]

83. ... or, people KNOW how gerrymandering works !!! There's no assuming anything

[TexasBushwhacker]

89. I know how gerrymandering works

I also know that Democrats do better when voter turnout is high and about the down-ballot effect of a presidential candidate.

You can fault Sanders followers for many things, but you cannot fault them for their enthusiasm. I think if Bernie is the candidate, he is more likely to get people who haven't voted in the past to the polls, thus increasing voter turnout. I also think he would probably have more of a down-ballot effect than HRC. JMHO

[uponit7771]

91. Great do people realize the effects of it and why its not something that can be overcome in ...

... in the next 5 years!!??!?!?!?!

The down ballot votes have to be avg 15% more dems than reps across the board to overcome gerrymandering.

That aint happening

[TexasBushwhacker]

92. Still not a reason to vote for HRC

She won't get any more support from the extreme right than Sanders, maybe less.

[uponit7771]

93. Still a great reason not to take chance on Sanders, if the outcome is going to be the same don't

... take chances.

Sanders has a couple of weeks to break out the plan to get past congress, sans that I don't see why he'd be the practical choice and Hillary is not Satan.

[TexasBushwhacker]

94. I don't think Hillary is Satan

But I will be voting for Bernie in the primary. If Hillary wins the nomination, I will vote for her in the general.

[Ken Burch]

38. A Republican house won't pass anything HRC would introduce, either.

The difference is, HRC would use that as an excuse to go back to Bill's post-'94 policies(which were just to cave in to the right on everything and not ever try to flip control of Congress), whereas Bernie would use such GOP behavior in the first two years of his term to mobilize progressive voters in '18 and '20 to break right-wing control of state legislatures-the places where congressional district lines are drawn-and the House and Senate as well.

[SusanCalvin]

46. I hope you are right that they have the long view.

I can't imagine they don't.

[uponit7771]

82. HRC isn't promising unicorns

[BlueCaliDem]

57. Bingo! Sanders has ZERO clout in Congress, and I really don't see him and his 'revolutionaries'

changing that dynamic any time soon.

[cascadiance]

62. Umm.. I guess it took ZERO clout to get the FIRST bipartisan effort to audit the fed....

Or was that something that Hillary's donors told her and other corporate Democrats that they didn't want her doing when she was in the Senate.

And for all of those who don't like him as a conscientious objector here, I wonder how many veterans who benefit from his MANY efforts to fight for veteran's rights in the many bills he's helped get pushed through to support them.

[BlueCaliDem]

95. Auditing the Fed is easy to push through - especially with a Democratic president at the helm.

Republicans will do anything to curb the executive's power in any which way they can. No biggie. But try that with a Republican president and see how far that goes.

But I'd LOVE to see how far Sanders can get IF he should become president of the United States, and when he tries to deliver a bill to Congress to raise the minimum wage to $15; when he tries to deliver a bill to Congress to make public college free for everyone; when he tries to tax the middle class in order to pay for family leave; when he tries to deliver a bill to Congress to tax the "millionaires and billionaires" and Wall Street. All excellent policy positions, mind you, but unrealistic in this Congress.

I'm not one of those who dislike him for being a conscientious objector, although I have to admit that's pretty hypocritical since he's been voting for just about every bill to send our troops to war since he was elected to the U.S. Congress. You'd think that a conscientious objector would at least be 100% pacifist and, when in power, would have voted against each and every effort to send our troops to war, having had to face being drafted to fight a war against his will himself. But no. Not Sanders.

[mikehiggins]

63. Well, who does have more than zero clout in Congress?

Like the other poster above says about how the GOP won't pass Bernie's agenda, whose agenda are they going to pass? Is there someone out there that they are going to like more? Unless you really think the game is utterly rigged how can you imagine HRC would do any better than Sanders? Some of you people should take a deep breath and think about what you're saying. The GOP did their level best to geld Obama. Do you think they'll treat HRC any better? And if she has to go before the people to enlist them in fighting back how many of them do you think will believe her? You folks that love the polls ought to look at what they are saying.

[kenfrequed]

102. Exactly!

How will starting negotiations half way closer to the republican starting point actually help anything?

[Proserpina]

72. Who says the House will still be Republican?

It does change, you know. Not cast in stone.

[uponit7771]

81. Gerrymander!!?

[Proserpina]

84. Who says gerrymanders are forever?

[SusanCalvin]

87. Really.

A reply of just "gerrymander" is an admission you think things are never going to change, or want people to think you think that.

Either gerrymanders are *not*, as you say, forever, or we might as well roll over and give up.

[druidity33]

74. Bernie has worked with Republicans...

when was the last time Hillary managed to do that?



And i think your #2-10 are meaningless when the other Dem choices would have just as difficult a problem...

[uponit7771]

80. Sane ones, the ones currently in congress should be in jail not in office

[Helen Borg]

76. But if the R house becomes a D house...

[uponit7771]

79. What about the word gerrymandering do people not understand!!!?!?

[litlbilly]

107. A lot of those districts were designed to give repubs a 51/49 win. Bernie can fix that and I think

they know it. The only way for the repukes to keep winning those districts is to play around with the voting machines.
Bernie will cause a huge voter turnout. Even if the media keeps up the Bernie blackout, it wont matter. My prediction, right after Bernie wins Iowa and NH, Elizabeth Warren will endorse.

[uponit7771]

108. How!?!? 15% on avarage?! I don't think so... that's not even reasonable. Congress has only been

... this gerrymandered one other time in US history.

Maddow had a segment on it, the gerrymandering done in congress is historical and few people understood what Obama or the country is up against for another 5 years.

[litlbilly]

109. Maddow now works for Comcast, do you know who they are? Anything coming from the M$M is now not

worth the time spent watching. You might want to try another place for your info. And one last thing before I put you on ignore,
these are not normal times so all your past reasoning simply doesn't apply any more. Just watch and you'll see.

[uponit7771]

110. Everyone everywhere isn't evil and Maddows segment I referred to is falsifiable. How are people

... supposed to have a reasonable conversation about what could be done if what others are going to do (like Moore and Sanders) is constantly minimize the effect congress has on America and the agenda of her president!?

Sanders has to have an answer to congress bottom line, no PRACTICAL answer means Hillary is in.

[stevenleser]

121. If all of that were true, we would have won the House back in 2012

Democrats won the popular vote for the House by a significant margin in 2012 and it still resulted in a large Republican majority.

I don't think you realize how thoroughly gerrymandered the districts are in many states. We won't win the House back unless and until that is undone. If you understand that process then you know that it will require having majorities in the state legislatures after the 2020 elections. Assuming we accomplished that, and that is a big lift in itself, the districts would be redrawn and then folks would run for those new districts in Nov 2022 and take office January 2023, which just happens to be the start of the lame duck session for a President elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.

The next President, if we are lucky enough to elect and reelect a Democrat, won't be able to do much.

[litlbilly]

122. I believe because of the DNC, nobody voted in 2012. Hard to dispute the numbers

[stevenleser]

124. If that had been true we would have President Romney. We won a major victory in 2012. nt

[litlbilly]

126. I think this time will be different. Many more people will vote if they know it will make a

difference.

[stevenleser]

127. It won't make a difference. We will have a GOP house through 2023. Nt

[uponit7771]

78. +1

[stage left]

97. The Republican controlled House won't pass anything

unless it is harmful to women, gays, the poor, people of color, workers, young people with student debt, School children, the elderly, the disabled, the incarcerated, veterans,or our troops. Wow, that's nearly everybody, isn't it? Maybe Democrats should get with the Republican program so Democrats can get some things passed. Never mind that those things would be diametrically opposed to the things Democrats generally want for the people of this country and that this country needs.

[drm604]

98. I keep seeing this argument, and it doesn't make sense to me.

At the very least, Sanders may veto some bad policies that Clinton would sign.

It's a given that the Republicans won't cooperate by passing progressive policies. How that leads to the idea that we should therefore vote for the less progressive candidate is beyond me.

If you want to argue that Clinton is as progressive (or more progressive) as Sanders, that's one thing. I wouldn't agree, but at least it makes sense as an argument. But I don't agree with the idea that we should try to elect the candidate who is closest to the Republicans. We should do the opposite of that.

[stevenleser]

120. It means there is no reason to vote for Sanders, that's why

The sensible thing to do is nominate the most moderate candidate since none of them will be able to pass much of anything anyway.

[drm604]

123. Sorry but I don't follow that logic.

Either of them will beat the Republican candidate, so why not go with the more progressive?

[stevenleser]

125. Its very straightforward. Why risk losing with an extreme candidate if that candidate cant do

anything if elected anyway?

[Warren DeMontague]

117. Unfortunately, on decriminalizing marijuana, some of the biggest roadblocks in the house have come

from OUR people.

How fucked up is that, Steve?

[AzDar]

41. K & R

[sonofspy777]

45. HAHA Good One! knr

[Spitfire of ATJ]

53. #3 actually fits a lot of working poor*.

* a condition Republicans claim doesn't exist.

[SusanCalvin]

54. Yep. Sadly. nt

[burrowowl]

59. K&R!!!!!!

[Live and Learn]

66. K&R nt

[Duckfan]

68. Do we really need 10 lousy excuses to do something?

[Betty Karlson]

69. 11: he is not the lesser of two evils! eom

[SammyWinstonJack]

70. Nice!

[madokie]

73. off to every one on my email list

[99Forever]

75. Yeah and..

... scary pinko socialist!

BOO!

[lark]

77. Can't wait to vote for the most progresssive candidate in my lifetime.

Feeling the Bern!!!

[valerief]

85. Ha! That's a hoot!

[NikolaC]

96. K&R

Awesome and funny !

[Faux pas]

103. Kickin'

[red dog 1]

104. Kick!

Excellent post!

[UglyGreed]

105. I wonder if some do think these

reasons are legit.....

[Karma13612]

112. Darn! I was already with some fighten' words and

It turns out to be a funny diary!!!

Ya got me! Very clever!