US Politics - Term of surrender? Or is it wise to follow the Dumpty?

[DMC]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Just own the shit already and move on. I mean, hell, Republicans were able to do that with racism, so I think the fucking idiots in the media and the fucking messaging idiots for the Democratic party need to stop being such fucking ninnies and quit letting Republicans define socialism.

I think it's fine if Bernie wants to own it.  That's still not going to make me ignore the hard and durable data that says running as a self-identified democratic socialist will make it especially hard to get elected president.  It's not being a pussy to recognize empirical facts about socialism's unpopularity with the general electorate, and it's patently naive to think that won't have a pronounced effect for Sanders specifically.

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Mark my words, if the scenario is reversed, and any other candidate wins the first round, but loses the delegate total, they're going to tout it as a moral victory, at the very least, to hype the campaign for the NH primary.

I think it's very fair to say - based on past behavior of Sanders' campaigns, that he is significantly more likely that any other candidate to tout more so as an overall victory, try to seize victimhood, and claim the DNC is trying to "steal" the election from him.  Why?  Because that's the pattern we've seen with Bernie campaigns over and over, and from the candidate himself as a career-long recalcitrant.

[Kalbear]

I'm curious, especially on the @GrimTuesday idea that there is nothing to be introspective about - what do Sanders supporters see as his flaws?

[Week]

2 hours ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

Do you think it's possible that your angry response provides support to the hypothesis that Sanders voters are impervious to any criticism? 

Look I like Sanders but large swaths of his message is just not going to sell in places like my home state. I think he'd be a poor candidate for the general. 

I like Sanders as well! Despite his most outspoken supporters. Somehow they don't recognize that their criticism of everyone else is hypocritical to their inability to recognize any fault or weakness. Example - Bernie is not eloquent or thoughtful about racial issues. Response: He mArChEd wItH PrOtEsToRs iN tHe 60s! HoW dArE yOu?

[Week]

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

1) Seems to me like you're arbitrarily limiting the available options; and

The options are 1. Dem wins prez and loses Senate: Therefore, nothing happens. 2. Dem wins prez and Senate: Some potential! But, weakened but the absolute weakest link (i.e. the Lieberman corollary.) 3. Trump wins and all is fucked.

What other options are there?

[Fragile Bird]

And in other news...

Donald Trump tweeted out congratulations to KC for winning the Super Bowl.

”You represented the great state of Kansas...so very well...”

Please God, let that mean thousands of fewer votes!

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, since you don’t go in for “half-measures”, what is your plan if you lose?

I don't know what will be done if Bernie loses, but I suspect (as I've been hearing this come from numerous socialist platforms), but if Sanders loses the nomination, and it looks like DNC fuckery again, the move is to not vote at all in the general. I don't agree with this necessarily, though I think it's their right to organize this way. People are tired of being blamed for Clinton and called aggressive Bernie Bro assholes, so the thought is, sit it out if it's Biden and show how much support is lost. Wait until the next election, the next progressive, etc. Right now, the only people centrist dems seem to hate more than Trump are the Bernie supporters.

[GrimTuesday]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm curious, especially on the @GrimTuesday idea that there is nothing to be introspective about - what do Sanders supporters see as his flaws?

I do see flaws, his history with gun control, he needs to better articulate how class and race are inherently linked to name a couple, but those are minor in comparison to the flaws I see in others. For the most part, with the exception of Warren, there is no one in the race who I have confidence will make the changes needed to actually make a real difference.

12 minutes ago, Week said:

I like Sanders as well! Despite his most outspoken supporters. Somehow they don't recognize that their criticism of everyone else is hypocritical to their inability to recognize any fault or weakness. Example - Bernie is not eloquent or thoughtful about racial issues. Response: He mArChEd wItH PrOtEsToRs iN tHe 60s! HoW dArE yOu?

I think that Bernie absolutely gets racial issues but he sees it as part and parcel with class.  Even if you disagree with his assessment of how to frame it he certainly has the best record of anyone the stage, including Biden who gets a lot (way too much if you ask me) of credit for being Obama's VP.

[Martell Spy]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

Nope.

He was a Republican party member for a handful of years, compared to some 40 years as Democrat before that and a decade as an independent after. He's socially liberal in a number of areas -- pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-welfare, pro-environment -- but fiscally conservative (especially pro-business, naturally). This works fine in New York City, because the Republican party there is by circumstances more moderate than the national party, but he'd not really  be comfortable in the RNC. If he were a senator, he wouldn't even be the most conservative of the Democrats, but probably somewhere in the middle.

See this for an example of where he stood in 2007 as a left-leaning moderate and how it jibes  with his position in 2016 (somewhat more to the left and slightly less libertarian).

Personally, I hope his campaign doesn't go anywhere for him personally (don't like the idea of his self-funding so massively -- it's one thing to be wealthy, quite another to buy all the exposure you need to be a competitive candidate), but he keeps driving money into ads to slam the present administration.

That speaks more of the far-right extremism of the Republican party than anything. Bloomberg is a billionaire, interested in waging top-down class warfare on the lower class.

[A True Kaniggit]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

And in other news...

Donald Trump tweeted out congratulations to KC for winning the Super Bowl.

”You represented the great state of Kansas...so very well...”

Please God, let that mean thousands of fewer votes!

Eh. At least he didn’t ask for a moment of silence for the dead of the Bowling Green Massacre. Always hiring the best people!

Edit: Dammit. I shoulda gone with a joke about him using a Sharpie to alter a map so Missouri was actually part of Kansas. Bloody hindsight. 

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Eh. At least he didn’t ask for a moment of silence for the dead of the Bowling Green Massacre. Always hiring the best people!

At least he didn’t send condolences to the 48ers...

But he hates losers, right?

[A True Kaniggit]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

At least he didn’t send condolences to the 48ers...

But he hates losers, right?

You know it. I know it. We all know it. 

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

That speaks more of the far-right extremism of the Republican party than anything.

Well-said. Good argument for why he's not a Republican!

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Sanders is actually our best hope of winning the senate, he has the most energy behind him in terms of passionate support and that will translate to better results in down ballot races.

What do you make of how every single Leftist candidate running in Trump counties lost their elections in 2018?  That Sanders at the top of the ticket will generate so much enthusiasm he carries a number of these other races in spite of the 2018 results?

5 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I don't know what will be done if Bernie loses, but I suspect (as I've been hearing this come from numerous socialist platforms), but if Sanders loses the nomination, and it looks like DNC fuckery again, the move is to not vote at all in the general. I don't agree with this necessarily, though I think it's their right to organize this way. People are tired of being blamed for Clinton and called aggressive Bernie Bro assholes, so the thought is, sit it out if it's Biden and show how much support is lost. Wait until the next election, the next progressive, etc. Right now, the only people centrist dems seem to hate more than Trump are the Bernie supporters.

Will anything other than a clear Sander’s primary victory be deemed by supporters as not being “DNC fuckery”?    As in, will any Sanders loss be understood as anything other than some kind of rigging against Saint Sanders?   

5 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think that Bernie absolutely gets racial issues but he sees it as part and parcel with class.  Even if you disagree with his assessment of how to frame it he certainly has the best record of anyone the stage, including Biden who gets a lot (way too much if you ask me) of credit for being Obama's VP.

I think Sanders gets the most egregious of the -isms, but has no insight, interest in, or awareness of anything more nuanced or insidious, because everything to him comes down to the issue of separation of capital from labor.  He’s definitely not going to be the sort of president who institutes Child separation policies or implements policy designed to hurt women or marginalized communities.   But he’s not really socially left in practice.   He doesn’t like to acknowledge or call out sexism or racism except in the most egregious cases.  He has a lot of diverse surrogates, but his message, campaign, persona, brand, and economic theory are not geared toward these sorts of issues.

If you want someone who does address not-explicitly-economic social issues in addition to progressive economics, Warren is your candidate.  

[Liffguard]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm curious, especially on the @GrimTuesday idea that there is nothing to be introspective about - what do Sanders supporters see as his flaws?

His class reductionism has already been brought up. I think economic class is one of, if not the, most important issues to tackle to make the greatest improvements to society. And I don't think that Sanders is ignorant or dismissive of racial (or other social) issues. But I agree that he lacks nuance and frequently folds racial issues into the greater economic issues in a way that doesn't always address the different ways those issues can play out.

He's been too defensive about his own wealth. I don't personally care that he's a millionaire. The difference between a single-digit millionaire and a multi-billionaire is enormous, and I've said frequently that I don't care about have-nice-stuff wealth, only power-over-other-people wealth. That said, "millionaire" and "billionaire" often seem to get conflated in peoples' heads as just "rich person," and the optics of being a millionaire whilst railing against the concentration of wealth could be damaging.

[Rippounet]

7 hours ago, Week said:

Bernie is not eloquent or thoughtful about racial issues. Response: He mArChEd wItH PrOtEsToRs iN tHe 60s! HoW dArE yOu?

Bernie did much more than "march."

Honestly these attacks against Sanders are so bizarre that I had to do a bit of googling to check whether I had my facts right -and I have.
To be clear, the man's a legend outside the US for what he did, at a time when it was truly remarkable to do it. To see the man be attacked on racism -of all things- is nuts, and it says far more about the people doing it than it says about him.
I doubt anyone trying to use purity tests against him could ever come close as far as activism and courage go. Take a reality check people.

There are several excellent reasons why Bernie is not the best candidate, and yet several other excellent reasons why Warren is a better one.
But to claim Bernie is not enough on the left on social issues is utterly crazy. He's not good at messaging, or it's possible that his messaging is deliberately tailored to achieve specific purposes. But his actions should shame all of us into being better people ; deride them at your own peril.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Sanders has been on the right side of history more than any of the other candidates.  Warren's  been great at coming around after the fact, and I think on most of the issues I'm concerned about she is virtually indistinguishable from Sanders .  I would feel better about voting for Warren than any other candidate I've ever voted for.  I think she'd be the best candidate the Dems have put forward in a long time, I just think Sanders is better and will turnout more voters.

He's also not a corporate shill like Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg or Klobuchar.  He's not a blind supporter of the military industrial complex.  On race he's better than the 90% of the Democratic party and that's good enough for me.  He might not have the woke jargon of a liberal millennial but he's been on the right side of race issues, lgbt issues, and issues that affect working people his entire career.  I see zero substantial difference between him and Warren on race issues.

Biggest negative is his age.  I think he'll turnout the highest electoral vote the Dems can hope for against Trump.  The only criticism of Sanders from Dems that seems accurate is that some of his supporters are angry assholes online.  The race and 'not socially left enough' critiques, like @Rippounet said, do not hold up.  He'd still be the most left 'wokest' candidate in history.  That's why a lot of the criticism rings hollow.  I'm not going to sit here and drag Warren on Pow Wow Chow.  Because I think she's materially as good as we're going to get, other than Sanders, on any of this.  

He also does better with independents than the rest of the Dems!

The GOP will have a field day with Warren or Biden or Klobuchar or Buttigieg or Sanders once the propaganda machine can hone in on the nominee, I think the fear of the socialist label is overblown.  He does well with independents and I think in MI and WI he'll get the biggest turnout of any Dem. The only way Sanders is a liability is if the Dem center just decides to stay home altogether of he's the nominee.    

[Liffguard]

18 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

He's not a blind supporter of the military industrial complex. 

This is an important point. One argument I’ve heard frequently made against Sanders is that he’ll struggle to actually enact any of his agenda in the face of an uncooperative legislature. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s true. One of the major strengths Sanders has over other candidates is, IMO, in foreign policy. Am I right in thinking that the President has a large degree of executive power over US foreign policy? Meaning a Sanders administration would have a great deal of executive power over policies that have enormous consequences for a lot of people across the globe.

I think Sanders is by far the least likely candidate to engage in foreign wars, the least likely to continue drone strike campaigns, the most likely to hold back support from oppressive regimes, the least likely to support the overthrow of other governments. I think Warren would also be pretty good on these issues. I have serious doubts about any of the other candidates.

[mormont]

I'm seeing a lot of people tout Sanders' advantages as a candidate.

I'm not seeing anyone explain how he wins this election because of those advantages, when he lost last time despite them.

Is he going to somehow find even more excited, left-leaning previous non-voters? If so, where were they in 2016? 

[Liffguard]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm seeing a lot of people tout Sanders' advantages as a candidate.

I'm not seeing anyone explain how he wins this election because of those advantages, when he lost last time despite them.

Is he going to somehow find even more excited, left-leaning previous non-voters? If so, where were they in 2016? 

I'm not sure this argument really  holds up. Obviously all this depends on him winning the primary. If he wins the primary in 2020, then the fact that he lost the primary in 2016 doesn't really work as an argument that he won't find enough voters. If he loses the primary in 2020, then it's moot.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

Do you think it's possible that your angry response provides support to the hypothesis that Sanders voters are impervious to any criticism? 

Look I like Sanders but large swaths of his message is just not going to sell in places like my home state. I think he'd be a poor candidate for the general. 

What I think is that if there's anything of substance to work with, I'm happy to address cogent and specific arguments.

When the argument essentially boils down to: "All Sanders supporters are Bernie-bros", which the numbers do not bear out at all, then I'll treat the argument with the respect it deserves.