I didn’t watch the Sanders speech, but I did read it, and I gotta say there is a lot in there that I like a great deal. Some minor quibbles, but this is some pretty solid stuff:
It means that we can no longer ignore the fact that, sadly, the current Democratic Party leadership has turned its back on dozens of states in this country and has allowed right-wing politicians to win elections in some states with virtually no opposition – including some of the poorest states in America. The Democratic Party needs a 50-state strategy. We may not win in every state tomorrow but we will never win unless we recruit good candidates and develop organizations that can compete effectively in the future. We must provide resources to those states which have so long been ignored.
Most importantly, the Democratic Party needs leadership which is prepared to open its doors and welcome into its ranks working people and young people. That is the energy that we need to transform the Democratic Party, take on the special interests and transform our country.
Here is a cold, hard fact that must be addressed. Since 2009, some 900 legislative seats have been lost to Republicans in state after state throughout this country. In fact, the Republican Party now controls 31 state legislatures and controls both the governors’ mansions and statehouses in 23 states. That is unacceptable.
We need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers helped us make political history during the last year. These are people deeply concerned about the future of our country and their own communities. Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships. State and local governments make enormously important decisions and we cannot allow right-wing Republicans to increasingly control them.
I hope very much that many of you listening tonight are prepared to engage at that level. Pease go to my website at berniesanders.com/win to learn more about how you can effectively run for office or get involved in politics at the local or state level. I have no doubt that with the energy and enthusiasm our campaign has shown that we can win significant numbers of local and state elections if people are prepared to become involved. I also hope people will give serious thought to running for statewide offices and the U.S. Congress.
That’s an ambitious and extremely important goal and message, and I can’t for one second imagine why any Democrat would reject this or not feel a little bit excited about it. This is Howard Dean’s vision of the DNC with a twelve million man mandate. If this is the legacy of Bernie Sanders, and not the hurt feelings and rest of the nonsense that went with this primary, count me as ecstatic.
Aqualad08
John, blink twice if you need an immediate extraction…
Kazanir
Amen to that. A lot of people seem pretty pissed that he didn’t say the magic words, “I concede to Hillary Clinton” but this is still a pretty good pivot and I hope that the stuff he is talking about comes to pass.
WarMunchkin
This was an actually good thing he did, I was very surprised, given the focus of the post-issues campaign he ran after Michigan. If that Sanders were campaigning for the last four months, things could have turned out much more positively. And turning the attention on the fact that it’s the Republicans who are the ones eating away at everything is warmly welcome.
Omnes Omnibus
Did you read the first paragraph?
gf120581
Well, it’s about time. It would be nice if he got his supporters and their energy channeled into downticket races.; He certainly didn’t seem to care during the campaign. Maybe Hillary shamed him during their conversation on Tuesday.
To be honest, I don’t really care what he does. He’s irrelevant now.
magurakurin
He could have said that and conceded the primary and endorsed Hillary Clinton. I don’t really believe anyone is opposed to what he said, but the truth is there is only so much money, so choices are made.
And let’s not forget, Bernie Sanders spent most of the spring telling us the Democrats in those very states he feels are neglected had too much influence on the primary and their votes were distorting the results.
Bernie is full of shit. There is no reason, none, why he didn’t concede and endorse Clinton. None of what he is asking for is opposed by Clinton. None. These are problems that the party has wrestled with for a long time. It is only that he hasn’t been in the party that he now noticed this shit.
Fuck Sanders. He doesn’t matter anymore. The train is leaving, he decided not to get on.
Joe Falco
Not one Democrat tried to run against Rep Tom Graves in my neck of the woods. We really do need a 50 state strategy if we want a Congress that will pass meaningful legislation.
Corner Stone
John Cole, go home. You’re drunk.
Jeff Spender
It’s not always that we’re “turning our back” on some states. It’s often a matter of candidate recruitment.
Who wants to give 8-12 months of their lives to a battle they’ll lose? Special people like me do because, hey, fight the good fight brothers and sisters.
But I can’t demand that someone step up and run a hopeless campaign for the US House in a district the size of Rhode Island.
And we have other issues: Melissa Gilbert just quit, and there are no other Dems to take her place.
burnspbesq
He said most of the right things. Now let’s see if his supporters show up–ideally without chips on their shoulders, a sense of entitlement, or a belief that instant gratification takes too long.
Jeff Spender
And I’ll point out: not one Bernie supporter in my congresional district stepped up to run.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I only heard a few minutes of the speech, and the excerpts above don’t change my impression of it. He’s trying to insist he’s somehow a power in the party and that he and his policies are the future when he lost. She beat him soundly by almost every measure.
It’s not an appropriate speech for a candidate who lost a race and wants to be accepted in the party he joined.
I found it disappointing.
If he wants to push his policies and have a lasting impact, he needs to work within the Democratic Party system and stop with the way he’s campaigning.
The various e-mails I’ve received from his campaign have asked me to support something like 6 other candidates, and most of that was in the last month or so. It’s lip-service to the idea that he’s building a movement that can actually get things done.
Yes, his quoted statements above are sensible. But they would have made much more sense a year ago rather than after he lost the race.
Hillary will be leading the party, not Bernie. He needs to be deciding how he is going to help her and get his voters to help her, because that is the way to have influence and get his positions and ideas addressed. Not by somehow playing the inside-outsider, or something.
It’s disappointing. IMHO.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
He hated those states full of “low information voters” during the primaries.
japa21
He is right about a lot but this:
is BS.
Thew Democratic Party has not been locking those groups out but has been working with them for years.
So I am not willing to give him a full pass yet. He may not be trashing Clinton, but he is still hammering the pargty.
Aimai
Chridt. He gives a warmed over visionary speech from Deans campaign and john is ready to drop his panties for him? He has one and only one job right now:to get hillary clinton elected. He practically turned her into voldemort with his insistence that neither she nor her voters matter or can be named. Love a guy who lectures women on what a feminist he is going to be while he is unable to gasp out a concession to a historic woman candidate. Fuck him.
Bobby Thomson
I’d be a lot more impressed if he had given that speech last summer. To say nothing of the inherent hypocrisy of Mr. The-Democrats-Are-Evil-Because-They-Raise-Money-Please-Charge-Another-Twenty-Seven-Bucks-On-Your-Visa calling them out for not supporting down ticket races adequately when he did fuck all himself.
eemom
Yeah, pretty impressive coming from a guy who never did jack shit to advance any Democratic candidacy except his own, and he’s not even a Democrat.
Words are cheap, Cole.
redshirt
It’s a nice speech. Congrats, Bernie.
Now, do something about it.
Aleta
Though the last line
leaves the impression of ignoring other more revolutionary work — Black Lives Matter, Innocence Project and other prison reform to name just a couple.
Kazanir
@burnspbesq: There is plenty of entitlement and chip-on-shoulder from the other side just in the first dozen or so comments here though. It is hardly a feature limited to Sanders supporters.
Groucho48
This is especially important coming from a politician who has spent countless hours campaigning for down ticket Dem races all over the country for the last 25 years. He’s been in the trenches; he knows exactly what needs to be done.
Oh, wait
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Aimai: This.
tastytone
@magurakurin:
This. Glad he’s inching his ego closer to reality, but couldn’t care less. The workers will do the hard work with or without him, as always. Consider this bridge berned.
ASV
I mean, OK, but I’ve also heard it argued that those states are conservative and so they don’t count. So there’s obviously an important debate to be had between these two sides.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@japa21: As always ignoring the racism of the white working class, that started voting Republican in 1968.
burnspbesq
@Kazanir:
Some of us have been on the front lines of this fight since before the median Sanders supporter’s parents fucked for the first time. We earned it.
Frankensteinbeck
RRRG. Look, I like that he’s urging his followers to get involved, especially at the local level. I like that a lot. But it’s hard to take from Sanders, who in this election A) turned his back on dozens of states because minorities there didn’t vote for him, B) ignored all organizing and politics except his own personal election, and C)…
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you selfish, arrogant hypocrite. We’re not welcoming them because we don’t lie to them and tell them all their problems can be fixed with a snap of the fingers like you do? We don’t tell the white working class that THEIR needs are so much more important than minorities’? Even espousing real wisdom, you have to load it down with shitting on the Democratic Party.
Jeff Spender
And one more thing: I know a lot of people who ran for offices and sank tens of thousands of their own savings to get nothing in return but debt.
I just hate it when people act like they’re inventing the wheel in the year 1999.
Punchy
Fuck Sanders and the fried chicken he rode in on. He’s the new guy at the party incapable of realizing he’s gone from interesting to annoying, and hours after the kegs are empty and the host is ready for bed, he’s still there looking for more booze ignoring the many GTFO looks.
Tired, old, and played. Exit. Your. Sorry. Ass. Stage. Left.
Belafon
It was an ok speech, but it was a non-concession speech to rival any non-apology. Bernie still thinks he has some power that Clinton didn’t in 2008, even though the race was much tighter then.
eemom
hmm….the consensus seems to be that Bernie still sucks. The night is young, though.
The Thin Black Duke
Exit, stage right. Not with a bang but a whimper. What’s left of his legacy will be lost in Hillary’s shadow.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kazanir: You don’t think it’s strange that Bernie has been saying for around a year that The System is Corrupt™ and now, after he lost, he’s saying that people need to get active in the Democratic party – a party that will be run by Hillary and her team – to win races? Are only the people who see things the way Bernie does smart and un-Corrupt™? Isn’t he arguing against his earlier mantra?
He lost.
Yes, more people need to run, and more people need to get involved, and more people need to vote.
But Bernie lost, and he lost in a way that burned bridges that he needs to rebuild. He still doesn’t seem to be getting his construction tools out…
He’s not going to be running things, he’s not going to be rebuilding the party, he’s not going to make the new 50 State Strategy. Hillary’s team is. He needs to start getting on the bus if he wants any influence.
If he wants to go back to being the Independent Senator from Vermont, that’s his choice. But there are risks to him and his stated agenda in doing so. As that agenda gets enacted slowly, it will have Hillary’s name on it, not Hillary’s and Bernie’s…
He’s a smart guy and I’m sure he’s thinking about these things. He doesn’t have an indefinite period of time before he makes the rhetorical choice though…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
I expected a lot more passive-aggressive butthurt, so expectations exceeded and life brings people into the party, bonus.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus: Imma read this post and thread, but I just came upstairs to find you and tell you that I left you a message on the Hamilton thread, per our discussion the other evening.
dmsilev
He needs to formally concede. It would have been best tonight, but since not, the sooner it comes the better. The reason is that he spent the last few months telling his supporters that the game was rigged against him, that his losses were unfair and didn’t count for whatever reason. He needs to repudiate that, and the only way to do so is to acknowledge and accept the result of the primary. At this point, I don’t particularly care if he grudgingly forces the words out like he’s Johnny Depp taping an Australian PSA, but he does need to do it.
If he can’t bring himself to do that, he’s poisoning the well, essentially denying the legitimacy of Hillary’s victory in the eyes of too many of his supporters.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeff Spender: i don’t know if you saw my late comment the other night, but if you need any policy/strategy assistance from my lanes of travel, please feel free to reach out. You’re doing a good thing, so if you need support, you’ve got it.
BillinGlendaleCA
So Bernie’s planing the kitchen renovation while the house is on fire rather than putting the damn fire out?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Did the Democrats ignore WV, which is now solidly Republican, or did the white majority in WV lose their fucking minds because a black man was elected POTUS twice?
Stupid motherfucking carptebagger doesn’t even understand modern American politics.
Adam L Silverman
@Aimai: please, NSFW tags before you use the words John Cole and drop his panties in the same sentence again. You need to warn people before you write things like that!
dogwood
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I beg to differ. If there’s one thing I learned about Bernie Sanders over the course of this campaign it’s that he just might not be all that smart.
BillinGlendaleCA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I said a few weeks ago, he needs to concede by Sunday(the Hillary Clinton standard from 2008).
magurakurin
@tastytone: Yeah, I mean Sanders is presenting it as if there is this huge wave of progressives just waiting to be voted into office in Alabama and Idaho but the DNC is stubbornly refusing to do anything. The reality is that the DNC and the RNC have been locked in brutal trench warfare on the Western Front for two decades now, and as much as the DNC might like to send more money and troops to Bernie’s little Gallipoli’s around the country, they just don’t have the bodies and material to spare. We tried with Dean and the right leaning people who got elected in some of those places were attacked by the “progressives.” Bernie isn’t grounded in any real political reality. He is a fraud.
Jeff Spender
@Adam L Silverman: I did see it, and I appreciate it, Adam. I don’t have a primary opponent, but the incumbent Republican (who is Speaker Pro Tem of the Michigan House) does.
There’s also a libertarian candidate in the mix. Could be interesting. I’ll let you know if I have questions or am in need of your experience.
guachi
It’s a good speech (as written. I didn’t hear it). It’s just strange coming from Bernie Sanders.
Matt McIrvin
Berniacs on my various social-media feeds are still passing around memes of Clinton’s face Photoshopped on Trump’s head and the reverse, and pictures of them together with the caption “Would you like your racism overt or systematic?”
dogwood
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Bernie’s message and campaign strategy was always aimed at Dixiecrat sensibilities.
Marcolin
That wasn’t the problematic part. No one would object if he said that, endorsed Hillary, and even continued to push for his issues.
Instead he continued to insist that Hillary holds dramatically different policy views before trashing the Democratic party by insinuating that it’s in the pocket of wealthy donors and not on the side of workers. He still tried to portray himself as a Washington outsider who was outmaneuvered by establishment apparatchiks despite the will of the people.
It just wasn’t a concession speech. It was another stump speech and his supporters heard it loud and clear – if you want a head-scratcher go watch Joy Reid (standing in for Chris Hayes tonight) interview people in a ‘Sanders Cafe’ after this address. One of them still insisted Sanders could still win the nomination and the other said she didn’t know who she’d vote for anymore.
Sander’s issues and policy goals are laudable and worth fighting for but there has to be some path between reality and his ideals; there also has to be a route towards Sanders throwing his support behind Clinton. I didn’t see any groundwork being laid tonight for that inevitability.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeff Spender: No worries and no pressure, just wanted to make sure it reached its intended target. We’ll keep good thoughts on this end.
Ella in New Mexico
This has been the whole reason he’s stayed in, the hope that his message and these changes would be taken more seriously by the DNC. It’s bad enough the media now barely covers him as it is, what kind of power would he have if he had conceded last week- or this week for that matter.
Contrary to what the political junkies on the Clinton bandwagon might demand, supporting the very good changes he and many of us who supported him would like to see happen does not mean you don’t support Hilary Clinton.
dmsilev
@BillinGlendaleCA: Actually, he’s behind Clinton’s 2008 timetable.
On Wednesday, after a day of being told that it was over by her superdelegates and other supporters, she reached out to Obama and told him that she was conceding. On Thursday, she made that public, via a post on her website and an email to her list. On Saturday, she gave the speech that everyone remembers, but it was essentially ceremonial since she had already announced her concession/endorsement earlier.
seaboogie
@eemom: Saltier version of what I was thinking. He’s saying “we”, but he hasn’t been part of “we democrats” for much more than a year, and if you are talking 50-state strategy, and getting your planks added to the platform, you need to roll up your sleeves and get busy, and also start educating the youngs on the process – they who expect immediate gratification or they’ll trip over their lips in a big pout and just say “fuck it”. System don’t work like that, and you have to do the work. And in a 50 state strategy, back in come the blue dogs, because that is the only winning strategy in many places. Let the wrangling of the cats begin anew!
wjs
Sanders is trying to re-brand himself and identify more closely with the Brand New Congress organization. You can see, at this link, that it attracts a fair number of Sanders supporters.
They have a great plan. They want to find over 400 people to run for Congress. Yay! Except there already is an organization that is trying to create a Brand New Congress and that’s the Democratic Party.
No where do they indicate that they’re going to join with the Democratic Party to recruit, finance, and elect new members of Congress. Are these all going to be independents that will ratfck Democrats by siphoning off their support to noble, but lost cause candidates with no chance of unseating conservative Republicans?
I’m sorry, but you are not going to win back Congress unless you realize that de-Gerrymandering the states has to happen first. They seem to think they can do this in four years. Try 12, but maybe less if this year is an absolute Clinton landslide.
Anyway, smarter people than me can spot the tell here, but I do not see where this organization and this concerted effort does anything to create a Brand New Congress. They do not seem to understand the problem, but they have a lot of energy and a cool website, so, there you go.
Bobby Thomson
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It’s real simple. He takes his ball (though it’s unclear he has even one) and goes home, and Clinton makes up his votes by playing to Republicans who Trump has turned off. It takes a special kind of stupid to think that if leftists withhold their support, they will get more respect, rather than just pissing off the rest of the coalition.
guachi
@Jeff Spender: good luck on your race.
Looks like quality gerrymandering in Michigan. Republicans were 15-4 in races decided by 10 points or less.
PatrickG
I avoided the live speech because I was afraid of blood pressure issues, but if that’s a representative sample I honestly admire Senator Sanders for swallowing the bitter pill and moving on.
I’ll go read the entire thing to confirm that “if”. I’m not cynical or anything.
@wjs: I have a feeling the Brand New Congress is yet another iteration of Third Way Politics. It sounds great, but we really do have a two-party system, with warts, blemishes, and ingrown toenails. They’ll either work with that or fold rapidly.
seaboogie
One more thing – I’m glad that Bernie referenced working people, or the working class. I am so damn tired of hearing about “The Middle Class”, when that is for many, many people an impossible ideal. The “Working Class” is huge in number and deserve a voice at the table – because they are hanging on by their fingernails, and make the middle class and the 1% possible. And it is super-fucking expensive to be poor.
PatrickG
@Marcolin: Well, thanks for harshing my happy buzz.
Felonius Monk
@Ella in New Mexico:
If you truly believe this, I have several bridges for sale that I can offer you. :-)
wjs
@PatrickG: Yes, and curiously, they don’t identify their staff, who they really are by name, and where the money is coming from. They’re Bernie staffers–so they’re all working on this for free like it’s a kickball league after work?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I never know what that means. What door is closed to them?
Bobby Thomson
@wjs:
I’m sure they accept personal checks and all major credit cards.
These are the Glengarry leads.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mary G:
I should feel this way. It’s the right way to view it, gracious and hoping for the best. The swipes at the party have really gotten my back up, and I worry they undo any good he’s done, so it’s hard.
Jeff Spender
@wjs: I am personal friends with the co-founder of Veterns for Bernie. He recognized that Bernie had no pathway to victory earlier than most, so he switched to supporting the Brand New Congress initiative.
I had some back-and-forths with him about the plausibility of their 2018 plans for recruitment and funding. I bet him that “progressives” wouldn’t marshall enough of their support or attention to make it viable–and further, I warned him that if “progressives” made enemies of liberal Democrats they’d be left on an ice flow with no support and politically isolated.
He didn’t buy it at first, but he admitted that I was right after he saw how “progressives” treated Warren after she endorsed Clinton.
So I’m skeptical that Brand New Congress will achieve much beyond a few vanity campaigns, especially now that we know Bernie-endorsed House candidates (and House candidate running as “Berniecrats”) tend to lose primaries.
Betty Cracker
PROS: I liked the bit where he urged folks to get involved locally and run for office. Took me back to 2004, but it bears repeating.
CONS: You’ve been a Democrat for less than a year, and you’re telling us we have to open our doors to working people and young folks? Like you invented that shit? Motherfucker, we’re Mr. Working People and Young Folks!
But then I realized: we’re not the audience. That bullshit was written for his hardcore base of support, and if they have to be made to feel as if they’re reforming us corrupt Wall Street strumpets to play ball, I’m willing to roll my eyes and overlook it in the same spirit I endure my teenager’s occasional pontifications.
Final complaint: I wish Sanders could have a little class about Clinton.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s a kinder, gentler Make America White Again pitch.
seaboogie
@Aimai: @Adam L Silverman: Thank yew!
Goblue72
@burnspbesq: Go back to your corporate tax shelters in Orange County. You aren’t fooling anyone.
Joel
@japa21: The fact of the matter is, most young people haven’t developed the necessary skills to successfully run for office. Making compromises is hard. Engaging with people who disagree with you is hard. Enduring the strain of campaigning with minimal material compensation is hard.
It’s no surprise that most of our elected representatives are older people who have already accumulated the wealth needed to live out their days in comfort, regardless of outcome.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He supported, to my knowledge, one Senate candidate, who probably didn’t/doesn’t need his help. I would love for someone to ask him why Patty Judge and Maggie Hassan (just for starters) did not meet his purity test.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Your words sound like wisdom to me.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: I may need therapy now…
jeffreyw
mmm… cookie
PatrickG
@Betty Cracker:
I think we have to give Cranky Birdie some sort of pass here. He’s directly appealing to his supporters to become engaged at the local level. That is basically the unofficial motto of this blog w.r.t. Sanders as I understand it — GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO STUFF — so if it comes with some standard boring stump speech crap…. I’ll take it.
He didn’t endorse, and he ran down the Party a bit, but as a lifelong Democrat* I’m pretty happy with this. He didn’t endorse, but frankly, it might be more productive to have him as a barnstormer for local candidates than on the national stage. If he does that — endorses, stumps, raises money — I will happily forgive every nasty thought I’ve had about Birdie. Note that I’m not there yet.
* Ok ok, I registered Green for a local election in Berkeley once. I was young. And in Berkeley as a college student.
Goblue72
@wjs: 12 years from now is 2028. There are no districts being redrawn then moron.
There are however districts being redrawn in 4 years.
Fucking amateurs around here.
burnspbesq
As a general rule, the losing side doesn’t get to dictate the terms of its surrender.
burnspbesq
@Goblue72:
You challenging anyone’s authenticity is hilarious.
dmsilev
@efgoldman:
And a single tear runs down Baud’s face.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Are you at last going to draw back the veil and tell us about some of your super-successful work as a grassroots organizer, Dwight? The world awaits the death of your selective modesty.
magurakurin
@burnspbesq:
FIDO
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He endorsed no one who hadn’t endorsed him.
Jeff Spender
@efgoldman: Ha ha, I’m not here asking for donations, but I appreciate it. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.
And if I do, don’t worry about emails. I don’t send them. They annoy EVERYONE I know. So I do more low-key things. And it works.
Elie
@Aimai:
This . Simply This.
Give me a break
cckids
@Joe Falco:
This. I’m glad Bernie is encouraging people to run for local/state races, but the sad fact is that it’s too late, most places, to get into those races this year. Hopefully their energy will last for more than one election cycle.
Smiling Mortician
@Goblue72: Are you paid by Dunning-Kruger LLC or what?
wjs
@Goblue72: Wait a minute–I’m not talking about redrawing districts according to a set calendar. I’m talking about working elections, cycle after cycle, to put people in place so that they can re-draw districts throughout the country over an extended period. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. You’ve got to re-take state legislatures for that to happen.
seaboogie
@Goblue72:
Winning hearts and minds. You have the mc”paragraphen” touch for getting folks on your bandwagon.
wjs
@Jeff Spender: They want to field 400 candidates against Dems and Republicans.
As a fucking amateur, I have no idea what that means. But it sure as shit doesn’t sound like any of those Bernie Sanders people are interested in working with the Democratic Party.
shortribs
I like how before telling his supporters to get involved in local politics, he first tells them that the people they’ll be working with in their local communities have turned their backs on them and suck at what they’re doing. Maybe if he set an example of working with others it would inspire his supporters to do the same. I’ll be glad to see new and young people get involved in my community, i just hope they don’t come in with the same attitude and arrogance as Sanders.
Bobby Thomson
@cckids:
I am shocked, shocked that the guy who didn’t set up staff in large states until after the deadline for switching registrations had passed was unfamiliar with those deadlines when he paid lip service to supporting other candidates.
Elie
@PatrickG:
As long as we are building the Democratic Party. Not some hybrid indie thing. His supporters have been saying some conflicting things about that so I will wait and see. Still he gets a big FUCK YOU for not congradulating Hillary. I’m not buying this whole thing which is missing some things
PatrickG
@Aimai:
If he wants to frame it as defeating Donald Trump and it has the desired outcome… call this the bigotry of low expectations for cranky old dudes. At this point, all I care about is results, because shit is fucking scary.
PNW_WarriorWoman
John…John darling….it’s not about Hillary. It’s bigger.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@shortribs: Good luck, he’s poisoned a whole group of youngsters against the Democratic party. The last thing we need is Green Tea Party inside the Democratic party.
Jeff Spender
@wjs: I’d say that it’s more accuate to say they might want to run “progresive” primary candidates against “establishment” Democrats.
But there has been growing talk of forming the so-called “New Progressive Party.” Maybe they’ll work under that banner. Robert Reich has been gassing on about that.
I can’t imagine anyone is really worried apart from Greens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fitting for the man who regularly announced that states, and voters, he didn’t win didn’t really count. Odd positions for a man claiming to want to build and expand his new party.
seaboogie
@dmsilev: ;-)
PatrickG
@Elie:
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was happy by the speech. I wasn’t completely disappointed by it, however. As I said to aimai, there’s only so much you can expect from cranky old white dudes.
I honestly was expecting much, much worse with regards to the Unholy Democrats Thwarting The Will of the People. I’m not bouncing over in joy here, I’m just happy he’s making an effort to channel the angst of disgruntled followers into something positive.
Honestly, 10% of me thought tonight was going to be the announcement of a third party run. (EDIT: I have too many friends who really dig Jill Stein. I mentioned above I went to Berkeley.) So yeah, I’m fucking relieved. :)
Ella in New Mexico
@Felonius Monk: you know, that’s cute, but I’m so over the obsessive “Sander’s Derangement Syndrome” instant negative replies to anything positive said about him here at BJ, really. When something is right , it’s right.
While we may all disagree on whether he was being realistic or whether he did everything perfectly according to political Hoyle during this campaign, the fact is we are all better off because he and his supporters pushed these issues. I believe that Hilary is quietly thankful for the doors he opened to her to move more towards her essentially progressive roots, long suppressed in order to fight that anti-female Democrat bullshit peddled by the Republican’s.
So Seriously, cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face in the name of taking cheap political shots politics is not admirable. It’s ok to give whatever credit is due, to let go of the grudge, to let it all go. After all, SHE WON.
And it serves no purpose-other than perpetuating some kind of mutual affirmation group think circle-to keep beating the rotting, dead “Ooooh I hates Bernie SOOO much” corpse of a horse a few climbers-on here can’t seem to let go of.
So forgive me if I can actually find some good in the overall outcome of Bernie Sander’s having run a somewhat contentious campaign. Maybe I like it when things get shaken up just enough to stimulate growth. But hey, whatever makes you happy- keep on bitchin about how he had the gall to even run.
I’d rather figure out what the best ideas are for my country. And keep that mother fucker Donald Trump out of the White House.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
I wonder what happened in 2009 to cause this? Anyone, anyone? Go away you old fool.
Jeff Spender
@PatrickG: You know what grates me is that the Berners I know say that the “establishment” doesn’t represent the people and viva la revelucion and all that.
I remember The Terror. And I see Bernie supporters being drummed out of the in-crowd for not being anti-Democrat or Hillary.
I think they’re forming an Inquisition of sorts. The rhetoric sounds like anyone who isn’t with them are not “the people.”
eponymous coward
Cole, you should have figured out the fix was in when Harry Reid (and other Democrats in the Senate) went to some trouble to not disparage Sanders, talking about how it was OK for him to drop out of the race on his own time, this wasn’t damaging the party, and so on.
Reid is as savvy a political operator as there is around and isn’t exactly shy about sharing his opinion, or sticking a shiv in someone if he feels it’s necessary. If he was cool about this, I wasn’t going to freak out, and neither should you.
gwangung
@Goblue72: If you’re thinking of redrawing gerrymandered district lines in 2020, then you MUST do it from within the Democratic Party. And to do that, you need to work with and compromise with the existing structure.
Thinking you can do it alone or without buy in from the existing people who are on the ground is foolish.
RSP
@Goblue72:
The saltiness is strong with this one. Do you have a sad that Comrade Bernie lost fair and square in a democratic election? Or maybe those super delegates that Bernie supposedly hates so much can bail his ass out and overrule the will of primary voters. Because that just screams liberal.
gwangung
@Jeff Spender:
From within the Democratic party? Lotsa luck on that, without taking the time to build support and make alliances. That’s still a long term project of 10-15 years…you need to sink in roots DEEPLY.
eemom
@Felonius Monk:
This, exactly. What has really stood out for me recently wrt the diehard Bernouts of my acquaintance is how utterly credulous they are. They’re not stupid people, but they continue to believe in the fairy tales which Bernie has proven time and again he has no fucking idea of how to make come true. They also faithfully parrot with equally childlike trust EVERY tale they’re told wherein Hillary is the wicked witch.
@Goblue72:
Not applicable to you. You’re just a little 12 year old shit jerking off in its room.
magurakurin
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
I don’t believe that is actually the case. His influence is overstated. Support in a primary is one thing…but a lot of his voters have already moved over to Clinton, including the youngest of them.
Just look at the shockingly poor production quality of that podcast. It looks like a YouTube video on chemtrails. He is wander deep into the rough and will be lost in the forest before to long looking for his ball that he shanked hard on this tee.
Forget Bernie. He isn’t going to be there. Clinton will have to get the votes somewhere else if some of Sanders people follow him into the forest.
LAC
Sanders needs to graciously concede and work with the Clinton campaign or shut the fuck up already. And John Cole, really?
Ella in New Mexico
@eponymous coward: seriously. I’m saving my rath for the balless wonders on the R side like John McCain, the incredible soul-less zombie.
Ella in New Mexico
@Ella in New Mexico: @eemom: this, NOT at all. Too many fairy tales being told, too much projection on people goes on here in the name of unifying against the “big enemy/big bad wolf “Sanders.
News flash: SANDERS IS NOT OUR ENEMY. LOOK A LITTLE FURTHER TO THE RIGHT FOR THAT.
He lost. It’s time to move on.
magurakurin
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yeah, we know. Our problem is that it appears that nobody has told Bernie Sanders that yet.
Smiling Mortician
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Oh holy fuck. Why have I never seen that before? Did you seriously just coin that? Or have I been working too many hours to stay current with the latest?
PatrickG
@Jeff Spender: No argument here. Fortunately, it appears that the purging crowd might find itself rather lonely soon. See magurakurin at #112.
ETA: One of the most fervent Bernie supporters I know (awesome person, btw, despite being Utterly Wrong) is running into this. Orlando changed some priorities, and there’s some backlash from True Believers.
Batgirl
Bernie and his dead-enders at the Bernie Cafe are sure the Clinton indictment is coming any day. End of story.
Jeff Spender
@gwangung: Didn’t say it would work. I doubt even Tim Canova has the gas to win the primary against DWS, but I’m willing to be surprised. I think a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that DWS is unpopular in the party.
Ella in New Mexico
@magurakurin: A. Oh, I think he knows.
B. Who gives a fuck any more? SHE WON.
eemom
@Ella in New Mexico:
You miss the point. I don’t know about you specifically, but there are still people who are not stupid, and not even young, who for some reason continue to cling to this concept of Bernie as some kind of savior. I honestly don’t get that.
As for him not being the enemy, I don’t disagree….but in terms of the battle that lies ahead between now and November, he sure as shit ain’t signed on to being a FRIEND, thus far.
RSP
@Ella in New Mexico:
Newsflash: everybody here knows he’s not the real enemy. It’s just that he’s a rude, old, obnoxious, and cantankerous asshole who pisses us off. He’s arrogant, presuming to insinuate that the Democratic Party, that he’s been a member off for less than a year, doesn’t allow workers or young people into the party to make change. That’s bullshit. He’s lost and he needs to concede, it’s beyond embarrassing by now. I see no reason why he couldn’t have still spread his message if he had done so.
However, thanks to him, he may have potentially poisoned a large segment of young people from working with Democratic Party because of his bulls hit insinuations.
dogwood
@Ella in New Mexico:
Sanders wasn’t much interested in looking to the right for enemies, and he wasn’t much interested in looking for friends among POC.
RSP
@dogwood:
I remember reading a story a few months back about local minority groups in VT complaining about him seeming not to care much about them.
RSP
@Ella in New Mexico:
He sure doesn’t show it, even in the above speech.
gwangung
@dogwood: This is relevant only to the extent the party should try to bring him and any possible die hard supporters on board. That is, not very much. Beyond that, he’s totally irrelevant.
(It occurs to me that a lot of anger against Sanders is that he was such an incompetent candidate…and that incompetency to a great degree discredits some of the more progressive ideas he had).
ruemara
@Bobby Thomson: Thank you.
ruemara
@Goblue72: Wait, a Bernie diehard is saying people who could do actual delegate math are amateurs? Birdie Sanders ate your brain.
dogwood
@gwangung:
I agree he’s irrelevant. What I’m not buying is this notion that he had any “special” ideas.
Ella in New Mexico
@RSP: So now it’s time to get over it.
And no, he didn’t poison anyone, they had their own impressions and their own conclusions. But the majority of his supporters not only WILL vote for Clinton in the fall, they despise Trump and will not do anything that puts him close to the Presidency.
@eemom: Some of this “they think Bernie is their Savior” drama is just precisely that-over-exaggerated drama. Most of his supporters just wanted him to win, just like I wanted Obama to win because I deeply believed in his superiority as a candidate and his vision. I would have had a really hard time letting it go had he lost, too, but I still would have voted for Clinton had she won. As badly as she campaigned and as badly as she and her campaign behaved towards Obama. I knew what the stakes were.
Sanders supporters will-do- too.
Cacti
Is it bad form to point out that in a quarter century in Federal office, Bernie has done all of jack and shit to bring about anything he says the Democrats need to do?
Oh, and that he’s been a Democrat for about 5 minutes?
magurakurin
@dogwood:
Me neither. fuck that noise. Bernie is a poser. He won’t be remembered much beyond this cycle. And it is goddamn insulting that he claims that the future will look back and say “2016 is where it all started.” What about 2008? Oh yeah, that was just the black guy.
Fuck Bernie.
Anne Laurie
Cole, I love you — and not just for giving me this platform! — but your Repub roots are showing. Tonight’s speech was Sanders’ stump speech, with a little extra poison-the-well-against-actual-Democrats rhetorical arsenic thrown in, for flavor. He’s a self-centered old crank, whose most intelligent decision seems to have come forty years ago, when he white-flighted his arse out of Brooklyn, tested the waters in Chicago & discovered they had quite enough home-grown ‘political agitators’ already, and then followed the patchouli flow to a New England backwater where self-aggrandizing capital-S Socialists were still a marketable novelty.
Continued disagreement front-paged, up top.
Anne Laurie
@RSP:
Yep. There aren’t enough PoC in his district to make trouble, and they’re pretty busy with their own problems as it is. So Bernie never bothered to show up for them, and then (when asked about it, by curious outside reporters this cycle) blamed his inattention on the fact that they weren’t there for him.
As Maya Angelou would say, When people show you what they are — believe them, the first time.
Cacti
Preparation H is a good remedy for any Berning sensation emanating from an inflamed asshole.
gwangung
@Anne Laurie: He didn’t seem very eager to ally with people he didn’t already know. He could have helped himself a lot by allying with that Pennsylvania Senate candidate who was a strong supporter of his…but he didn’t even know who he was.
Dunno about you, but that’ a REALLY BAD trait to have in a potential President.
Aleta
@gwangung: Sanders is not a team player.
PatrickG
@Anne Laurie:
At least he did that (granted, this is bare minimum stuff). I’ll check in with your front page post.
gwangung
@Aleta: Yup. And not a good trait for a President, let alone someone who supposedly was carrying the progressive banner.
Aleta
@gwangung: exactly!
RSP
@Ella in New Mexico:
I can only hope you’re right; if not than it is squarely on Bernie’s shoulders for why his supporters didn’t show up at the polls.
tastytone
Based on his behavior these past months, the best benefit to him staying in the public eye at this point is to keep those co-opted Black Flag/Grateful Dead logo Bernie t-shirts fashionable through the summer. FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT™
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@JohnCole
Thanks for posting this, Cole!!!
Applejinx
@Marcolin: I see groundwork. CNN and other news feeds are reporting that Clinton’s effectively fired Debbie Wassermann Schultz and appointed Brandon Davis to run the DNC, a black man and national political director of the Service Employees International Union.
Surprised not to see anything about this move here. I get that the commentariat on the whole don’t want to admit any concession Clinton makes to the commie horde, but (a) what if it’s a gutsy political move and (b) surely we all have criticisms of DWS?
My impression was that people here wanted to keep Debbie until after the election strictly as a fuck-you to Sanders. Guess Hillary is more practical than you folks… again.
But then that’s why I started supporting her rather than strictly and exclusively Bernie. It’s getting to where I’m inclined to go and work for the lady much as I did for Bernie, and see whether (like with the black vote), if I and those like me build loyalty to her, it will be returned in kind.
I wasn’t expecting her to ditch Debbie. Really truly didn’t see that coming.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker:
THANK you. see? Balloon Juice people can politics, if they try! I promise, Hillary Clinton gets this too. There’s no reason we can’t deliver a massive congress-flipping landslide if we’re smart about it.
The attitude of ‘wtf, we’re your only friends and this is the respect we get?’ still bugs me a little. You know, if there’s a truly effective and seasoned politician in line for the Dem nomination who has even been IN the White House already, and a socialist codger from Vermont is so easily able to rally damn near half the Democratic electorate, maybe you’re just not ‘Mr Working People And Young Folks’ after all. If you were, dude wouldn’t even have got a foothold, and he came shockingly close to winning (which could have been a big trainwreck: scary. Just because you’re Mr Working People And Young Folks doesn’t make you good at politics)
As usual it will be up to Hillary to do useful things with what Bernie has laid out here. It’s just kabuki theater. I have a good feeling about all this. This is the path to a coalition between establishment, prosperous Dems and ‘working people and young folks’.
Anne Laurie
@Applejinx:
I actually had some material tabbed on this, and if the professionals are to be believed, you’ve got it exactly backwards.
Once the conventions stopped being about picking a nominee and started being a celebration of the chosen candidate (i.e., late 1970s/early 1980s), the DNC head has always stepped back from day-to-day operations when the nominee is announced. And that’s what happened yesterday: Robbie Mook, HRC’s manager, will be doing the gruntwork to promote his candidate; Davis is his deputy. In other words, if Bernie Sanders hadn’t been more interested in keeping his mug in the media than even in his cherished grudges, he could have ‘forced DWS out’ as soon as Clinton was deemed the Democratic nominee.
This was not a Magic Ninja Move demonstrating St. Bernie’s amazing skillz; it was another example of a petty old man not paying enough attention to knowing or caring about the fine print.
Applejinx
@magurakurin:
Huh, true that. I’d say 2008 too, you’re right there. I suppose he means ‘under the name Socialist’.
Meanwhile, Hils has replaced DWS with a black guy. I am very, very confident that she will be a force for racial justice every bit as much as Obama, possibly even more since she doesn’t have to be a POC whilst advocating for POC. We will see crucially important justice done.
Applejinx
@Anne Laurie: Then you’d damn well better pretend it was a major concession.
Jesus christ. You get HANDED a narrative that can peel off voters from the never-never land of Green Hippie Unicorn Candidates, and this is how you react? And since when is THIS primary not about picking a nominee? The optics of this stuff matters.
Keith G
Two days ago, I had a rather boosey lunch with a few of my former co-workers. They are all younger than me and to a person they were, and to some extent are, Bernie supporters. I worked to get head nods from all of them that they would be voting for Hillary in November.
But, I wanted more.
This is Texas and voting for the Democrat is just not enough. It is terribly important that people go out and influence others around them to vote for the good guys. With that in mind, I did a lot of “yes, and“. As in: Yes Bernie made a very good point about (fill in the blank) and now we have to further that by doing (fill in the blank). Summing it all up toward the end of our time together, I made a plea for each of them to go to Hillary.com and click the $5 donation button. I think at least some will.
Here and now, I know it’s important for some individuals to get shots off at Bernie. Fair enough as he presents a ripe target. But that seems rather id indulgent.
Up thread, someone stated that it was up to Bernie to turn his voters to Hillary. That is not the case. The folks I had lunch with have concerns with Hillary’s priorities and would not be swayed by Bernie saying that Hillary is ok. They want to hear that from her. They want her to work for their vote. I think she is doing and from what I could gather at lunch some have begun to be swayed by her. And then it is up to folks like me as well as the more sane people above to help them complete the journey.
That’s how the process works
Kay
I get the anger at Bernie Sanders for not conceding- I think it’s horrible, petty and small that he didn’t concede- but there are real structural problems in the Democratic Party and ignoring them won’t make them go away.
One cannot say that a political party had no role in losing state after state. What you’re essentially saying then, is that the Party is irrelevant.
The Democratic Party lost state after state yet the party played no role in those losses? Do they get credit when they win? Why have them at all if nothing they do matters?
The Democratic Party is an organization. It has leaders. The leaders have some responsibility for failures.
Applejinx
@Applejinx: I would add to that: I don’t believe Hillary Clinton under normal circumstances would depart from the ‘DWS continues to head the DNC until the election’. Debbie has been completely loyal to Hillary, sometimes to a fault (inconveniently zealous). It is a big fucking deal for Hillary to do this regardless of how sweet a sinecure Debbie got for her sacrifice.
Bottom line is, Clinton would not ever do this: and yet, here we are. This, like Bernie’s speech and Bernie getting applause when returning to the Senate, has a political purpose. People can rant all they want ‘he lost, he gets nothing, good day sir!’ but that’s childish and impractical.
Flip it around. Let’s try “The Democrats get ALL of the Bernie voters”. Now, if you’re setting out to make that happen, what do you have to do and what do you have to stage or be seen doing, in order to get that result? (or close to it?)
That’s all that matters. The Democratic party is gonna be sucking Millenial dick for a while now. Votes first, graft second because without the votes you lose access to the graft. This is not complicated.
bmoak
@Applejinx:
The DNC always brings in an election specialist for the home stretch to concentrate on November. It’s nothing really new, and part of the reason why I’ve not been on board with replacing DWS a few months before the election when her term is ending anyway. The only difference is that people are actually paying attention to the DNC this cycle and it seems like this change is being played up to mollify Sanders supporters
Aimai
@PatrickG: no results if no effort. He didnt concede. He didnt ask his voters to support hillary. He wont work–whatever that means–against trump because he is saying, for the record, that the democratic party as constituted is corrupt and worthless.
Aimai
@Applejinx: sucking millenial dick?
Aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: i give a fuck that the old man can not say out loud that the better candidate, a woman, won. Its like republican insults to our president have rubbed off on bernie and his supporters. The loser concedes and congratulates the winner–every time. No exceptions for the black guy or the first woman. What a begrudging, sexist, asshole, person bernie turned out to be.
Paul in KY
@Aleta: I would hope we would say it began in 2008.
Paul in KY
@Jeff Spender: Do you have an address where one can send a donation?
Paul in KY
@Batgirl: Any day now…
Paul in KY
@Keith G: Thank you for doing that.
Paul in KY
@Kay: The big problem is the ‘single issue’ voters. Mainly those who are anti-choice & NRA stooges. Those are the people who should vote Dem & that the GOP has captured to be their useful idiots.
Kosh III
50 states? It’s about time! Now that the primaries are over Tennessee won’t see Hillary ever again. At least we’ve finally got a D state party chair who cares about elections.
I have voted D since McGovern but in the past few elections voted Green because the state Democratic legislators and party bosses did their best to be Republican Lite, e.g. in 2006 the D’s happily threw gay people under the bus and even today only a handful will acknowledge gays.
Emma
@bmoak: People like Apples, who are always lecturing the rest of us about how politically savvy they are, never know their arse from a hole in the ground about actual procedural politics.
HRA
HRC is the winner and is the nominee. Why is this so difficult to accept by so many here? Did you really want it to be a coronation? Personally I believe it was very helpful for HRC to get her message across in the debates with Bernie. She did very well in accomplishing it.
Yet, I would come here to see comment after comment riddled with hate and it continues. What does it accomplish now? What I do is read the post and a few comments until I cannot continue to read anymore of the hate driven responses. I already know who and what is going to be said if I continue to read. This is not in any way helping Hilary at all.
I decided to vote for HRC. It has not been an easy decision to be vocal about it while living with a husband who has really shocked me by voting twice for POB and now is watching Fox after 32 years. I can only hope he will stop it by November. Be kind to those of my dilemma rather than the opposite.
Thank you, John for putting BJ on Facebook.
Paul in KY
@HRA: Who is ‘POB’? Stay strong & watch Hillary whup ass all the way to the Presidency!
planetjanet
@ASV: Don’t count? Maybe hard to win the presidency, but we can use all the congressional seats we can get.
HRA
@Paul in KY: @Paul in KY:
President Obama
exregis
Fucking hypocrite.
Where were you, Bernie?
Paul in KY
@HRA: Thanks!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@HRA:
Ask Bernie and his bros – the rest of us have no problem with accepting reality. When Bernie accepts reality and concedes, the rest of us will stop disparaging his inability to accept reality and concede.
Brachiator
Did Bernie ever release his tax returns? Did he ever formally join the Democratic Party?
At this point, he is little more than a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand version of Donald Trump. However, he didn’t win the nomination. I don’t see that he is in any position to even offer recommendations, let alone make soft demands.
He’s done. And I’m done with him.
Stefan
With all due respect to the generous thoughts in the OP, Sanders basically gave his stump speech – again. For this he failed to make it to the filibuster.
And sure, there are good things in Sanders’ stump speech.
Mutaman
Al Giordano @AlGiordano 9h9 hours ago
5. That’s why tonight’s podcast was such a dumpster fire. He’s become Sha Na Na. Worse, he’s become Bowzer! It’s already a nostalgia tour.
les
This is just unhelpful bullshit. Apart from the fact that Bern has contributed fuck all to any party or any state outside of VT, how has the Dem party turned its back? I’m in KS; I’m bombarded with Dem party news, info, pleas, in a state where they can’t even get people to run as Dems. Not because they won’t “open the doors,” Christ, they’d drag people off the street if they could. Where are Bernie’s revolutionaries, begging to be allowed in, begging to do actual work of actual party building? In his fucking deluded insular cranky old fart imagination. FOAD.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@les:
The arrogance is stunning, and his insistence of wiping out the past 8 years of Obama’s efforts to forge a winning coalition and flip red states blue as BernieLaLaLand historical revisionism which puts himself in the center as the savior of the country who never knew he existed until last fall, is a huge tell about what’s motivating him. **cough**Cornel West**cough**.
J R in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
So glad I’m not getting emails from Sanders!!!
I get plenty from Hillary, and Emily’s List, and Planned Parenthood, and congressional candidates from I don’t even know where, and they don’t tell me. Why would anyone do that?
I will say that most Dem candidates have functional unsubscribe features on all their email. Thank FSM!
Linnaeus
@Kay:
Thread’s probably dead, but I’d like to cosign your comment nonetheless.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Yeah, we need a 50 State strategy, fine…and Bernie has done what other than state that fact in a speach? Has he raised any money for the Democrats to make it happen? Has he even committed to remain a member of that party after this election season comes to a close? It’s easy to point out what we need. It’s hard to help deliver that. So maybe he could pitch in a little on that second part.
Mutaman
Cole reminds me a lot of Bill kristol: consistently wrong about everything.
Stefan
@Kay: HRC is well aware of the problem and she speaks regularly, and has done for some time, of the need to rejuvenate the party at state and local levels. (Obama is great but he never took much interest in this.) This is nothing Sanders had to bring to her attention, although he deserves some credit elsewhere.
http://rslc.gop/blog/2015/04/28/hillary-urges-dems-to-rebuild-at-the-state-level/