I am not a Bernie Sanders donor, or even really a supporter. I will be happy to vote for Hillary as many times as I can this Fall. If Baby Jesus is listening to my nightly prayers, the Republicans will run Ted Cruz against her and she will squash him like an overgrown dung beetle. Our Savior probably won’t answer my prayers so it will probably be Trump or Rubio, either of whom she’s quite capable of whupping.
That all said, I think the Bern is the best thing that could have happened to the Hillary and the Democratic Party this cycle, for a couple of reasons. The main one is that he is making Clintonworld get up and exercise. The dumb, unnecessary dust up over single payer is a great example of how those in the Clinton orbit need to be awakened from their dogmatic slumber more frequently. Faced with Bernie’s surprising (to them) poll numbers, someone in the vast network of hangers on, sycophants and grifters who surround the Clintons panicked and pushed out some dumb Republican talking points about single payer via Chelsea Clinton. They got the shitshow they deserved, and the sad fact was that it was unnecessary. They could have led with “what plan” (since Bernie had no real plan at the time Chelsea made her remarks), and they could have also made Richard’s good argument that single payer is a waste of time in the current or any near-term future Congress. And, after the almost mandatory Clinton bumblefuck, it looks like the Big Dog himself is is pushing the pragmatic angle. Now that Bernie has released a plan, there’s also still more ammo for any good political advisor to deploy.
Another reason that the Bern is like Ben-Gay to the arthritic Clinton machine, is that debates are great free media, and Bernie’s presence makes them a hell of a lot more interesting. By the way that verified liar Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tries to smother any possibility of a real prime-time debate in its infancy, you’d think that Hillary sucked at debating. But, contra the views of her craven lickspittles, she’s really good. And now that the Clintons are finally scared enough about Iowa to run a real compaign, lo and behold, we are getting a real prime-time debate, scheduled at the last minute. Debates are great free media because they contrast the Democrats’ serious approach to the Republican clown show, and they’re great practice for Hillary. I hope we’ll have a lot more of them.
The natural inclination of Democratic strategists of the establishment stripe is to bask in the inevitability of their poll-leading candidate and do what amounts to nothing. This complacency leads to panic and dumb decisions when the inevitable candidate stops looking like a shoo-in. Better to have that happen a few times now, so they’ll be ready when something awful like a poll showing Trump with a 10-point lead emerges in October. A little Bern on the leaden asses of Clinton’s inner circle now is going to make them less likely to sit down comfortably later this year.
By the way, I do not share John’s worries about how the Sanders campaign or his closest supporters will act when Bernie gets crushed in South Carolina, mainly because a little supporter butthurt is not going to poison the general election. If PUMAs really mattered, we’d have President McCain. I’m sure there are a few Sanders supporters who will go Nader on us, but the specter of President Trump, Cruz or Rubio will get any non-crazy Democrat to the polls come hell or high water.
Amanda in the South Bay
Though if Bloomberg runs this is all irrelevant, as he’ll probably give the election to the Republicans.
Lord Baldrick
Well, that wasn’t TOO patronizing towards Sanders supporters. Good thing few of them seem to be left around here.
Davis X. Machina
If America fails to seize the opportunity, the once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated opportunity, to nominate Sanders, I’m never talking to her again.
Did you hear that, America? America, you’re such a heifer.
Tommy
I am nothing close to a huge fan of Hillary but I am on the record saying I will crawl uphill, over broken glass, both ways to vote for her. Oh and there is one thing I really do like about her. She will stand up to the far right and call them out. Almost her entire life she has been attacked and she never rolls over. I got to respect that.
MattF
And the thing is, the Clintons are pretty good at politics, once you’ve got their attention. So, yeah– so far, Sanders has been a good thing.
Keith G
Mistermix, thank you for a rare bit of sanity on this topic. In theory, there is no reason why Hillary should not decisively win the nomination and go on to more decisively win the presidency.
However, we don’t live in a theoretical world. We live in a real world where Hillary Clinton and her minions have untold possible ways to fuck things up. It sure seems like they are trying to do just that.
I don’t expect Hillary to be the most approachable and exciting candidate on display, but it sure seems that there are many dozens of campaigning tricks she could use to increase the excitement level in this historic campaign that she has trying to wage.
The retread insight that has been often repeated is that she needs to act like she wants it and believes in it, not act like she deserves it.
mistermix
@Lord Baldrick: I will probably vote for Bernie in the NYS Democratic primary, for what it’s worth.
Icedfire
I’m an unabashed Sanders supporter who is still here, though I lurk more than comment most days.
I am also a Sanders supporter who will gladly vote for Clinton should she win the nomination, and who if nothing else is pleased with the prospect of a protracted nomination process that shifts the dialogue and the on-record proclamations from Hillary in a more progressive direction.
It is actually possible to be far left and pragmatic without dealing with too much cognitive dissonance :-)
Cacti
You start with this:
But then uncork the following stream of consciousness argle-bargle that would make the biggest Bernut proud:
Have you recently found yourself feeling angry at “establishment” groups like Planned Parenthood for no reason in particular?
geg6
Yes, what you point out are exactly the reasons I’m glad someone like Bernie is in the race. I have, however, come to the conclusion that I cannot vote for him in the primary (obviously, in the general, anyone running in the D column gets my vote). Not that I’m high on Hillary, because I’m not. But there are just too many downsides to Bernie (gun control, his single payer obsession, his tone deafness on race, his lack of support for and thus lack of coat tails down allot). Plus, I’m enough of an old school Dem that I find it insulting that he wants to lead my party but refuses to join it. Probably going to volunteer for Hillary next week. I want to get to work for a campaign as I have in the past and it’s time to get off the fence.
Constance Reader
You think Bernie Sanders is the best thing to happen to the party this cycle but you absolutely refuse to show any support or remotely consider voting for him. You do realize what is wrong with that, right?
OK, let’s make it more clear: you would vote for Hillary as many times as you possibly could even though she is NOT the best thing to happen to the party in this election cycle. Now do you see what’s wrong with that?
You pray that there is an election in which Hillary runs against Ted Cruz even though every poll on that very question provides evidence that Cruz would defeat her in a heads-up election. Do you even see what is wrong with that?
Linda Featheringill
If Bernie gets enough support, maybe Hillary will stop acting like a queen on the way to her coronation and actually address the issues that are important in the lives of most Americans. That would be a good thing.
JMG
@Linda Featheringill: Fair’s fair. You may not like Clinton’s stances on the issues, but God knows she’s taken a lot of them, many in excruciating detail.
Brachiator
Yup. Good post.
@Constance Reader
Well, no. Because, for me, as bad as HRC might be, Sanders is worse. Note that if he somehow became the nominee, I would happily vote for him.
geg6
@Linda Featheringill:
This is a pretty big pile of bullshit you’ve got there. Unless you’re being sarcastic, I’d have to say you can only say that because you aren’t paying an ounce of attention to what she’s actually saying on the campaign trail or you want to paint her in a way that she actually isn’t acting and don’t give a shit about truth.
FlipYrWhig
On the debate question, anecdata department: while watching MSNBC last night, my wife and I saw a promo for an upcoming Republican debate, and my wife said, “Ugh, how many do they have to have?” I don’t know why so many people on the D side have talked themselves into thinking that what the world needs is MOAR DB8S. Who cares? What good comes of it? And yes I realize that the standing answer is “it gives the media the opportunity to cover Dems and their proposals,” but let’s be honest, no one is deciding that they like Generic Dem over Generic Repub based on some kind of median/composite of what all the candidates on stage say.
Jim
Amen. Amen. Amen. I’ve been contributing to Bernie to keep him alive, just because of the things you mention. I’ll have no problem voting for Hillary when it matters, but she needs to know what people are feeling out here. And it looks like she and her crowd are finally waking up.
Davis X. Machina
@geg6: ¸
It’s your fault. You were supposed to join his party, but were insufficiently visionary to do so.
The present state of play is plan B. You’re lucky he’s that broad-minded.
Icedfire
@geg6: Out of curiosity, can you explain why you (among others I’ve read) are convinced that Sanders would have no coattails down ballot? Admittedly my memory of 8 years ago is pretty hazy, but I don’t remember Obama showing any significant coattails before the first several primaries and caucuses were completed, and we all know how that turned out in the end.
Keith G
@Cacti: Let me help you with this:
Have you recently found yourself feeling angry for no reason in particular at groups like the national leadership of Planned Parenthood who, aftrr all, are part of the Democratic “establishment” ?
FlipYrWhig
@Linda Featheringill: 2008 called, it wants its zinger back.
Tommy
@geg6: A few of the things you list as downsides of Sanders, at least where I live, are kind of positive. Take gun control. I often joke where I live I work so I have free time to post here or play video games. Most people I know work so they can have free time to hunt or fish. Clearly Hillary isn’t coming for anybodies guns, but they are worried if not fearful.
Same for single payer. I live near a huge military base. No chance you can live here and NOT know somebody that is either active duty or Civil Service. The concept of a health care plan provided by the government isn’t foreign!
Now I think it would be hard for Sanders to get elected. I think you end with something that works against him. He won’t join our party and two, socalist is in his name. I think socalism is OK in how he emcompasses it, but a death sentence for most people I know.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig:
No one in their right mind is going to pass up an opportunity to bitch out Debby Wasserman-Schultz.
Cacti
@Keith G:
Thanks for Berniesplaining it for me.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: Does “establishment” mean anything anymore besides “prefers Clinton”? It’s becoming a catch-all insult Team Bernie uses on anyone who irks them.
Eric NNY
@Icedfire: what you said.
The comments at this joint seems to paint us Sanders supporters as extreme ideologues. There may be some that way but I’ve not found most Sanders supporters any more fervent than Obama supporters.
And most of us will vote for the eventual D nominee.
Cacti
@Icedfire:
Well, there’s the fact that Clinton has raised $18 million so far for Congressional candidates, compared to 0 for Bernie.
Revolutionary spirit doesn’t pay for the Congressional campaigns of erstwhile allies.
FlipYrWhig
@Tommy: How do they feel about the concept of a health plan provided by the government to people who didn’t retire after a lifetime of hard work or serve in harm’s way? Because that’s kind of the issue: giving free goodies to Those People: “they didn’t even earn them!”
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
I honestly have no idea why people on the D side think the “free media” would ever be positive for D candidates? Have they not seen media coverage of D’s before? The media is salivating for a chance to call one flub or imagined slip a knockout punch for a D candidate. It doesn’t even have to be a real thing, like Gore’s “sighing” on stage. I mean, come all the fuck on. They have one hand down their pants and the other waiting to hit the Submit button on their death knell narrative piece they have already written.
shomi
“Palin is going to run for Prez” mistermix is making election predictions again (rolls eyes).
Spoiler. it won’t be Trump and probably not Rubio either.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: She’s the new RAHM!
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: For a second I had to read the timestamp because I thought I was reading Balloon-Juice archives circa 2007/8.
Baud
Bernie has made me a better candidate too. Thanks, Bernie!
Tommy
@Eric NNY: Yes what you said. I almost feel I shouldn’t say how much I support Bernie here, because I come here to chat about this or that, not fight. On a scale of 1-10 I am pretty low on Hillary. I am also 47 and not once, not once has the person I supported in the primary made it to the general election. I am far more liberal than my party as a whole. But NOT once didn’t I vote for whomever our party put forth. I don’t want to put words into the mouth of other Sanders supporters, but pretty sure they feel the same way.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Also, the 2012 R debates were an absolute clown show, and the only reason why the 2016 R debates have been deemed watchable (I haven’t watched them) is due to the glee at seeing Trump come up with a new burn. The DNC couldn’t possibly have anticipated that when coming up with a schedule.
C.V. Danes
The question in my mind is how Hillary will run things differently from Obama. Obama has done some good things. But from a leftie perspective he has also done some very troubling things. The TPP is a neoliberal gift if I have ever seen one. His choice to coddle the banks is another. Stonewalling a decision on the pipeline. Using kid gloves during the BP disaster. And so on. On these issues and others Hillary would be the same or worse.
The choice for me between Bernie and Hillary is the choice between more of the same for the next 8 years, or using the opportunity presented by the Republican clown car to do better. I have absolutely no fear about a Republican winning the presidency. I fear that we will be forced to endure more neoliberal policies in the name of pragmaticism when we have the choice to really move things to the left.
Icedfire
@Cacti: Not to dismiss your point, but do you have a source for that stat handy? I haven’t really found anything, though I haven’t looked exhaustively.
If it refers to DNC/DSCC/DCCC contributions, I’m not sure that I can respond in any way that won’t either invoke accusations of the “establishment is out to get us” conspiracy theory or the mystical General Election Downballot Money Pony…
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
It also shows a disturbing tendency by candidate Bernie to always be attacking. Even those who would otherwise be his friends if he prevailed in the primary and the general. He’s spent his entire career being a cantankerous backbencher and it shows.
I can’t say that I’ve heard Clinton or O’Malley singling out any groups for endorsing Bernie.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: the LAST thing that could be said about Hillary ’16 is that the campaign hasn’t taken up important issues.
MomSense
@Icedfire:
Actually Obama traveled the country in 2006 campaigning for Democratic candidates. He brought huge crowds and lots of donations to a midterm election.
geg6
@Icedfire:
Well, the biggest indication is he is not helping out any of those down ballot candidates. He’s not campaigning with them, he’s not name checking them and he seems to think he doesn’t need them. Ever hear him talk about getting more Dems elected? I haven’t and I’ve been watching him very closely, hoping he’d be good on these things. But no, it’s all about Bernie and his revolution. Fuck other Dems , fuck planned Parenthood and fuck the HRC. And don’t get me started on how stupid he is to think trotting out Cornell West as his new best black friend is.
Botsplainer
Part of me is willing to risk the likely catastrophic result of a Bernie nom just on the off chance he gets elected so I could see the very first “Bernie is dead to me, he sold out progressives” post on Kos.
That post would probably appear before Inauguration Day.
Amir Khalid
Bernie could have been much more, a real contender on his own, but he’s just not as complete a candidate as Hillary. He doesn’t have her experience in high government or global affairs, her breadth and depth as a policy wonk, or her wide appeal with voters of colour who are so important to the Democratic party’s chances. What I’ve seen of him suggests he doesn’t think quite as quickly on his feet as she. I think her pretty consistent lead over him these past few months is evidence of that.
So what he brings to this campaign is not so much his candidacy, but his ability to pull her to the left, and himself as a sparring partner to keep her in shape for the election proper. So I think he needs to stay in, all the way to the convention if he can.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: Why do you think there’s a chance to move things definitively to the left? Where are the Mark Warnerish and Claire McCaskillish and Joe Manchinish Democrats going to go? Pres. Sanders would have all the same issues keeping Dems united as Obama did in 2009-10, wouldn’t he?
Fred Fnord
Yes, patronizing as fuck.
Also, you are neglecting to mention the possibility that this goes down to the wire, Bernie wins on delegates, and Clinton wins the whole thing because of the bullshit superdelegate garbage.
She will absolutely do that (as opposed to trying to keep the party together) and, though it might be interesting to watch from a distance, I really would prefer not to see both American political parties going through their death throes at the same time.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: Probably when he announced that Paul Simon would play at the inaugural.
Corner Stone
@Icedfire:
I haven’t watched or attended any of his rallies so I don’t know the answer to my question here but, at any of these events does he publicly name check local D pols in the audience or in whatever district the rally is being held in?
Botsplainer
@geg6:
The revolution doesn’t need committed legislators. The proletariat knows from birth what is right and will command adherence from the Duma, er, Congress.
They will dutifully follow the will of the people as expressed by the vanguard of the proletariat.
Keith G
@Cacti:
@FlipYrWhig:
I will repeat what I said the last time this topic was covered, let me see, less than 24 hours ago:
It seems as if the flopping continues.
pamelabrown53
@Tommy:
You just said that for the first time in 70 years your district elected a Tea Party republican…and they have voters’ remorse. IMO, any district where it’s even close, i.e., R+2, D+2, will have to defend against the Billion + $ republican onslaught (demonizing the “socialist” and feel compelled to distance themselves from Bernie which is a recipe for little or no coat tails..Anyone who is not white enough or male will know what its like to #Feel the Bern”.
Cacti
@Icedfire:
Article on 2015 fundraising data.
Clinton: 112 million for her campaign, plus 18 million for Congressional races
Sanders: 73 million for his campaign, zero for Congressional races
He has shown the ability to raise $$$, but has confined it to his own campaign. Doesn’t seem like a well thought plan for implementing the ambitious legislative agenda he’s proposing.
Tommy
@FlipYrWhig: Everybody should have a government provided health care plan. Period! My mother for the first time in her life voted for Obama. Lifelong Republican. Two reasons. One a family member moved back to her town, openly gay, maybe the first she’d got to know. Found her to be a wonderful person and anybody against equal rights was against her.
Second she got really sick. Helicopters involved. In the ICU for more than a month. I asked her what she and my dad had to pay out-of-pocket. Zero. Health plan via the government since dad worked Civil Service for the DoD for 30+ years. I was like pretty nice isn’t it mom, shouldn’t everybody have this?
She was like you are right, they should.
Mike J
@Icedfire:
How many other people in his party are running?
MomSense
@Cacti:
The 18 million was just Q4 of 2015
Fred Fnord
@Botsplainer: you know, everybody in American politics hates everybody to their left, but you have an unhealthy obsession with it. You should really spend a little time thinking about why that might be.
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
President Sanders, like President Saint Doctor Jill Stein before him, would simply have reasoned with them and they would see the inherent logic in his arguments and be appropriately persuaded.
QED
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: the thing that impresses me about the Sanders campaign is that he found a way to connect to young people. I never would have expected that. I thought the Obama phenomenon was about Cool Young Obama, not about progressive ideals, but the Bernie phenomenon suggests otherwise (because, frankly, Bernie is not cool). That bodes well for the future of American politics.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
No, he does not. He also does nothing to help them fundraise.
The irony would be that, if he actually won the whole enchilada, he may end up with as many Dem friends who owe him favors in Congress as Ted Cruz would. Hell, I’ll bet Trump has directed more cash to Dems over his life and career than Bernie. Which is pretty sad.
Botsplainer
@Fred Fnord:
Clearly, I’m a right wing nut bag who hates poors, blacks, gays, loves Jesus and welcomes the day that some billionaire can dine off of the corpses of my yet unborn grandchildren.
For freedom, y’know.
glory b
@Icedfire: Throughout the years, Bernie has said some pretty unpleasant things about Dems during his runs for office. I read this in a politico article. I don’t think you can spend a couple decades criticizing the party, never support anyone in it, join only for your own political ends and expect that no one will resent it.
And picking Cornel West as a surrogate to represent him in the African American community? he spent most of the last 7 years trashing Obama, who as we may recall, is still enormously popular with us. Pretty tone deaf and an example of the problem.
Having said that, if he is the nominee, I will also crawl uphill over broken glass both ways to vote for him, and drag my now adult kids with me.
Mike J
@Cacti:
Politics is a team sport. Bernie’s plan seem much like Trump’s. He’ll get elected and tell everyone what to do, and they’ll just do it because he’s the boss now.
Tommy
@pamelabrown53: The election was a total lack of voter turnout. The Republican was a laughing stock. The polls had him down 4-6 points. He won by 4 points. I beg you to watch this video, this is who we elected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhbRcDZiJJc
My district is so blue often times Republicans couldn’t even find somebody to run. You’d get curb stomped running as a Republican in my district. Normally the Democrat gets 60+ percent of the vote. Not so much the last time around.
Mr Stagger Lee
Personally the fear is not Bernie supporters PUMA-ing Hillary, it is many people out there no longer gives a dilly ding dong and will not vote vs the True Believing Tea Party who will come out and vote TRUMP. Raw Story has a good article on the Trump endorsement by Palin and is working despite the contempt by the Left, Elites and mainstream media.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sanders is tied among Iowa Dems, a self-selected and non-representative group of voters in a state represented in the Senate by Chuck Grassley and Jodi Ernst. He leads among another non-representative group of Dems and indies. He trails HRC by twenty points nationally. Your idol is not being cheated. HIs popularity is hyped up by a national media that hates Hillary Clinton, and still doesn’t get why Iowa and New Hampshire are not the best examples of national Democrats’ opinions.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: it seems as though you want to rewrite Bernie’s reaction. It clearly didn’t mean that. I’ve heard versions of his comment before from people who dismiss Human Rights Campaign and Sierra Club and the like as the boring old guard who just don’t get the new hotness. He doesn’t mean the party, he means the traditional Washington players. It’s something lefties are wont to do.
AnonPhenom
@geg6:
@Botsplainer:
I’ll leave this right here for you guys. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/266218-sanders-dems-need-50-state-strategy.
MomSense
@Fred Fnord:
Here’s the thing. I’m to the left of Sanders if I proposed my ideal policies. The laws passed by any liberal president will be exactly as progressive as the 60th vote in the senate. It seems to me that Sanders is proposing things that have been on the progressive wish list for decades. None of them have a realistic path to becoming law. On the other hand you have a set of concrete next steps we have a chance of getting passed if we elect as many Democrats as possible.
One thing I will say about Sanders’ single payer is that I wish instead he would use the platform he has right now to push for closing the Medicaid gap in the non-expansion states. If the goal is to help poor people, this is the best, most efficient, and most realistic way of getting help to the people who need it most.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Not to mention, “establishment” is a Bernie buzzword. When does he ever use it in a neutral context, much less a positive one?
bystander
@Amanda in the South Bay:
That’s what I have been afraid of.
Jebula’s fans will not flock to Bloomberg, but he could sure peel support away from Hillary. Another reason to loathe him.
Brachiator
@Tommy:
I wouldn’t knock you for supporting Sanders.
I would knock you for (apparently) not having supported Obama. ;)
Fred Fnord
I knew this all reminded me of something.
Specifically, watching Sanders supporters be required to tender loyalty oaths (‘I promise to vote for Clinton in the general’) or be assumed to be disloyal. It’s funny, Clinton supporters are not treated the same way. I wonder why that is, do you suppose?
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I asked in another thread but never received an answer, so what if HRC loses both Iowa and NH? Then what? I just do not understand why anyone considering voting D would care what comes out of these two locations.
Cacti
@AnonPhenom:
Hey, that’s great.
So what is Bernie doing to bring it about, other than speechifying?
Corner Stone
@Fred Fnord:
Oh. Man. Did you come to the really wrong blog to float that bullshit.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: Not quite that. The plan is to get elected on such a wave of progressivism that enough people (office holders and voters alike) will already agree with him, thereby making the logrolling and horse trading of traditional politics unnecessary. Basically, if Bernie gets elected he’ll already have overwhelming support, so it’s not a problem. I don’t think that’s likely, but that’s pretty much what the “political revolution” entails.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Seriously, are there any two whiter places in America than Iowa and New Hampshire? He’s gonna get crushed anywhere there is a significant block of non-white voters. Which is pretty much everywhere else. And don’t get me started on drilling down into those polls, especially in Iowa, which with it’s caucus structure makes the likely voter screens a very important factor in analyzing them. If you look at the likely voter numbers, she’s kicking his ass in Iowa.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
I suspect it’s because the yoots — or some of them, anyway — thrill to his outsider status in the Democratic party. Whereas Hillary, who was FLOTUS, US Senator, and then Obama cabinet official, has insider stink all over her. So far it doesn’t seem to have made up the difference between them, does it?
Anya
@Amanda in the South Bay: Why is that? I keep hearing there are embarrassed ‘moderate republicans’ why won’t they vote for Bloomberg? Also, it’s most likely that Bloomberg will get his support from northeast liberal republicans mostly. Besides, he’s been threatening to run as long as I remember so I won’t even worry about him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fred Fnord: I pledge on my eyes and liver to vote for Bernie Sanders if he wins the primary. I will also vote for FDR’s corpse if it wins the primary. Especially since it has a better chance of winning the general than Bernie.
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense: Medicaid expansion would be a great cause to take up. I’ve said that he should be pushing to further expand community health centers, with the goal of increasing health care access.
AnonPhenom
@Cacti:
Just don’t make shit up dude. You should have stopped before that. You would have been fine.
Lighten up Francis.
Mike J
@Corner Stone:
Like Bill did?
Tom Q
OK, let me dissent from something I think a lot of people around here believe: that a vigorous, toughly-fought challenge from Sanders will inevitably strengthen a Hillary candidacy.
First, disclaimer: though I like/don’t disagree with anything in Sanders’ stance of the economy, I don’t find him remotely as qualified to be president as Hillary in any other area, and even when it comes to the economy I don’t think he’d be able to accomplish anything, given political realities, that Hillary wouldn’t as well. I DO like that his candidacy to date has maybe pushed the debate (and Hillary) leftward. That’s all good.
But if anyone has the idea that Bernie/Hillary fighting in the trenches through to Spring would be great for the party, I refer you to Lichtman’s Keys to the Presidency (which has correctly predicted every presidential election since its original publication in 1982, often at odds with conventional wisdom), By Lichtman’s reckoning, there are two things that are inevitably fatal to the incumbent party’s holding onto the White House — a recession during the campaign period, and a serious intra-party struggle for the nomination. The “coronation” so many people seem to resent for Hillary is in fact a gift, in much the same way Gen. Grant’s was for the GOP in 1868 — or, for that matter, GHWBush’s quick win in what seemed a fractured primary in 1988. If that gift is squandered by a fractious primary fight, it will hurt the party in November, even if Hillary (as most assume) wins in the end.
Before someone jumps in with “wait a minute: Obama/Hillary helped the party in ’08” — I’m talking about the race in the INCUMBENT party. In Lichtman’s take, how long it takes the out-party to decide its nominee is irrelevant, because presidential elections are up-and-down referenda on incumbent party performance. And, in fact, many successful challengers have gone through tough primary or convention fights — FDR in ’32, Eisehower in ’52, Reagan in ’80. That doesn’t matter. But would-be successors who had to fight hard for the nomination — Stevenson in ’52, Humphrey in ’68 — have lost. And, of course, every sitting president who’s been seriously challenged intra-party — Taft, Ford, Carter — has also gone down to defeat.
So…my take is, it’s best if Hillary wins swiftly — taking Iowa, probably losing white-and-flaky NH, then cruising through most of the remaining contests. (I presume Sanders supporters would say, how about Bernie cruising through? If he could, it would also be a winning route. But I see no way he can do that; Clinton’s support runs far too deep in the party, and the only race he could win would be a protracted one, which to me — and Lichtman — spells disaster.)
I know many people will reject this out of hand — people always want to dismiss Lichtman, despite his perfect track record — but, with so many people saying how great a long and vigorous primary season would be, I felt a need to throw in this dissent,
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
A reunion of RATM, or better yet, a show by Boots Riley and Tom Morello would be far more appropriate for a Sanders inaugural ball….
Tommy
@Brachiator: I supported Edwards, so clearly you can question my judgement. I do over that choice more than a little. I got behind Obama. I am an Illinois resident. I voted for him long before most voted for him. Kind of a fan of the guy, even if I wish he had taken a somewhat different path. I like the current Obama. Seems to present a middle finger to the right and mock them. Wish he would have done this since day one.
Keith G
I really don’t understand the coattails argument. I cannot conceive of a reality where an enthusiastic Bernie Sanders voter would go to the polls and cast their vote for Bernie at the top of the ticket and then either not vote the rest of the way down or vote for Republican as they vote down ticket.
That explains to me a world that just cannot exist.
I think those people who are making this argument are really arguing from a position of weakness and disingenuousness.
I support Hillary now and I plan to vote for her in March. I will not counter Sanders or his supporters by making stupid arguments as is done in some cases above.
Botsplainer
@Amir Khalid:
Youth responds to Bernie’s bumper sticker platitudes at the moment.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: My take is similar, which is that Hillary to them SEEMS like the boring kind of politician their parents like, while Bernie seems fresher even though he’s kinda retro. But I don’t really get it, even though I deal with college age people every day…
Another North Carolinian
Until the nomination is locked up, I’m Bernie’s. Afterward, I belong to whatever D wins the nomination. Now that that loyalty oath is taken care of, let me say that the “broken glass crawling” I worry about is by R’s who’ll do just that for any chance to vote against Hillary. If we don’t give them Hillary to vote against, a great many of them will stay home since they have no one they really want to vote for. That’s got to be worth more than a few points on election day. In fact, I fear Hillary might actually have negative coattails, even if she wins the Presidency. Here’s the deal: if the GOP can’t find a candidate to inspire their get out the vote efforts, for godsake let’s not give them one.
Tracy Ratcliff
@Corner Stone: Most likely, Secretary Clinton wins by a large margin in South Carolina, then sweeps most of the Super Tuesday states — as her campaign has been saying since August of 2015. Sen Sanders has been doing better with African Americans and Latinos lately, but he has not done enough to make him a winner in the South.
geg6
@AnonPhenom:
Yeah, so???? A 50 state strategy won’t get you the progressive paradise Bernie is promising. You know think a Bernie clone is going to win a congressional seat in a West Virginia? Or Western PA? Or Texas? If so, I have a bridge for sale.
Icedfire
@Cacti: I’m on my phone so it’s kind of infeasible to reply to everyone, so please forgive my use of an et al here.
Thanks for the info. I agree, the disparity is distressing. While I don’t think it’s a huge leap of faith to assume that should he win the nomination his fundraising ability will benefit the rest of the ticket, there’s no denying that Hillary has already been proven to be majorly supportive downballot.
It doesn’t change the fact that I’m generally to Bernie’s left politically and thus have more of an affinity to his positions, but it does help me have a clearer understanding of why many leftie voters are in many ways hostile towards him.
pamelabrown53
@FlipYrWhig:
How does “free college for all” not be a winner for college students? And how does the inability to realize that promise not put them into the jaded cynic (non-voter) category? While I love most of Bernie’s ideas (they’re ideas I’ve held my entire adult life), I don’t see Bernie as the vehicle for change. Too much sloganeering and calcified/binary ideology which may work in Vermont but not the very complex U.S.A..
Cacti
@AnonPhenom:
Speaking of making shit up.
You might want to check your block quote, because, ’twasn’t me who said that.
scav
@Constance Reader: Well, duh. One can be glad there’s garlic in the stew without wanting it to be the only and sole dominating flavor on tthe plate. Or is that too tricky?
msdc
@Icedfire: Obama did a ton of campaigning for Democratic candidates in 2006 and 2008. The Dems also had a string of special-election wins in the run-up to 2008 that people attributed to Obama; I recall that after Bill Foster won Dennis Hastert’s old seat in a special election and promptly endorsed Obama, somebody quipped that Obama was now creating his own superdelegates. (Obama had appeared in TV ads for Foster.) Basically, he’d done a lot of party-building work in a very short amount of time, and he’d already racked up some upset wins for downballot candidates.
As for whether Sanders would have any coattails, I’d say it depends on how much you think he can persuade the 50% of Americans who say they won’t vote for a socialist.
Fred Fnord
@MomSense: “I want to make things a little better for a tiny number of people while things continue to get worse for everyone else” is not a campaign strategy.
There is literally no chance that anything either of them are proposing that requires congress will pass, probably until at least 2022. Since that is self-evidently true, who do we want as the head of the Democratic Party? Someone who articulates a narrow and centrist set of policies for the country or someone who has an actual idea of what the Democratic Party should stand for?
Make no mistake: the next president, if a Democrat, won’t even get to nominate a Supreme Court justice, unless the Senate changes hands AND gets rid of the filibuster for SC nominees. (There is no time limit. The Senat is not required to even consider a nominee. They can just de facto shrink the size of the court until they have a president they like. They will, if it would otherwise shift the balance of power in the court.)
The president will be able to make changes only in the executive branch, and via the bully pulpit. If you think that neither of these things need changes from Obama, then Clinton is your woman. (Well, honestly, I find Clinton’s rhetoric to be even more centrist than Obama’s, which has only recently moved leftward from his self-proclaimed ‘moderate Republican of 30 years ago’ stances.)
If you think that articulating a vision of the US that is more just and compassionate than we are today is any kind of important step in actually going there, well, then, maybe not.
geg6
@Fred Fnord:
Because we’d all actually vote for Bernie if he was nominated? Because prominent Bernie supporters are on tv and social media stating their intent to either sit it out or vote GOP if Hillary wins? Think those may have anything to do with it?
Davis X. Machina
@Tom Q: This time is different, though.
(It always is, isn’t it?)
geg6
@AnonPhenom:
That was me, not Cacti. And please provide evidence that I’m wrong.
Corner Stone
@Another North Carolinian:
Two term President Obama for you, line one.
Baud
@Keith G:
Why not? Massachusetts is one of the most educated, liberal, and Democratic states in the country, and Elizabeth Warren finished about 7 points behind President Obama in the 2012 election.
Brachiator
@Tommy:
Those days seem so long ago. And I thought that Edwards would have made a good Attorney General in an Obama Administration before he self-destructed.
My big thing is disrespect for the GOP for doing everything they could to prevent Obama from governing. Giving the finger, and not having any fvcks to give certainly has its place, but does not mitigate the harm the GOP has inflicted on the country.
Fred Fnord
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: See, but I didn’t ask you for a loyalty oath. Clinton supporters are pragmatic to a fault. You would rather bet on a 51% chance to elect someone who will make your life worse a little more slowly than the Republican will, rather than a 49% chance of someone who might actually make it better.
And that particular brand of smart idiocy is exactly why Sanders has little chance, and why things will continue to get worse more slowly.
Congrats on that.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: I’m not trying to rewrite. I am just stating the reflection I had when I heard the complete interview in real time before there was even a hint of a scandal or controversy.
The topic of that Maddow question was focusing on what was happening with certain constituent groups within the Democratic Party coalition. Within both political parties there are establishments. Those establishments may or may not correspond with the greater governmental establishment of the entire nation, but in many cases they do not. I am very happy that there is a group of very wealthy gay donors who are part of the establishment of the Democratic Party. They are not part of the establishment of the national government at least not yet, but as we have seen, they do wield a lot of establishment influence on the left side of the political spectrum.
Botsplainer
@pamelabrown53:
Like I said, his is a bumper sticker campaign, and his surrogates express things the same way.
It is an unserious effort.
bystander
@Anya: From the article I linked above:
NYTimes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fred Fnord: What country do you think we’re talking about? Just curious.
I’d ask what the fuck you think you’re babbling about, but you’d probably just babble more trying to explain yourself.
geg6
@Fred Fnord:
Yeah, because flinging yourself off a cliff and hoping you’ll grow wings is always the best course of action. And American history has dozens and dozens of instances showing that the American public embraces radical change with open arms. I’m for getting what we can reasonably expect at the given moment. If it’s slow, incremental improvement, I’m for it. If the moment is right for radical change, I’m down with that, too. Since the best we can expect is a Dem president, a small majority in the Senate and a handful of pickups in the House, radical change doesn’t seem to be on the menu right now. If that’s pragmatic to a fault, so be it.
Mike J
PublicPolicyPolling @ppppolls 3h3 hours ago PublicPolicyPolling
Bloomberg got 10% against Clinton/Trump on our NC poll this week. Of course Deez Nuts got 10% and Bug the Cat 7%
debbie
@Linda Featheringill:
Not to mention stopping with all this “I won’t work for anything I know won’t get through Congress.”
liberal
@Amir Khalid:
Like her disastrous push to topple Ghaddafi? LOL.
msdc
@Keith G:
My concern is more that “enthusiastic Bernie Sanders voters,” while potentially a formidable group in a Democratic primary, will be much less than 50% of the general electorate. That’s coattails in the sense that Goldwater had coattails–for LBJ.
Keith G
@Baud: I don’t understand the focus of your retort.
Let me clarify by saying that I do not think that people who vote for Sanders will then go on and not vote in any great number for other candidates who are considered liberal or at least progressive. That does not pass a simple smell test. Almost by definition these are people who are highly motivated to support ideas that can only come about with more progressives/liberals holding office.
That said, there will never be a one to one ratio in voting because individuals can always find reasons not to vote a for specific preason down ticket… unless as in Texas there is a straight ticket option.
msdc
@Botsplainer: I wonder, when all is said and done, if we’ll look back on a Sanders campaign that won NH and maybe Iowa, and little else, and realize his campaign was more Eugene McCarthy than Barack Obama – and with pretty much the same constituency, too.
Gin & Tonic
@Fred Fnord: rather than a 49% chance of someone who might actually make it better.
And who, if he fails to win, is *guaranteed* to make life way worse for a long time. I’m not willing to take the chance of, say, President Rafael Cruz appointing someone to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court who will hold that seat for the remainder of my natural life.
Brachiator
@Fred Fnord:
I don’t think that Clinton will make my life worse, nor that Sanders would make it better.
And I find implied comparisons of HRC to Republicans to be ridiculous.
And I am not wild for either candidate, but think that Clinton is marginally better.
Baud
@Keith G: It depends on the numbers, of course. But if we’re talking about new, nontraditional voters brought in by Bernie, then it’s conceivable to me that some portion of them will only vote for Bernie because they like him personally, or not vote for the Dem on the ticket because he or she is perceived as not being on board with Bernie’s agenda. Massachusetts was an example of voters who split their ticket rather than voting straight Dem.
Amir Khalid
@liberal:
If Bernie is better able to lead the line on global affairs than Hillary, has he shown it yet? If so, when and how?
MomSense
@Tom Q:
I agree. I don’t buy into Sanders staying in the race helping Dems win in November.
Bob
“I’m sure there are a few Sanders supporters who will go Nader on us, but the specter of President Trump, Cruz or Rubio will get any non-crazy Democrat to the polls come hell or high water.”
And there it is. That smug, certain, listen-to-the adults-and-toe-the-line attitude of Hillary supporters in regard to those of us that support Sanders. Has it ever occurred to you that the Sanders candidacy notwithstanding, there are many of us in the Democratic party that simply do not like or trust HRC? In terms of economic and foreign affairs, we regard her as just another Republican. Her attacks, and those of her surrogates against Sanders (and, by extension, those who believe in his ideas) only confirm our distrust.
As far as voting for her out of fear of a Trump / Cruz /Rubio / Ghost of Reagan presidency, you might wanna consider that there are many of us who are sick and tired of voting AGAINST candidates and would dearly love voting FOR candidates we truly believe in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You bring this up a lot, as if Clinton, and by extension the US, were the only factor in the Libyan civil war. It’s like the flip side of Neo-cons arguing that Syria would have been resolved is Obama had done X.
Baud
@Bob: Of course everyone knows there are Dems like that. A generation ago, they were called Reagan Democrats. It’s a large reason things are the way they are right now.
pamelabrown53
@Tom Q:
That is an interesting theory hat I hadn’t thought about. Glad you brought it to our attention even though I’m not at the point of “endorsing it.
Lucy Finn-Smith
I am a lurker here, and the discussion is very good.
My sense is this , this year is going to be very different -yes even revolutionary. When your enemy ( Republicans ) is on its knees, and they are on their knees this year — you rush in with all guns blazing to take as much ground as you can – that means Bernie. He is the ” idea whose time has come ” . Of course its a risk , a huge risk but its a risk we may have to take .
Jim, Foolish Literalist
She wants to increase marginal tax rates on high earners, increase the minimum wage, preserve and possibly expand Social Security and health insurance programs, and maintain Dodd-Frank. Her plan for further financial regulation focuses on risk rather than size. If you think that’s “just another Republican”, you haven’t been paying much attention for the last twenty years.
Trentrunner
Bloomberg: Because What This Race Needs Is A Fourth New Yorker
Baud
@Trentrunner: I’m blanking. Clinton, Trump, Bloomberg, and who else?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: that guy from Seinfeld
Keith G
@msdc:
Ironically, the McCarthy campaign was the first taste of presidential campaigning work done by many future influential Democrats including one Hillary Rodham.
That would not be an insignificant legacy for any campaign, including Sanders, to have.
AnonPhenom
@Cacti:
Then greg6 should have stopped. And you can fuck off with the “establishment” talking point you dishonest hack.
Mike J
@Baud: Bernie’s Vermont accent has you fooled?
Brachiator
@glory b:
Good point. I guess that West and Sanders are ideologically compatible, but Sanders embrace of a man who has made insane personal attacks on Obama tends to confirm complaints that Sanders has a rigidly reductive view of economics and race.
Botsplainer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
According to Berniebots, hers was the only Senate vote in favor of the Iraq war.
“Bush and Clinton lied, people died.”
AnonPhenom
@geg6:
I already did “Francis”
Botsplainer
@Brachiator:
Fight the power, man.
Free Mumia…
Baud
@Mike J:
By that measure, Clinton should be from Illinois or Arkansas.
Corner Stone
@AnonPhenom: Apologies, but where?
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kramer?
El Caganer
@Mike J: All of them, Katie.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: Yup, he’s running of the Horse-faced Hipster Doofus ticket with Bob Sacamano.
Jay C
@Trentrunner: I’m blanking. Clinton, Trump, Bloomberg, and who else?
George Pataki?
Baud
@Jay C: Isn’t he already out? And was he ever really running?
gene108
@Tommy:
But Sanders is not proposing Medicare Part A and/or B for everyone for catastrophic claims, with private insurance filling in for people, like it does now. I think that might be possible and even preferable.
His plan “works” by destroying private insurance (potentially forcing thousands out of a job), because we will no longer need it and this is one area where he will carve out the net savings, after the necessary tax increase and it will be more generous than pretty much any type of insurance – Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, etc. – we currently have.
Also, prior to the last 15-20 years and the escalation in healthcare spending, many private insurance plans were just as good as what your mom has. Go to the doctor, pay a $10/co-pay, with little or no out of pocket costs for hospitalization.
This is one reason, when Bill Clinton proposed changing the system in 1993, the cries of “not being able to choose your own doctor” resonated, because most people with employer coverage were satisfied with what they had and change would probably be worse.
By 2009, healthcare costs got so expensive the benefits people got through employer based coverage had eroded, so they were not going to lose as much and even the Obama had to promise to America “if you like your insurance, you can keep it”.
The whole idea that single-payer is the only way to achieve affordable universal coverage is not true. Germany and Switzerland manage to do this via highly regulated private insurance.
For the USA there are better alternatives than single payer.
Matt McIrvin
People, are you really crying doom over Mike Bloomberg? This is the Unity ’08/Americans Elect/No Labels movement again. Nobody ever pays attention to it except for pundits. If anything he’ll provide an outlet for late-Broderist types to not vote for Donald Trump.
Keith G
@Keith G: I see I left out a word in a statement that should read, “was the first taste of Democratic presidential campaigning….”
pamelabrown53
@Keith G:
I’ve got to say, Keith, that I’m not a little worried that “Paulites” (as in Ron) are not a part of Bernie’s “coalition”. I must say that Bernie’s support of “Audit the Fed” freaks me out. Even after the horrific Greenspan, I’m not in favor of politicizing the Federal Reserve. This stance, plus his votes on guns, places him too uncomfortably in the white male glibertarian universe.
Keith G
@pamelabrown53:
Your exact to view of that is not one I would share. I don’t think there’s much of a way that you can confuse the stuff that Bernie Sanders wants with a libertarian /glibertarian world view. There can always be points of coincidental contact between entities that possess generally opposing views without it indicating and any underlying philosophical communion.
joel hanes
@C.V. Danes:
I have absolutely no fear about a Republican winning the presidency.
Take a look at Sen. Sanders’s poll numbers with black and Latino voters.
Then look at Sec. Clinton’s
Then look at the Obama coalition.
Then read up on George McGovern.
Then fear.
Geeno
@mistermix:It’s never still a two person race by the time NY votes. I’ll vote Bernie if he’s still alive at that point, but if Hilz has the delegate count locked up, I’ll vote Hilz just to give her some wind at her back coming into the convention.
@Constance Reader: He said he’d vote for Bernie inthe primary, but like most NY Dems, he’s expecting that the decision will have already been made by the time he gets to vote.
Just Some Fuckhead
@geg6:
I know 7 years is a long time but surely you haven’t forgotten we smeared HRC the same way in 2008?
AnonPhenom
@Corner Stone:
Here…….@AnonPhenom:
And anyone who saying that it’s all about raising money can tell it to Jeb!
Cacti
@pamelabrown53:
The other lefty favorite, Elizabeth Warren, voted against the Rand Paul bill.
I asked one of the Sanders supporters to explain who was right/wrong in this split between Sanders and Warren, but got crickets in response.
joel hanes
@Another North Carolinian:
R’s who’ll do just that for any chance to vote against Hillary.
In my calculations, these are balanced and maybe outweighed by the not-so-politically-engaged women who will turn out to vote for the first female President in the history of the nation. I know many such.
Corner Stone
@AnonPhenom: I also advocate for a D 50 state strategy. And I actually have a record of working to get more D’s elected than I can find on Sanders.
I understand the original quip of contention referred to “hear him talk about”, but come on.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. I don’t think Bloomberg would affect HRC winning.
It would be entertaining for the “serious” press to try to cover Bloomberg vs Trump in the next few weeks, though. They may be afraid to do that, though, for fear of strengthening Cruz.
Dick Nixon on Twitter says he thinks Bloomberg would grab the “white moderates” leaving Team D with only minorities. I’m not seeing it.
Sure, Bloomberg spent a bundle on trying to pass gun legislation and supporting candidates in favor of such things. I don’t think it had much effect except on the margins.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bloomberg doesn’t run. He should know he won’t win, so why bother? The NYTimes piece presents people arguing on all sides – he’ll only run if HRC is “fatally weakened”, yet he wanted her to run to succeed him as Mayor, etc. He’ll spend $1B but will only do it if he thinks he can win. His brilliant plan to win is to spend it on TV ads. That’s worked great for JEB? – amirite?
It’s all vanity.
But we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
@Brachiator:
Cornel West
That was where I decided to get off the Sanders bus.
Utterly tone-deaf and destructive; no upside at all.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
That’s the biggest reason why I think of Bernie as the campus radical who never grew up.
He honestly believes that American structural racism can be reduced to an issue of economic class, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I suspect that opinion was able to crystalize from living almost his entire adult life in the whitest state in the union.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: I feel like it’s even less sophisticated than that. I think he thinks that millionaires, billionaires, and corporations give the people false consciousness that makes them have incorrect political views, and if we take away their brainwashing ability sooner or later all political problems would be solved.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: Who can argue with mindreading like that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Nobody knows, including Pataki, and nobody knows, including Pataki.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
There is a quote ascribed to Sanders which demonstrates an equally blinkered view with respect to women’s rights. From the Guardian:
Now I do not in any way dispute Sanders’ support for women’s rights. It’s the suggestion that he views these issues through a narrowly reductive economic perspective which is off putting.
Geeno
@Corner Stone: Her firewall in the south kicks in. As Bill did, Hilary could lose Iowa and NH and still win the nom. She’s actually quite safe in the Super Tuesday states.
James E Powell
@msdc:
Pretty much agree in terms of ultimate impact, but Clean Gene was all about the Vietnam War. Sanders’s appeal is a nebulous a bundle of beliefs about who and what government is supposed to be for.
The only similarity that I see between Sanders 2016 and Obama 2008 is that both get a fair amount of support from those Democrats who just do not like Hillary Clinton. The reason vary somewhat, but tend to be centered around her & Bill’s relationships with Big Money. Not “establishment” but serious Big Money people who have never done anything to help ordinary people.
The Sanders argument is “How can we trust her when she takes money from such people? When she is friends with such people?”
The Clinton argument is “If I am going to get anything done, I need these people to be friends or at least not enemies.”
They both have a point, no?
Cacti
@Brachiator:
I’ve seen the quote on abortion before, and it’s even less defensible.
The ability to fully control whether one chooses to have or not have children is an economic issue for any person who isn’t independently wealthy.
Geeno
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And FDR’s corpse wouldn’t be restricted by the 22nd amendment.
pamelabrown53
@Cacti:
My guess is that Elizabeth Warren’s vote against Rand Paul’s bill is in our highly polarized and atomized society that she knows it would be really destructive for America to throw fiscal policy in the mix. To me, Bernie’s support of auditing the fed is even more destructive than dubya’s politicizing the states attorneys.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
different-church-lady
@Keith G: I read his statement, and I understand the context of his statement and his statement still sucks, and I think it’s a bunch of horse shit to say the correct interpretation is the threading-the-needle version you’ve described.
Applejinx
The Clinton supporters are feeling kind of like the Romney people. Dire threats combined with this brazenness because they know how the world can only work, and everybody else is a fool and probably poor.
I’m not finding it an appealing picture. But it’s not exactly new. For months and months it’s been this argument from authority.
I feel the authorities, Republican and Democrat, are suffering from a serious Beltway myopia and that both on the Democrat and Republican sides they’re not dealing well with the dissatisfaction of the general populace. And I’m down to about three figures in all bank accounts so it’s not easy for me to whip out the credit card and donate to Bernie yet again, but I’m not maxed out, so: go on, call him an unelectable loser with no coattails who will destroy the country some more. Please proceed. I respond so predictably to that stuff, after all.
Seems I shut up, work more for Bernie, and give him more money. I am okay with this.
Sorry if one of the bernistas on BJ has been mysteriously absent. (a) I don’t only post/read here to troll Hillbots, and (b) I’ve been having a rough time, but have not given up.
ellennelle
from as purely an objective angle as i can manage, i just have to ask you – given your far from flattering, but dare i say keenly accurate, descriptions of the “arthritic” (just one such negative adjective) HRC campaign – WTF?
why exactly is it you’re hoping for her to win the primary???
from where i sit, this exhibits uncharacteristically complete lack of logic and rational thought on your part.
fwiw.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Boy, you’ll show us. Or something.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality.
satby
@Fred Fnord:
pardon me, but I/and the other people who finally got health insurance via the ACA have immensely improved lives. And that barely got through Congress. How about considering the possibility that our lives could slowly get better instead of the magical “political revolution will fix everything” beans currently being offered?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Applejinx: Don’t let these professional trolls get the best of you. They said all the same nasty things about Hillary Clinton back in 2008. I’m too busy to go back into the Wayback Machine but it would be fun to respond to their statements today about Bernie with the same thing they said about HRC in 2008.
different-church-lady
@Applejinx: You’re willing to go broke just to spite Hillary’s supporters?
ellennelle
@Applejinx:
fwiw, agree with your perspective. except it reminds me almost exactly of exactly 8 years ago when obama was surging. clinton and her peeps panicked, and i was quite disappointed at how disorganized, confused, and – most disturbing of all – graceless the response was from her and her camp
to my mind, this did not reflect well on the qualities i require of a person and a president, i.e., calm, measured, respectful, and longview perspective. obama, for whatever execution flaws he may have delivered, exhibited every single one of those, and has maintained them steadfastly for 8 years including his campaign.
to my mind, however feeble it might be, this election comes down to this primary race, and that comes down to the fact that sanders is the ONLY candidate on either side of the aisle who is not beholden to anyone but the people.
and just because trump relies on his own gazillions does not disqualify him from this point; he is not just beholden to money in both the abstract and the concrete, he has never been anywhere near, nor has he ever considered the plight of, the common person and our needs.
he’s certainly not any FDR, and neither is hillary. we need someone who has lived those values consistently over a long time. as far as i can see, sanders is the only one who meets these criteria.
satby
@Bob: Tbogg answered you in 2008
different-church-lady
@Bob:
Ah, so you’re a low-information Democrat. Got it.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle: Obama himself thought that she was so disorganized, confused, graceless, unmeasured and disrespectful and that he made her Secretary of State.
ellennelle
@Just Some Fuckhead:
fwiw, i deeply resent being automatically characterized as a troll just because i’m not falling in line with the HRC machinery.
also fwiw, as noted above, the reactions to HRC in 08 as now are based on observing her poor responses in the campaign to having her entitled position threatened by a real competitor.
like bernie, i have respected her for a long time, but i have also felt very uncomfortable with so many of her actions over the years (e.g., just to name a few, her decision to run for senate in NY for the wall street money, her continued cozy relationship with them, her waffling on iraq and the bankruptcy law and TPP and keystone, and before all of this, her role in the birth of the DLC, which i count as deadly for the democratic party that has given us DWS, ferchrissake).
that said, we could do a lot worse, with any republican, and with bloomberg.
the larger point tho is that we CAN and SHOULD do a LOT better.
bernie offers a remarkable opportunity to do just that.
Gin & Tonic
@James E Powell:
Sure is a good thing FDR wasn’t friends with any such people, nor was JFK.
dogwood
I wish people would just admit to themselves that their candidate preferences aren’t always all that high minded. When you really love a candidate you dismiss all their flaws and exaggerate their strengths. The opposite is true for candidates you find distasteful. I stayed out of the Clinton/Obama wars in 08 because I knew that with most objective things being fairly equal, I was simply voting for the candidate I actually liked as a person. This cycle is more typical for me in that I don’t have any particular affinity for either Hillary or Bernie. My observations of Bernie lead me to believe he isn’t temperamentally suited to the job. Concerns about his electability and the fact he isn’t a Democrat have put me in Hillary’s camp this cycle.
Wrb
Around these parts ( white, middle-aged disaffected) Bernie is far more electable. it is unfortunate that those who have well earned cried as wonks (Krugman, Chiat, Klein) are abusing their cred to support a candidate for whom they have an attachment. Why the fuck does it matter if he can’t get his goals enacted in his first term? we are still paying twice what our competitors are for health care, the moral hazard to which too big to fail banks are subject will cause another crash, and far too much of our wealth has been caged by the 1% and the trust fund kids. He’s at least not declared surrender. His goals are the right ones, so what if they will be a long time coming?
Gin & Tonic
@ellennelle:
Do you have evidence that Sanders can win Ohio or Virginia or Pennsylvania? Or Florida, for that matter? Or North Carolina?
Brachiator
@Applejinx:
Then you are doing some selective reading.
I am a mild HRC supporter, and just don’t have a lot of interest in Sanders. (And I mocked the crap out of Clinton in 2008). But I got nothing against Sanders supporters.
I don’t agree that Sanders is not electable. It is too damn early for anyone to say for sure. However, Sanders’ lack of a real connection to the Democratic Party is an issue here, which also impacts the idea of whether or not he has any coat tails.
Also, if Sanders’ becomes the nominee, the Democrats will have to work like hell to make sure that he is elected. Anybody with a brain knows this. I can speculate on complications here, but it doesn’t really matter until we get through the primary season.
Bottom line: there ain’t nothing that prevents Sanders from being a viable candidate. He just ain’t my preferred candidate. And because he is, in my view, viable and not entirely unsatisfactory, his supporters ain’t crazy for liking him.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
a political move, which often makes for strange bedfellows.
and having followed foreign affairs quite closely over many years, i cannot say as i was overly impressed with her SOS tenure (honduras, haiti, libya (NOT benghazi), israel, crimea and the russians, even syria, just to name a few; kerry does better, tho in some respects likely because he is a man, which is disgusting but fact of this badly macho-fied world)
but, after her 11 hour grilling in congress, i said we could do a lot worse.
but when you have something infinitely better, and proven as such consistently over decades, why is there even a question?
mind you, i have spent many hours defending the craven misogynist attacks against her for decades. but, i want a president who has consistently proven s/he represents my ideals more than i want a woman in that office.
and as for your “low information dem” slur – what is that about?
this is, again, what i recall from hillary supporters and PUMA in 08.
so destructive, rude, and unnecessary.
Anoniminous
@Tom Q:
Not going to be a long, drawn out party fight. Looking past Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton is leading by substantial percentages as her 17% lead in national polling tells. The Clinton/Sanders spat is no where near the rage and bitterness of 1968 following the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy murders.
ellennelle
@Brachiator:
wow. so, party above principles, is that what you’re saying?
i mean, what i’ve witnessed since the 90s – and the clintons were party to this, with the introduction of the DLC – is the party has been taken over by republican lite. hence DWS.
i would like to see the party recover its FDR principles, thank you very much.
and if the enthusiasm for sanders to do that throughout the country does not reveal to you that trend, i invite you to pay closer attention.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
There is a question for some because not everyone sees Bernie as “infinitely better”.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle:
What that is about is anyone who claims Clinton is the same as a Republican is full. of. shit. I just thought my first way of putting it was marginally more polite.
Wrb
@Gin & Tonic: Do you have evidence that he can’t? When I speak with those who would be swing voters in my community ( loggers, fishermen, small business owners) their take is about like this. “There is no way in hell I would vote for Hillary. Wall Street owns her. Trump might shake things up. Things that need shaking. But he’s a jerk. Bernie says what he thinks. I like a man who says what he thinks, not what he thinks I want to hear. He’s been saying the same things for 30 years.mmaybe he’s a socialist, but I don’t care about that shit, he’s a good man. And he’s the only one who will jail those Wall Street assholes who wrecked my business and my family.”
ellennelle
@Gin & Tonic:
we had no evidence he could even make a blip on the radar just six months ago. it’s called a trend.
some call it a tsunami. i’m not there.
but i’m also not the least bit interested in losing the remarkable momentum and enthusiasm (which HRC is quite lacking) we have with bernie to instead play it safe.
waaaay too much is at stake here.
plus, if he wins the nomination, i’m willing to bet big money he’ll beat trump in all those states you list.
different-church-lady
@Wrb:
Let’s ask them again after they’ve been subjected to 4 months of commercials telling them it’s the worst thing in the world.
Joel
@Constance Reader: you should check up on your data:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-cruz-vs-clinton
dogwood
@ellennelle:
If you want to see the party return to its FDR principles, I assume you mean economic principles. Because Americans in internment camps, refusal to admit Jewish refugees, and an anti-civil rights agenda were also part of FDR principles.
Wrb
@different-church-lady: thee people I describe have been subjected to 20 years of anti-Clinton BS and the attrition has been real. Unfair, but she’s badly damaged as a candidate. Many will sit out or vote for Trump if she is the candidate.
Corner Stone
@Wrb:
ellennelle
@dogwood:
care to share what you mean by “he isn’t temperamentally suited to the job”?
if you’re worried about his ability to work across the aisle, do check out his record, as he has gotten more amendments through than any other senator in this gawdforsaken GOP congress.
and you don’t believe he’s a democrat? what does that mean?
for my money, he’s far more a democrat in the FDR sense than any candidate since LBJ, and certainly more than anyone in the establishment party such as the clintons and DWS.
most bernie supporters i know (and surprisingly, here in MA near boston, i do not know a single HRC supporter, and i’m a phd in healthcare, fwiw), like myself want to take the democratic party back to those roots. sick to my bones at what it has become in the DLC era. again, just republican lite.
dogwood
Those loggers and fishermen and small business owners may very well want the billionaire bankers to go to jail, but that’s not gonna do jack shit for them economically.
different-church-lady
@Wrb: You’ve got the cause-and-effect relationship backwards. With Clinton is out of the picture, all that outrage and resentment turns to Sanders.
ellennelle
@Wrb:
yup, sounds about right to me.
;-)
Wrb
@Wrb: Sure the right has had some success at getting people to conflate socialism with totalitarian communism. But they have devoted much more effort to convincing people that the Clintons, and Hillary in particular, are dishonest, corrupt, and downright toxic. When you balance those unfair burdens, I say the one that Hillary carries is the more heavy. At best it is a wash.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle:
When you’re in a theater, can you feel them?
dogwood
@ellennelle:
I don’t believe he’s a democrat because he isn’t one. He has never identified himself at a Democrat until he was forced to in order to get on some primary ballots. That’s not a knock on him; it’s simply a fact. I don’t have a problem that it doesn’t bother you, but the fact the President is head of the party is a drawback for me.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
not so fast, pal. not only is there no inherent anger toward bernie – as opposed to HRC, who sadly carries a truckload of that baggage – but he holds THE BEST APPROVAL RATING OF ALL CANDIDATES.
the GOP machine will have a hard time dredging up scandals on him. everybody likes him. he’s the real deal.
the anti-socialism canard is all they got. and, apparently, all you and hillary got.
don’t think that will fly now any better than it did when edward r. murrow brought it down back in the 50s.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle:
Until he WINDS UP IN THE CROSS-HAIRS OF THE ATTACK MACHINE.
Wrb
@different-church-lady: doesn’t among the people I know. Clinton is seen as an ultimate insider. Bernie has intrigued people who are disgusted with the insiders, and see them as sucking their lives and communities dry, but who aren’t assholes, and recognize trump and Cruz as assholes. “Bernie is a good man” is repeated again and again by such people contemplating actually supporting him, to their own surprise.
different-church-lady
@dogwood: Nobody else is going to say it, so I will: a whole lot of Sanders supporters are hoping his nomination destroys the Democratic Party.
different-church-lady
@Wrb: What is it about the future-tense that’s mystifying people here?
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady: lol
Corner Stone
God damn. When did all the Ron Paul supporters find this blog?
dogwood
People seem to forget that we can’t go back to some magical time of FDR or LBJ. What was accomplished economically in those times relied on the political support of the solid racist south. I’m not willing to be a part of a coalition that uses populism to pander to racists, homophobes, and nativists in order to get economic progress.
Wrb
@different-church-lady:
Why, exactly do you think Clinton would fare better? They’ve got a hell of a lot more already locked and loaded against her.
Brachiator
@ellennelle:
i have no idea what this is supposed to mean. A political party is the means by which citizens express their political principles within the state. Also, I am a registered Independent. I have never belonged to a political party as long as I have been old enough to vote. But this does not prevent my supporting parties and candidates. Now, if I were a member of Congress, I would probably belong to a political party. And if I were running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, it would be absurd for me to distance myself from the party, or not have an idea of how I intended to either accommodate myself to the party or to formally bring the party to my platform.
I do not think that your analysis is either accurate or even reasonable.
This is 2016, not 1936. FDR accommodated segregationists and allowed Japanese Americans to be put into camps. FDR allowed Social Security to exclude African Americans. Which of these FDR principles do you wish to see carried forward?
Whatever Sanders and his supporters believe has to be articulated and framed for today and not depend on political grave robbing of the past and past assumptions.
different-church-lady
@Wrb: I don’t. I’m only trying to make the point that Sanders doesn’t remain sky high if he wins the nomination.
ellennelle
@dogwood:
again, you seem more concerned about the party than you do about the issues in this race, and – dare i say it – more than you do about the country.
you’re concerned about the damn party hierarchy, which means absolutely nothing to me! what kind of argument is that??
and, again, i’ll remind you that bernie is actually more of a democrat than the clintons and the DLC sham of a party.
he expressly wants to return us to the party of FDR.
the DLC divorced the democrats from that in the late 80s, before bernie even ran for national office. in fact, the democratic party had already wandered off the FDR platform even with LBJ, supporting too much war to effectively live up to its promise to provide for the commonwealth, investing so overmuch on defense as to look exactly like the GOP. it actually always looked like they were trying to out GOP the GOP on that one.
but, you may well be too young to recall any of that history. but if so, i’m sad that your youth is so bereft of vision and idealism that you’re restricting your decision-making motive to keeping this dilapidated party (see DWS) in tact.
gawd help us.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
and your crystal ball tells you this to be true?
different-church-lady
@dogwood:
You don’t get it: racism and homophobia just magically go away once we’ve eliminated economic inequity.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle: Common sense tells me it’s likely.
Wrb
@dogwood:
“Those loggers and fishermen and small business owners may very well want the billionaire bankers to go to jail, but that’s not gonna do jack shit for them economically.”
Actually it could. The moral hazard tempting too big to fail banks an executives who know they won’t go to prison, does make a new crash close to inevitable, which crash will cause wreckage in the lives of such people. So when they when to change the incentives, they are fighting for changes that will mean jack shit , and more, in their lives.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
I actually am aware of all the ugliness that was inherent in the party of FDR. You are the one who seems to care very little about the country if you think returning to that party would be good for Americans.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
Jesus, I’m 62 and spent my professional life teaching political science. You are completely disingenuous . I said nothing about party above country , DWS, or anything else yo so recklessly attributed to me. And it’s pretty obvious you know very little about the party of FDR.
Wrb
@different-church-lady:
“You don’t get it: racism and homophobia just magically go away once we’ve eliminated economic inequity”
Neither will the heartbreak of psoriasis. That is no argument for not trying to eliminate economic inequality
dogwood
@Wrb:
You are probably right about avoiding another crash. But as someone who has lived my entire life where people depend on extraction industries, I am skeptical and cynical about populist appeals to workers who are never gong to see the glory days again. There really isn’t much future in those enterprises.
Brachiator
Well, this is interesting, and quite positive.
Wrb
@dogwood: There is a decent future for builders and contractors which is how many such people are now working. They have a vital interest in preventing economic crashes.
different-church-lady
@Wrb:
Nor did I make such.
ellennelle
@Brachiator:
wow. your responses are … how to put this delicately? … missing every point?
if you are not a registered democrat, where do you get off worrying about bernie’s not being one?
and he has not distanced himself from the party, but embraced it, caucusing with them from the get-go, and even serving on and chairing committees (e.g., veterans’ affairs). granted, running for president as a dem was a calculated decision on a couple of dimensions, but he could have pulled a nader, and chose not to, as that would have severely damaged the democratic party. i actually consider that honorable. but, fail to see why this would be your criterion for not supporting him. most especially as you are yourself a proud independent.
good on ya for that. but, so you’ll know, i’ve been a registered democrat since 1970. my devotion to the party is not so deep that i take on a “my party, right or wrong” approach. it’s been crippled for decades (i give you chicago, 1968), destructively so since the 90s, imho, and i hope for it to recover its principles.
as for your frankly absurd questions about FDR, do you really believe they merit response? you and i both know any and all presidents must and will make compromises to make the slightest progress, and will do regrettable things in time of war. not excusing them, but we would have no social security system at all had FDR refused to bend to the segregationists.
and you’re absolutely right, it is in fact 2016 and not 1936. amazing how far we’ve come and yet, much of the rhetoric from the GOP is altogether petrifying for its familiarity from that same era.
also familiar rhetoric from the 50s here. seriously, if you’re unaware of FDR’s socialist vision for this country, i strongly suggest you do some reading up on that, and on the history of socialism and unions in the US. the fact that we had a red scare backlash in the 50s in this country had more to do with our own wealthy citizenry wishing to destroy all that the unions and FDR had already done, and eliminate the new deal completely, than it had to do with the USSR. in fact, the case has been made the red scare wrt the USSR had more to do with keeping the socialists and unions down stateside than believing in any real threat from them. there was an unequivocal intention to keep us constantly under threat of war in order to keep the war machine running. see ike, c. 1956.
that intention was strongly fostered by the likes of prescott bush (yes, W’s granddaddy) and fred koch (yes, charles and david’s daddy, and a founder of the john birch society), who both – by the by – had business dealings with the nazis, the latter even building a refinery for stalin. there has been a concerted effort since FDR’s death to undo everything he accomplished, so i can only recommend you avail yourself of these facts rather than present in 2016 the – admittedly – unpleasant details from decisions in the 1930s, decisions i’m trying hard to assume you do not ultimately begrudge?
yet, you toss them out here to make a point. does this really further the debate?
FlipYrWhig
Oh my GOD can the Bernie people stop patting themselves on the back for 5 minutes
tom
> I’m sure there are a few Sanders supporters who will go Nader on us, but the specter of President Trump, Cruz or Rubio will get any non-crazy Democrat to the polls come hell or high water.
The issue I have with that statement is a lot of the Sanders supporters are very young and very new to politics and they have no particular loyalty to the Democrats or political parties at all. I think they’re guided more by personality than policy which makes them practically a no show for a Hillary candidacy as they’ve been fed, knowingly or unknowingly, the right-wing’s framing of her since their birth.
dogwood
@Wrb:
I definitely think there is a decent future. What irks me is populist politicians who tell miners and loggers they will protect their existing jobs. I’ve lived among too many people who won’t face the reality that those jobs are not going to support communities they way they did in the past.
ellennelle
@dogwood:
did you mean to accuse me of being disingenuous? wrong, i can accept. but do you think i’m misrepresenting my position?
the party of FDR was hardly pure as the driven snow (perhaps bad timing for that image), and perhaps he was motivated by simply righting the economy when he pushed thru all those socialist programs. but it is very hard to see how his economic bill of rights represented anything but his principles.
and yes, i do believe those principles would be highly preferable to what the democratic party has become under the DLC shift.
you’re right, you never said anything about the party hierarchy or DWS specifically, but they are heavily implied in your clear reference to the fact that the president will head the party. given how heavy these implications, i would hardly call my comments reckless. again, wrong maybe. but hardly reckless. i’m not at all sure how else your comment might have been understood.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
No.
SATSQ.
ellennelle
@dogwood:
i hear ya on this, i do.
but the larger fact of the matter is, NO ONE is going to be able to see “glory days” again.
that is, if we are to preserve our capacity to survive on this planet. this will require not only extremely reduced extraction enterprises and jobs, but every single one of us going way beyond simplification.
and giving up glory days includes bankers. in fact, bankers first.
;-)
Cacti
@ellennelle:
The New Deal coalition died when blacks didn’t have to sit at the back of the bus anymore.
Why does this fact continue to sail right over the head of Bernie and his faithful?
There was, is, and continues to be a sizeable portion of the white vote that will vote racism before their pocketbook, and they consider it in their interest to do so.
FDR knew this, and wouldn’t even go so far as to support anti-lynching legislation as part of the Dem party platform, for fear that it would alienate the Dixiecrats.
But where FDR’s racial calculations were craven, I think Bernie is just a Vermont naïf.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
i called you disingenuous because I don’t think you are stupid. To read my comments and attribute to me attitudes and principles that were not articulated indicates you are arguing in bad faith, or you simply lack reading skills.
ellennelle
@tom:
while i agree that the youth have been fed the GOP version of HRC their whole lives, i have to say your characterization of our youth is beyond insulting.
i mean, it was the youth of this country who got obama in office. never forget that.
and it was the youth of this country that forced us out of nam, and forced the civil rights act, and the EPA, and the right to marry, and kept the internet open….. need i go on?
i’m hardly a youth, tom, and tho i’ve defended HRC against misogynists for decades. but i have to be honest in saying too many of her decisions to sideline principle for political expediency have really really bothered me, ever since 2000. doing so in order to achieve a tangible legislative victory thru compromise, that i can accept. but in order to carefully position oneSELF more comfortably for future SELF success in gaining an office? that sticks in my craw.
have to say it again. despite my respect and admiration for her – we could do worse – i choose instead the person whose principles have been consistent, and whose career and record i’ve followed also for decades. he is, as a person, principled, honest, a straight-shooter, and dedicated. plus, the only candidate with a positive favorability rating.
if those personality traits make this about a personality cult, i fail to see how the alternative necessarily offers any advantage. and what might that alternative be based on instead?
ellennelle
@dogwood:
well, i do appreciate your not believing i’m stupid. but what is disingenuous?
you plainly wrote that the president is the head of the party; this seemed to bother you when considering sanders’ presidency.
how in the world does that not suggest the party hierarchy? and how does that not suggest that this concern outweighs your concern for the principles in the matter?
i am sorry if you intended otherwise in what you wrote, but it was hard to avoid reading into it what i did.
how wrong am i then?
Brachiator
@ellennelle:
I answered this question in my original response.
The internment of Japanese Americans, and the capitulation to racists were not compromises. They were shameful, despicable actions. Your response here is very telling in ways you may not have anticipated.
It is not acceptable that people of color, or women, would be made to suffer in the name of the greater good. It would be like someone saying, “yes, we must take away the right of Muslims in order to protect all Americans against terrorism.” Oh, wait, someone IS saying this.
Why should anyone be rigidly wedded to FDR;s vision for this country?
You confuse facts with interpretation. I have a good knowledge of history and political science. This does not mean that I must reach the same conclusions that you do. And even if I did, it does not mean that I must see Sanders as the best person to lead the country or to protect the good parts of FDR’s legacy.
Applejinx
@ellennelle: Most definitely bankers first. Some of you seem to have NO IDEA how out of balance things have become. The number of rich fuckers who equal the bottom half of all humanity wealth-wise is halving every YEAR, looks like. It’s already past the point where they can even pretend to invest money in anything having to do with the real world, as the Bank of Scotland has been warning.
The only alternative to a series of unprecedented crashes (since everything’s impossibly leveraged) is for government to latch on to the jugular of big finance and freaking DRAIN it. You have no idea, no idea how much money is there to be had. Even small transaction taxes could harsh the overleveraging buzz and drag massive amounts of revenue into the government to be spent on infrastructure projects, even make-work infrastructure projects, even something like basic income never mind single payer.
There is SO MUCH MONEY in the world. It’s just locked up in paper investments and owned by increasingly few people, who live incomprehensible lives and often aren’t even happy with them.
Read about the investment bankers working 100-hour weeks and destroying themselves competing with each other because there can only be one winner and they need to cash in… these aren’t happy people. They’re no happier than I am, and I’m desperately poor. They don’t even work less than me, and I struggle to get myself to take even one day off because I own my own business and small business ain’t exactly a fertile ground at the moment because nobody’s liquid. Can’t sell stuff to consumers when they’re all broke and desperate too.
I simply don’t trust Hillary Clinton to be on the right side of this equation. People who act like everything just needs finetuning are out of their damn minds.
And I’m glad there are many, many people dealing with all the stuff Bernie doesn’t specialize in (though he’s pretty good on climate change: ought to be, that’s a possible place to spend money on infrastructure) because that’s absolutely needed. People talk ‘cult of personality’ but get mad because Bernie isn’t lying about being Issues Jesus come to represent everybody all the time for everything. At least he learns.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
A President assumes many roles. Head of State, Head of Government, Commander in Chief and Head of the Party. Since Bernie is not a Democrat it’s less likely he will be an effective Head of the Party. By saying that I’m in no way indicating that I support the DLC or DWS or anything else about the party. And it certainly doesn’t mean I put Party before country. Those are your assumptions. You assumed that I was an ignorant youth, and I don’t think my comment suggests that either. I also have concerns about Bernie as Head of State because he speaks very little about that arena of presidential power. You are free to disagree with me, but I’m not going to let you put words in my mouth and then proceed to insult me.
ellennelle
@Cacti:
wow. this is just …so sad. so cynical, and so sad.
there is no question racism is rampant, and has been exploited and inflamed by the GOP just because they could. it serves their destructive purposes in the same way abortion and gays have all these years; they don’t care about those oppressed, nor about those they stir up. all they care about is winning, stirring up the base.
but i am not sure it serves anyone to claim FDR was “craven” to avoid fights with dixiecrats back then. i don’t know how old you are, but there were so damn many things that were assumed and part of the fabric, especially of southern life (e.g., fountains, the bus, hell – the side of the street!) that today we cannot even begin to get our heads around.
back then, the dixiecrats were damn scared, in ways similar to what we’re seeing in the trump/cruz supporters. you see now how that furor is not just damaging, but truly dangerous. FDR had to keep these heated sentiments as much under some control as possible in order to try and rectify the economy and face potential war. i don’t believe he acted simply to avoid alienating them, as you suggest; he was openly threatened by them.
i am in no way excusing the ultimate outcomes of those decisions, and i daresay he would feel the same way. it’s a hateful truth about politics that the hateful get their representatives, as well, and they must be contended with. else nothing ever gets done. we’ve seen this in bold relief in obama’s administration.
you’re absolutely right that so many vote racism without considering their own economic concerns, though this is precisely what the GOP exploit in inflaming their base. “they’ll take your jobs!” “they get free stuff and you have to work!” etcetcetc ad nauseam.
but this is all part of the whole myth of race being made a specter in order to benefit the entire economic hierarchy that supports slaves, and all the exploitation of workers that we dare not call slavery outright.
please do not misunderstand me; i am NOT saying racISM is a myth, but that racial distinctions are. (see that old study about the impact of “blue eyes” being subbed for “race”) and more importantly, that those distinctions have been forever imposed and inflamed in order for there to be poverty and lower classes who can be exploited for cheap labor, or slavery by any other name.
not to put too fine a point on it, this is so deeply embedded in the history of humanity, in civilization, as to be inextricable from it.
i believe, given sanders’ long history of supporting civil rights quite actively and legislatively, that he is hardly a naif. or, at least, he is possibly the least likely to be naive about racial matters of just about any white person in the public eye right now.
i believe this as strongly as i believe it is naive to call FDR “craven” for the several far-from-perfect decisions he had to make. if you are unconvinced, please read his economic bill of rights. moreover, please see his to get a better idea of how he tried to improve the segregation situation. surely you can see what resorting to an executive order implies; he was unable to get congress to go along with him.
he was not a saint, and neither is bernie. each of us must make compromises that grate on our better angels, but we do have to minimize them. this is precisely why i choose sanders over hillary, whom i have observed making too many compromises of her principles in order to better position herself for a run for the presidency. i do not admire this in her.
also allow me to say, i understand the cynicism and the bitterness. racism should not exist at all, let alone be as rampant as it is. it is just beyond wrong, but not as wrong as it is to inflame and incite it in others for financial and political gain.
ruemara
@Just Some Fuckhead: “smeared”? “Hard working people – white people” – HRC. Sorry, she did her own version of Southern Strategy. Bernie is doing the “Black People don’t know me/Economic Lives Matter Most/I need to appeal to white people” dance. This isn’t a smear, this the reactions both of them have inspired and are inspiring. She’s learned her lesson, Bernie is still denying he’s got some things to learn.
ellennelle
@ellennelle:
oh dear! was in the midst of linking, and BJ froze! and froze too long for me to correct it.
apologies all. the link works, but i fear i may have gummed up the system.
i’d fix it if i knew how.
so sorry.
:-(
different-church-lady
@ellennelle: No great harm.
ellennelle
@dogwood:
agreed. apologies. offense totally unintended.
it actually appears my response may well have conflated your comment with another similar one.
too much time on my hands today. had my fill of blizzards.
dogwood
@ellennelle:
Thanks.
ellennelle
@dogwood:
ultimately it might. in that, the specter of jamie diamond and/or his ilk being frog-marched into a jail cell will have a chilling effect on those criminal practices that so brutally savaged the miners and construction workers and teachers and, well, the rest of us.
as it should. and about damn time. once that starts happening, a trend will pick up, and the pendulum swings back. at least, that is what has happened in the past, and hopefully will soon.
plus, there is something in us that loves justice. your miners and the rest of us benefit from that comfort.
ellennelle
@Applejinx:
i just commented to dogwood that there is something in all of us that loves justice. you express that beautifully here.
self-employed too, and just getting by. still paying off my student loan, and am at retirement age!! what is wrong with this picture???
you put the financial situation quite well. we’re in for a rough road. i just have deep fears that hillary is way too indebted to big money to do squat about it, which will only make things worse.
and if the whole thing collapses this year, which is the big prediction, i daresay she’ll do even less than obama did to correct it, as her debts to wall street go back further than his.
ellennelle
@Brachiator:
wow. not sure how to respond here. i fear your imposition of our current moral perspectives on historical events would essentially trash the birth of the US. jefferson’s slaves were despicable, not to mention his treatment of sally hemming. i guess i’m disinclined to utterly trash him with my morals, without benefit of more than two centuries though he may have been.
i too find the japanese internment and compromises with dixiecrats horrifying, from where i sit. but, i am not sitting in the oval office at that time with the realities of that time weighing on me (it is simply documented that FDR was pressured by both sec. stimson and the dixiecrats, respectively). it is just as easy for us to demand the eskimos, for example, stop placing their deformed babies out in the cold to die.
i know i am lurching into moral relativism here, but then which of us is being rigid?
a line from cider house rules comes to mind, when the kid realizes that the stupid rules posted on the migrant house wall for the orchard workers was written by folks who did not actually live in that house.
the question then is what you would offer in place of FDR’s best and his economic bill of rights? and assuming that vision is acceptable, who better than sanders to shepherd it? and why?
DCF
2016 gives refreshed – and renewed – meaning to the cautionary phrase ‘May you live in interesting times’….
Allow me to preface my observations by stating – unequivocally – that HRC on her worst day is an infinitely superior candidate versus any one of the Republican Klown Kar cavalcade masquerading as presidential contenders.
This is a laudatory statement only if you regard ‘damning with faint praise’ or ‘setting a low bar’ as praiseworthy.
I ask that you read the following hyperlinked articles and consider – again – whether 1) HRC is indeed a ‘sure thing’ relative to Senator Sanders and 2) whether Clintonite McCarthyism is acceptable in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Sanders smeared as communist sympathiser as Clinton allies sling mud
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/22/bernie-sanders-gets-group-endorsements-when-members-decide-hillary-clinton-when-leaders-decide/
Bernie Sanders Gets Group Endorsements When Members Decide; Hillary Clinton When Leaders Decide
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/22/bernie-sanders-gets-group-endorsements-when-members-decide-hillary-clinton-when-leaders-decide/
Bile, Bullshit, and Bernie: 17 Notes on a Dismal Campaign
http://crookedtimber.org/2016/01/22/bile-bullshit-and-bernie-16-notes-on-a-dismal-campaign/#more-37467
DCF
The first hyperlink should be a Guardian article, rather than the same item as number two (2)…editing comments still a challenge, unfortunately….
Sanders smeared as communist sympathizer as Clinton allies sling mud
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/22/bernie-sanders-communist-sympathiser-hillary-clinton-us-election-2016
DCF
An encore:
Thanks for the indulgence….
Gvg
The problem with Bernie not being a dem and not joining the party decades ago is that ignores that you can’t get any laws passed unless many people elected by other people in both houses agree with you and the president does too. Which means you must have allies and a good ally helps out. Bernie should have been a dem decades ago and been recruiting others, plus getting other like minded people elected. He didn’t. Now he wants to go for a gold ring presidency that somehow is going to help without mentioning vote for many other dems? In fact his appeal is as an outsider with no ties! That is not going to work and our good system doesn’t want it to work. Only stuff with lots of support is supposed to become law, no single monarch gets to save us.
I have often had to consider a presidential vote as the one I can trust to veto harmful stuff. Usually stuff that hurts women. It’s nice when they can get stuff but that’s the rarity. Obama and Clinton vetoed stuff I was afraid of. Sanders I think will get fewer democrats elected than Hillary. Laws need lots of Congress votes plus the President.
different-church-lady
@DCF: Anyone who links to Greenwald and also accuses others of bullshit ought to have their internettin’ privileges suspended until they’ve had a good long think.
different-church-lady
@Gvg: Bernie’s got allies in the Dem party. But now it seems he’s intent on burning through them at a rapid clip.
DCF
@different-church-lady:
That’s called a sttrrreeeetttttcccccchhhhhhh…and a condescending, authoritarian one at that….
Breathe….
VFX Lurker
@Bob:
I appreciate your need to vote for someone you truly believe in, but I am less able to afford Republicans in office than you. I’m voting for the Democrat this November, whether it’s Hillary, Bernie or Martin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and what effect would Jamie Dimon (who has been arrested and charged with… what?) being acquitted have?
What kind of law do you practice, and where? Do they have defense attorneys there? what’s the jury pool like?
J R in WV
@geg6:
I’ve been a Hillary supporter since Obama took his second oath of office. But I’m sneaking up on being a Bernie supporter, like many of my friends.
Today a friend who lives in North Carolina called to see how we were doing in the Snowmaggedon; we’re fine and enjoying the quiet.
He told me that Western Illinois U had been holding mock presidential campaigns for years, first the primaries and then the general election, and that they had a 100% accuracy level since 1975 (earlier at other schools).
This year’s mock election was last November, and Bernie Sanders beat ?Jeb? Bush. 400 electorial votes to 100 odd.
Here’s the press release: WIU Press Release !
And here’s a Chicago news story about it: NBC in Chicago !
Pretty strange. I was invited to a neighborhood Bernie “Feel the Bern” party tonight, but the snow is 18 inches deep. So I got no where to go tonight.
the Conster
Bernie would be a great Secretary of the Treasury in a Clinton administration, much like Barack tapped Hillary for State to get her in the tent pissing out. Because I’ve resigned myself to the fact that Hillary is the best of the lot – it’s a suboptimal lot – and the Democrats just can’t squander this opportunity that Republicans in disarray affords right now. UGH. Definitely not feeling the Bern.
mclaren
I’m a Sanders supporters and I’m gonna vote for Hillary in the general if she’s the nominee. I’ll vote for a dead dog in the middle of the highway with double yellow lines painted over its pelt if it’s the nominee. Anything but a Republican.
I’m not sure there are a few Sanders supporters who will go Nader on us this time. The year 2000 gave us a look at the full-on balls-out hammer-down mad-monkey terrordome crazy that gets into office when Democrats go Nader, and, nosiree bob, not happenin’ in 2016.
the Conster
@VFX Lurker:
Me too.
The Bernie brogressives go up my ass sideways. They’re identical to Rand Paul’s supporters in their blinkered perspective.
mclaren
@ellennelle:
Oh, c’mon, you’re not playing fair. You’re using facts. That’s not what the Hillaristas want to hear. Stop harshing their mellow and tell ’em that women everywhere in the world are waiting to rejoice when Hills starts another endless unwinnable foreign war and burns brown babies with napalm.
J R in WV
@msdc:
You say “persuade the 50% of Americans who say they won’t vote for a socialist. ” but what it the other choice is a fascist – like Trump? If the choice is a Nazi or a progressive democrat called a socialist, what then?
I know what I’ll do. Can Sanders win if he takes 5 or 10 percent of those people who won’t vote for a socialist, because they would rather than than voting for a Nazi? I suspect so. I hope so.
And then if the R is ?Jeb? – any Democratic nominee should be able to win that race, against a non-entity.
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The kind of law written down in American law books.
18 U.S. Code § 1343, interstate federal wire fraud statue.
DOCUMENTED FACT: MERS is an interstate electronic information transfer system.
DOCUMENTED FACT: All the major banks used MERS to transmit fraudulent information about the titles of subprime mortgages in the process of robosigning those mortgages while committing criminal fraud.
DOCUMENTED FACT: Goldmach Sachs, along with all the major banks, have pleaded nolo or guilty to committing felony fraud as a result of either the robosigning itself, or, in Goldman’s case, deliberately concealing the frauluent nature of the transactions while betting against them with shorts. This makes Goldman Sachs an admitted accessory before the fact and after the fact to 18 USC 1343, as well as guilty of conspiracy to commit interstate wire fraud same statute, and collusion, as well the classic “head shot” well-known by every U.S. Attorney who practices law, conspiracy to fraudulently fill out a federal loan document. It’s called “the head shot” because that one gets you 30 years in prison. The “head shot” is 18 US Code § 1014. There’s also a charge of 18 US Code § 1341, fraud in general.
Notice that we’ve got three (3) different federal felony statutes here, 18 USC 1343, 18 USC 1341, and 18 USC 1014. That last one carries 30 years.
DOCUMENTED FACT: Goldman Sachs just plead nolo to SEC charges of deliberately misleading investors about subprime mortgages (AKA felony interstate wire fraud because it involved MERS, 18 USC 1343, then conspiracy to commit 18 USC 1343 and aiding & abetting 18 USC 1014, then, the general charge of 18 USC 1341, fraud in general.
Source: http://www.sec.gov press release.
Hey, there, mister expert lawyer! In view of these facts, let’s see how a putative trial of Jamie Dimon would go:
PROSECUTOR: “Move to introduce exhibit A, your honor, the 550 million dollar SEC settlement for misleading investors during the subrpime mortgage crisis in 2008.”
JUDGE: “So ordered.”
GOLDMAN SACHS’ DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Your honor, objection and move to bar that evidence on the basis of double jeopardy. My defendant, Jamie Dimon, can’t be tried for the same crime twice.”
JUDGE: “Objection overruled. Learn the law, counselor. The SEC settlement was a civil action, this is a criminal action.”
PROSECUTOR: “Your honor, please note the section highlighted by the paper clips in the aforementioned Exhibit A in which Goldman Sachs admits to deliberately misleading investors.”
JUDGE: “Yes, I see it.”
PROSECUTOR: “Move for a directed verdict, your honor, on the grounds that the defendant has already admitted to the charges. Exhibits B through Z23 contain the detailed evidence of robosigning and subprime mortgage fraud in which Goldman Sachs admittedly colluded and to which Goldman has admitted to being an accessory and to conspiring to commit along with the major banks.”
GOLDMAN SACHS’ DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Objection, your honor!”
JUDGE: “On what ground?
GOLDMAN SACHS’ DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Uh, uh, I, uh–”
JUDGE: “Was the defendant Jamie Dimon CEO at the time of the alleged fraud?”
GOLDMAN SACHS’ DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Uh, yes your honor, but-”
JUDGE: “Does the defendant Jamie Dimon intend to dispute the signed and sworn settlement into which Goldman Sachs entered with the SEC?”
GOLDMAN SACHS’ DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Uh, no your honor, but-”
JUDGE: “Then sit down, counselor. The motion for a directed verdict is granted. The court hereby finds the defendant Jamie Dimon guilty of conspiracy to commit 18 USC 1343 interstate wire fraud, guilty of conspiracy to commit 18 USC 1341 fraud, guilty of conspiracy to commit 18 USC 1014 fraudulent loan application. Bailiff, place handcuffs on Mr. Dimon and remove him for processing.”
And that’s the fucking law, shit-for-brains.
That’s how you do it.
It’s a slam-dunk open-and-shut case. The evidence is unmistakable, the admissions of guilt irrefutable as part of Goldman Sachs’ civil settlement with the SEC.
The only goddamn reason Jamie Dimon isn’t in pound-me-in-the-ass prison today is because Obama and his buddies in the Democratic party were bribed not to send him there, as he deserves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I didn’t claim to be a lawyer, you manic, virtually driveling cut’n’paste psycho. If any of them care to explain the technicalities of this law, the pleas and the fines paid.
In the meantime could you explain to me and my shit-for-brains:
1) what Jamie Dimon has to do with Goldman-Sachs?
2) how a corporate entity gets frog-marched into a jail cell?
ellennelle
@Gvg:
i dunno; bernie got more amendments approves in this gawdawful congress than any ‘pure’ democrat.
and he is allied with the dems; he caucuses with them, and is on several committees and has chaired some, e.g. veteran’s affairs.
plus, everyone likes him. even republicans. and his approval rating is most consistently positive, more than any other candidate.
none of these points are reasons to choose him, but just serve to deflate their ruling him out.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
wow. really? so pulitzer’s mean nothing to you?
(i agree, he is a scold. but, he is – infuriatingly – never wrong, it seems.)
credential enough for moi.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
evidence for this?
different-church-lady
@ellennelle: Kissenger’s got a peace prize. Shrug.
ellennelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
whoa. was not addressing the facts in these particular cases, but the impact that having justice served would have on the public, and likely even the future of the economy.
i’ll give you that the laws as the bankers’ lawyers have crafted them have not been broken. but are you really willing to defend what they have done? and what they continue to do? with impunity?
ellennelle
@mclaren:
;-)
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
See what that deviously clever Goldman Sach’s defense attorney did there?
ellennelle
@mclaren: @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
foolish literalist, indeed.
yes, dimon is at jp morgan, blankfein at goldman suchs.
that is not even a trivial technicality, it’s just picking nits. on your part.
as for the frog-marching, IANAL, but i assume if a criminal charge against mr. blankfein were to go to court, it would be against him as the individual person and entity who actually committed the crime of directing his company agents to specifically carry out these illegal deeds. allegedly.
you know, sort of like charlie manson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh.
I assumed your infantile histrionics had at least some degree of sincerity.
My bad.
that’s incredibly dishonest, even making allowances for your self-righteous, buffoonish emoting (hence: eom-prog!). I’ll go back to not even pretending to take you seriously.
Could you at least be more concise in using the threads as your Feelings Journal?
ellennelle
@mclaren:
aside from mixing dimon/blankfein and morgan/goldman – wholly interchangeable scum, the lot o’ them – your detailed explanation was brilliant.
i thank you.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
so, pray, what is your objection to greenwald.
just curious.
different-church-lady
@ellennelle: Congenital alarmist, serial exaggerator, professional political troll, cry baby, for starters. Only avoids the “outright liar” tag by the most intricate of linguistic technicalities.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ellennelle: @ellennelle: Eh, close enough. Probably guilty. Lock’em up!
I kind of hope you’re a spoof of an emo-prog.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@different-church-lady: Not only that, Greenwald has a history of pretending to be with the angels while he actively tried to depress Democratic turnout. As driftglass has documented.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Felanius Kootea
Ah whatever – I’m voting Bernie in the primaries and Hillary in the general because I find it incredibly unlikely that he will win outside IA and the Northeast. Bernie’s policies appeal to me, no question, but so does Hillary’s pragmatism, given the current state of the Republican party. As Lawrence Lessig tried to point out, only a repeal of Citizen’s United/a constitutional amendment/concrete steps to get the money out of politics will get progressives to where they want to go. Neither Hillary nor Bernie is proposing anything that addresses that issue. They will both have to deal with a house that’s majority Republican in which few laws that appeal to progressives can squeak through. They will have to deal with a citizenry that has a substantial percentage of armed people willing to vote for Donald Trump. I have donated money to both Bernie’s and Hillary’s campaigns. Sue me.
ellennelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
oh fer chrissake, are you incapable of being civil?
this has been hours of blizzard boredom for me, and frustration.
i have not made peep one here for years. now i remember why i stopped.
sheez, folks; are you always as bored and frustrated as i have been this evening?
you seem to have become quite practiced in childish name-calling.
no use for that.
ellennelle
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
wow, thx for this link.
i know this is not the reaction you wanted, but i did not interpret his comments as “actively trying to depress democratic turnout.” i actually think he makes a good point. sort of like the battered wife syndrome.
it’s a dilemma, tho; don’t want to abandon the party (that feels like its abandoned me, etc.), but sure don’t feel like rewarding it, but then that shoots us in the foot.
guess we have to get more vocal and active i guess.
greenwald has long had the nails on the chalkboard effect on me, but his work is often good. i’m pretty grateful for the snowden stuff, at least.
ellennelle
@different-church-lady:
thx for these opinions, but do you have any specifics?
mind you, would not be surprised; the alarmist and exaggerator, i get that.
as i said, he is quite the scold.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@ellennelle: I used to read Greenwald regularly during the W administration. I understand his appeal.
But he got on my last nerve years ago. Driftglass has many, many examples of why he shouldn’t be trusted. Snowden probably shouldn’t have trusted him either – but that’s another topic.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
ellennelle
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
same here; found him quite valuable for a good while, and now also visit intercept from time to time.
he is such a scold, which got worse to insufferable. always seemed a bit narcissistic over-compensating for insecurities. too nerdy for nerds kind o’ guy.
will have to look into the driftglass stuff.
oh wow; i just realized he’s a little ted cruz-y.
ooh, beyond sad.
thx so much.
Marcia
@Davis X. Machina: You must be channeling Bob Dole prehumously. His 1996 campaign refined the art of trying to win over voters by insulting them to perfection.
Marcia
@FlipYrWhig: That would be truly revolutionary.
In 1972.
DCF
Plutocracy – and a Second Gilded Age – are not viable alternatives for a nation founded upon democratic ideals:
Bernie Sanders for President
With integrity and principle, the Vermont senator is calling Americans to a political revolution.
http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-for-president/
ellennelle
@mistermix:
more than exceptionally glad to hear that.
great post. thx.
VFX Lurker
@J R in WV:
What if those voters who won’t vote for a socialist OR a Nazi just stay home?
Republican voters dutifully crawl over broken glass to vote against the Democrat. Every. Single. Time. The rest of America has trouble registering to vote, much less showing up to vote. I’ve even run into Americans who express pride in NOT voting, because they can’t possibly be blamed for the state of our government.
No, the Americans who won’t vote for a socialist will make good on their promise. They will stay home.