Some cranky old coot wrote an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times today. He opened his piece by citing appalling statistics on wealth inequality. Current Democratic President Barack Obama has sounded similar themes throughout his two terms in office, including a speech in 2013 in which he called income inequality “the defining challenge of our time:”
President Obama on Wednesday pointed to a combination of growing income inequality and a lack of upward mobility as “the defining challenge of our time,” arguing the government should take further steps to reverse a decades-long trend that has widened the gap between the nation’s richest citizens and everyone else.
“The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed,” Mr. Obama said. He repeated later in his speech that “the combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe.”
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has made wealth inequality a central focus of her campaign as well, including in this speech in 2015 that echoes President Obama’s themes:
Mrs. Clinton said “the defining economic challenge of our time” is raising incomes for the vast majority of Americans whose wages have remained virtually stagnant for 15 years as the costs of housing, college, child care and health care have soared.
“We must raise incomes for hardworking Americans so they can afford a middleclass life,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech at the liberal New School in Greenwich Village in New York. “That will be my mission from the first day I’m president to the last.”
In his NYT op-ed today, the cranky old coot also cited lack of access to healthcare as a core problem, noting that 28 million people don’t have coverage. You know how many Americans were uninsured in 2008? More than 49 million.
The cranky old coot’s op-ed is entitled “Democrats Need to Wake Up,” and it concludes with this paragraph:
In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind. We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.
Not once does the cranky old coot mention the name of the popular two-term Democratic president who orchestrated the largest top-down transfer of wealth in the history of the United States via the ACA: President Barack Obama.
Not once does the cranky old coot mention the name of the only human being on the planet who has a shot at continuing the push for more progressive policies as the Democratic nominee to follow President Obama: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Not once does the cranky old coot mention the Republicans in Congress, who vowed from President Obama’s first day in office to make him a one-term president and have opposed and obstructed every attempt the president and Democrats in Congress have made to improve the lives of the poor and middle class — carrying on a decades-long tradition that was in full force in the 1990s, when they killed Hillary Clinton’s universal healthcare proposal and tried to hound her husband out of office over a blow job.
The cranky old coot did briefly allude to Donald Trump’s bigotry and demagoguery. But the true villain of the piece — the entity that is asleep at the switch, according to the cranky old coot — is the Democratic Party.
Fuck that cranky old coot. The end.
Trentrunner
After the Clinton-Warren appearance this week…Bernie who?
bystander
Sanders needs to fade back into the woodwork.
Aqualad08
Democrats may have to wake up, but a certain socialist really has to go back to bed already…
hovercraft
This cranky old coot needs to shut the fuck up. We don’t care what he has to say anymore, we were given a choice and we chose Hillary. We have been members of the democratic party for years and we democrats will change it as we see fit. The MSM may want to keep up the illusion that the coot is still relevant, but most of us have moved on. Stop trying to bait the media into paying attention to you, we aren’t listening to you.
Hunter Gathers
Somebody needs to shove that op-ed up his hairy inbox and pin it to his fucking prostate. Fucking wanker.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
I just want to point out that I’ve been criticizing the cranky old coot from Day 1, and recognized him for what he is.
#fuckthebern2018 #alltalknospecifics #lazyasfuck #barelycompetentasalegislator #therearehoasbiggerthanburlington #inmatejanesanders #senatorhowarddean #sadgrumpyoldmaneatstapiocaaloneinmedicaidnursinghome
schrodinger's cat
I saw the op-ed yesterday and mentioned it on two threads. I have only this to say. How many times is he going to repeat the same speech? As they say, talk is cheap.
Corner Stone
Is there a stage of “less relevant” than “irrelevant” ?
Doesn’t anyone on the team of this cranky old coot see him becoming less relevant with every passing day, and every action or event that happens in the wider world. Think about just the last essentially few days – Orlando, Brexit and now Turkey. The cranky old coot is like the last pick in the NFL Draft, Mr. Irrelevant.
WarMunchkin
Could someone help me find a source for this? My Google-fu skills seem to be rusty.
JMG
Sanders is a fool, blinded by the ego rush of his campaign. Forget advancing his ideas towards policy, since he has. Even in terms of plain old self-interest he’s being an idiot. He has created a situation where if Clinton wins, Warren, either as Senator or VP will replace his short tenure as leader of the more-left wing of the Democratic party. If Clinton loses, Warren will become the party’s de facto leader, period, and Sanders will get much blame. He will be seen by most voters as a vain old crank.
BTW, that Quinnipiac poll I cited earlier had Hispanic Americans breaking only 50-33 for Clinton. Maybe so, but I’m doubtful.
Doug R
What? No mention of the $ 15 an hour committee fight, the latest busters shiny object? What’s that all about anyway?
moonbat
Hey, if Cranky Old Coot hadn’t come along, none of us would have noticed these problems! Don’t you realize that?
Also, how many people think he is going to become the new John McCain? Darling of all the Sunday morning shows where he comes on and tells us how Hillary is making progress but she’s doing it WRONG!
schrodinger's cat
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: You and me both. Anyone who was familiar with his Congressional record would have known that he is mostly talk and not quite as progressive as he would like to have us believe.
JBF
Bernie’s article was aimed at people like those on the Party Platform Committee who voted for the TPP. It did not call out Clinton by name.
Iowa Old Lady
What in god’s name does he think he’s accomplishing?
Or was he never about figuring out how to accomplish his (and most Democrats’) goals?
Cermet
Ok, a bridge too far; Sanders has lost his sense if he thinks this is the way to get issues addressed. He is becoming the problem and not advancing the solution.
kindness
@JMG: Sanders was never a leader of the Democratic left in the Senate. Sanders went Sanders’ way. Ask the Democratic Senators that tried to work with him.
hovercraft
Yes democrats need to listen to the coot because if they don’t she will be crushed, am I right ?
From the GOS
Shell
Sanders seems to share Trumps campaign view of America- Its been all bad, all the time. And only he can bring America back to “great” again.
schrodinger's cat
Cranky Old Coot is too cute a name for the Cantankerous Bed Head with sanctimony oozing from his every pore.
Ruckus
Can not be said enough.
Also Fuck Fucking Cancer.
That is all.
JMG
@kindness: I believe that. I’m sorry I didn’t express myself well. Sanders has been leader of the left in the party in the perception of the public since he became a candidate. That’s why he got so many votes. Left-leaning Democrats are as blissfully unaware of the inside baseball of the Congress as all of their fellow Americans.
hovercraft
Can someone free me from moderation please. Thank you.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Truly you have been in the vanguard of the CounterrevoBern movement! All hail the tireless workers of the 7th AntiBernAgitprop Assembly!
The ABAA, as it is known.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: Counterrelevant?
tobie
I was stung by a yellow jack this weekend and am still feeling the consequences so this experience has perhaps colored my sense that Sanders is the irritant that won’t go away until it finally does. My only question is how much damage he does at the convention. His most loyal followers–and I know a few–are like members of a messianic cult and they’ll stick with their leader/guru/pope until he tells them not to.
Major Major Major Major
@Doug R: Well, they won that particular fight. You expected them to be gracious? Excelsior!
I liked the nytimes comment somebody quoted below. Somebody needs to write a piece with the same title minus the colon: Bernie Sanders Democrats Need to Wake Up.
Gin & Tonic
Countdown to Jonathan Livingston Bechamel to run back and lambaste BCrack for being mean to his hero, 3, 2, ?
Josie
Every time Sanders or his supporters mention income inequality, they should be pied in the face with this list of expenses for his trip to get a selfie with the Pope. These figures are from his campaign expense report.
Corner Stone
I’m pretty sure Amb Marc Ginsberg has made a deal with the devil. Wiki says he is 65 but he has not aged one bit in 20 years. Every time I see him I think he’s 45 still.
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY: No, still sounds too relevant. Like you’re doing something meaningful at a lunch counter protest or something for civil rights.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Look on the bright side. If he does somehow manage to condescend to endorse Hillary and hence is given a prime speaking slot at the Convention, we already know what he’s going to say. Saves on teleprompter expenses, if nothing else.
JMG
It would appear that Sanders’ strategy, or at least his plan created from subliminal urges, is to be as provocative as possible to Clinton in hopes she strikes back and he can flounce away yelling, “She started it, the big bully.” Self-righteous martyrdom is strong in that one.
Major Major Major Major
Am I the only one who noticed the super dumbed-down language in the op-ed? It’s like it was written by (not for) a high schooler. (I think ‘for a high schooler’ is about what politicians aim for right?)
Tractarian
Any time I hear anyone say that anyone else needs to “wake up”, I immediate zone out. When I hear that, I know I’m dealing with someone who lives in an echo chamber, someone who cannot possibly fathom that other people have different life experiences, prejudices, biases, and preferences. When someone says “Wake up”, that is a signal that they are not trying to persuade; they are not making an argument; they are just ranting.
That said, of course, I have no idea if our esteemed Junior Senator from Vermont had anything to do with the headline attached to his piece.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I too will also claim having seen through this guy from the beginning, but the real shock has been watching so many friends fall for his shouty finger wagging shtick, and shockingly most of all, several women my age. He has nothing to show for all of his scolding, and no friends or allies. I’ve believed all along that all this has been about is Bernie’s resentment of watching this handsome young new Senator with the dazzling smile and brilliant intellect become the first black president, and that he, like so many others, thought “if he could do it, how hard it could it be?” To me, having Cornel West as a surrogate was the tell of tells that confirmed my theory. Two mediocre men with overinflated opinions of themselves and large egos set out to do some reputational damage, hence the attempt to erase and diminish every one of Obama’s accomplishments. Fuck them both and the horse of ours they borrowed to ride in on.
Jeffro
Hmm, that’s odd…there’s a cranky old coot in the WaPo op-ed section today, a “writer and retired financial adviser” who’s threatening to vote for The Donald because even though DJT is nuts, horrendous, dumb, and volatile, the “writer and retired financial adviser” just can’t bring himself to vote for The She-Demon. Most of the things he blames The She-Demon for, naturally, have nothing to do with her – coddled college kids, for instance. But he still felt motivated enough to send in the op-ed. At the exact same time as the NYT cranky old coot did. Fancy that.
Mike in NC
Silly old bastard needs to crawl back under his rock.
The Ancient Randonneur
#ImWithHer
dmsilev
@JMG: That’s not going to happen. Worst case, the Clinton campaign just ignores Sanders himself, but goes around him and campaigns directly to his supporters. Most of whom are already supporting her; I saw one poll a few days ago that estimated that north of 90% of Sanders voters were planning to vote for Clinton in the general. If he wants to angrily mutter to himself for the next six months, he’ll be able to do that to his heart’s content.
Paul
Missing from this discussion is mention of the underinsured, the people who were technically insured but whose insurance was junk. Add those into the mix and the ACA looks even better, as that kind of insurance is, if I recall correctly, no longer legal. The figure I heard tossed around in 2012 was 84 million, when you count the underinsured (via the Commonwealth Fund website).
Major Major Major Major
@Tractarian: obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1013/
Corner Stone
@JMG:
There’s little chance that can actually be a strategy of his. She will never take the bait at this point. There was a time where she was tiring of his shtick and she popped off but those days are long, long past. The feline, it is in the vaguely amorphous shaped carryall.
djchefron
@schrodinger’s cat: What record?
Jeffro
Oddly enough there’s a cranky old coot who was published in the WaPo today, too – one who knows Trump is dumb, volatile, not a conservative, and unfit for office, but who the coot just might vote for anyway. Apparently Mr. Coot just can’t bring himself to vote for History’s Greatest (Other) Monster. Never mind that all of Mr. Coot’s complaints are about things like coddled college kids and have nothing to do with HGOM. He’s still just about ready to pull the lever for Trump.
Interesting tactic for getting onto the op-ed page. I wonder if Fired-Up Middle Aged Progressive Man has a shot at getting a rebuttal published…let’s find out…
Technocrat
@Tractarian:
So much this. If their premise is that they’re the only woke one in the room, their conclusions aren’t going to stray much. On the plus side, it saves you the time you’d otherwise waste pretending to have a dialog.
Tractarian
@hovercraft:
Hot. Damn.
Sure, they’re outliers, but it’s fun to imagine an election where Hillary beats Trump by 14 pts in FL. (Obama won by less than 1% in 2012.) That would surely mean >400 electoral votes….
Poopyman
@Paul in KY:
Dunno. Are they granite?
MazeDancer
Bernie never mentions Unions in his op-ed. Because Bernie is a self-absorbed, fame-addicted non-Democrat he does not mention how Unions created the middle class and are the true friend of the American worker.
He just honks about how the Democratic Party needs to wake-up. Ignoring, as usual 7 or 8 decades of long, hard fighting by actual Democrats in support of all aspects of economic and social justice.
Watched MSNBC this AM, also no mention of Unions. Except for Sherrod Brown proudly noting the suit he was wearing was Union Made in Brooklyn, Ohio. Unlike Trump merch, which is made in oppressive conditions overseas.
GOP decimation of Unions helps destroy middle class, but no mention of it?
scav
Short term memory is the indeed supposedly the first thing to go. Give the guy a Werthers,
Trinity
Thank you for this Betty.
smith
Jamelle Bouie had something to say about this today. Basically, that Bernie had his chance to become the actual leader of the left wing of the party if he’d endorsed Clinton a few weeks back and assumed the role, that Warren has now, of primary Clinton surrogate in the campaign. He held out, thinking he’d be able to hold his voters as leverage, but they’ve almost all migrated to Clinton without his endorsement. Basically, he waited too long, and he’s now left with nothin’.
negative 1
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=imgres&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjatt3fvc3NAhULGD4KHbmhDUsQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Finequality.org%2Fincome-inequality%2F&psig=AFQjCNHT6pwD9gilZeTbvPn7rrc1HpHFZw&ust=1467298163176232
You don’t really mention where he’s wrong, though.
djchefron
He is what he is. What he is not is a Democrat. Do not let him speak at the convention because will be about him and he will trash the Democratic party
schrodinger's cat
Even I could not have predicted that BS would have less grace, dignity and smarts than Ted Cruz.
magurakurin
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
(waving hands frantically) Me, too. Me, too. I never felt the bern for even one second. And I’ve been saying he isn’t a good guy and I even got called out by name a couple times for being to over the top with my bernhate. But…here we are.
Trinity
@MazeDancer: THIS. A thousand times this. I was raised in a Union home and married a Union man (CWA local 2108).
Tim C.
Also… what’s the power of the Times these days? It’s still the “newspaper of record” for the most part, but it’s not like in the old days where there was a pile of persuadable votes and the internet didn’t exist.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: How about Antirelevant? Give me a bone here, I’m running out of words!
Smiling Mortician
Fuck that guy. I just gave some money to Hillary. Think I’ll do that every time he pulls this shit.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@MazeDancer: See Reagan, Air Traffic Controllers. NAFTA didn’t have anything to do with that shit.
#fuckthebern2018
J. C.
Hillary Clinton is one of the biggest corporate whores that ever lived. She supported all Bill’s policies like NAFTA and the repeal of Glass Steagall that fucked millions of Americans over, she continues to take millions, MILLIONS from Wall Street, and you guys hate Bernie sanders. You people are literally so fucking retarded you will never be smart enough to know how fucking stupid you are. Anyone who prefers Hillary to Bernie is not a progressive and is absolutely fucked in the head. Not one banker went to jail and yet Hillary had the balls in her debate with Bernie to say Obama took on Wall Street, meaning she will do nothing. Refer back to the millions she takes from them.
People who support Hillary over Bernie are fucking assclowns. Assclowns.
negative 1
However you haven’t mentioned where he’s wrong. If anyone wants to find me a graph where any of the democratic presidents since the Reagan apocalypse have reversed the income inequality graph I’m all ears. If the ACA was the largest, then we’re not trying that hard because since it’s passage the trend of the 1% growing while the rest of us stagnate hasn’t been touched. If anyone wants to provide evidence, I’m all ears.
But yeah, I’m a bro or a sparkle pony or sexist or anything else for not cheerleading.
Paul in KY
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: These women probably all hate Hillary for stupid reasons. If they start pivoting to supporting the Combover Caligula, then that’s your tell right there.
Poopyman
@dmsilev: And Sanders is too dumb to see that this move completely cuts him out of any leverage at the convention. Brilliant.
Go home, Bernie. Party’s over and you’re drunk and shouty.
Paul in KY
@Poopyman: They’re always granite, Poopyman. Always…
Davis X. Machina
But she doesn’t mean it. You can tell. Besides, she’s going to bomb Iran and start World War Three.
Sheesh. Everyone Knows that.
Nick Reynolds
And fuck You Betty for sucking. You are easily the worst writer on this site with fucking simpleton views. You are just sucking up to Hilary who is a Neo Liberal wet dream. A globalization nightmare, Clinton represents what’s wrong with the Democratic Party. So Betty, again, fuck you. Your writing sucks. Florida sucks. And your fundamental understanding of what is right and wrong sucks. The end.
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY: I’m just happy to see you commenting in a thread in realtime, instead of leaving a few pithy notes at the end of a smoldering thread.
Well done, old bean. Well done!
Poopyman
@Smiling Mortician:
You’ll go broke, dude!
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: You’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an asshole.
Betty Cracker
@negative 1: The point isn’t that Sanders is wrong about wealth inequality — it’s that he’s acting like he invented opposition to it. The Democratic Party doesn’t need to wake up to the problem of wealth inequality. Obama has been trying to address it throughout both terms, and Clinton has built her campaign around addressing it too.
Has wealth inequality grown worse since the crash? You’re goddamn right it has. But it isn’t because Democrats don’t know it’s a problem and aren’t trying to reverse it.
negative 1
@MazeDancer: Obama mentioned unions. Supported card check. Then the bill never got to the floor, and within 3 months of his election he mentioned it wasn’t a priority.
No democratic president recently has done sh#t for unions, and you’ll notice that Hillary’s website carefully dances around saying she’ll do anything for unions other than ‘support’ them. F*&k support. Pass card check.
Major Major Major Major
@Nick Reynolds: is this sarcasm? or just the worst troll since RtR got rebooted?
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major:
8-year-olds, Dude. 8-year-olds.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Corner Stone:
Ignored.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ruckus: You okay?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Paul in KY:
I think that’s right – I’m sure they won’t vote Trump. I just think they’ve not been paying attention much to politics, and somehow Bernie’s finger wagging scolding got their attention. I also catch whiffs of that particular kind of liberal paternalistic racism from them that pings my radar, that Bernie’s “it’s economic inequality and Wall Street and not our racism and failure to vote in the mid-terms that’s to blame” that appeals to them too, as has been obvious from the start of the Berniebro phenomenon.
raven
@Nick Reynolds: Learn to spell you stupid motherfucker.
Chris
@Nick Reynolds:
Okay, I cracked up at “Florida sucks” being included on the list of things to hold against Betty Cracker.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking
magurakurin
@Nick Reynolds: @Major Major Major Major:
Man, Poe’s law is strong in that one. Well played Mr. Reynolds.
but, you know, Betty, he does have a point….Florida does kinda suck.
negative 1
@Betty Cracker: Then your post is lazy — all you do is complain about a person rather than explain why he’s wrong. If they trying to reverse it, why did they fail and what can they improve next time? Rather than attack someone on our side, why don’t you say what Hillary’s specific plan is and talk about what the opposition to it is, and what we can do to stop it? The primaries are over. How does this stuff help policy or elected democrats?
Chris
FYWP
@Nick Reynolds:
I cracked up at “Florida sucks” being included on the list of things to hold against the OP.
TVTropes has a page for this.
Shell
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Who?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@raven: Also, neoliberal is one word not two. This guy really is a stupid motherfucker.
Poopyman
@Major Major Major Major: Don’t beat up on the 12 year old who’s already bored with summer vacation. But his mom’s gonna take away his computer privileges if she finds out, so there’s that.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Bernie is the neighbor you lend your tools to that gets resentful when you ask him to return them 3 years later.
Felonius Monk
Bernie Sanders a.k.a. The Green Mountain Grifter.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Nick Reynolds:
Bernie! I didn’t know you read Balloon Juice! Nice to see you here….
magurakurin
@negative 1: fuck. We’ve been explaining how Sanders is wrong for nearly a year. We’re well and truly past any sort of discussions here. The guy is nothing now. Even if he endorses it won’t have much meaning. If he forces some weird votes on the platform at the convention, they will be voted down, it’ll be funky and awkward and will just sort of pour cold water on Hillary’s party(which is what the conventions are really)…but it won’t matter in electoral terms. She can win without the stragglers who will just turn on Sanders the moment he endorses anyway. Bernie is an ex-parrot.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1: Her post is not lazy, it is an attack on someone who is not helping ANY FUCKING Democrats get elected anywhere. Why are you so stupid?
gene108
I can get where Sanders supporters come from. Things are better, since Obama got sworn in, but they aren’t actually good for a lot of people. They haven’t made up for their economic losses over the last 15 years.
The ACA is better than what was before, but it is too expensive – deductibles and/or premiums – for a lot of people to feel greatly benefited.
I can get where some supporters are coming from.
What I don’t get is Sanders.
He’s gone from being idealistic to a self-centered egomaniac. This stopped being about his “Revolution” a long time ago and it’s all about him being the “Revolutionary”.
What’s funny is I’ve started to see Facebook posts about how Sanders is now a sell-out to the “Revolution”, from people who are disgusted by the fact (gasp) he’s a politician, like the other 99 people in the Senate.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA H AH HA HA HA HA HA
Amir Khalid
I saw in Bernie, first of all, a candidate who despite his appealing stump speeches wasn’t as prepared for the job as Hillary, and that’s why I’ve always favoured her.The disappointing personality traits have only recently come to the fore,but they only reinforce my conviction that he
iswas not the better candidate.Corner Stone
@negative 1: The post makes her point just fine. It was not a compare and contrast but an elucidation of who and what Sanders is. He can be accurate about the state of something and still be an asshole about it.
rikyrah
.
I don’t know the answer to this question, but I’m sure Mayhew does:
How many of those 28 million would be covered if all the GOP Sociopathic Governors expanded Medicaid?
Just askin’.
Betty Cracker
@negative 1: Bullshit; I explained how Sanders was wrong by supplying quotes that demonstrate that the current leader of the Democratic Party — the president — and the current nominee of the Democratic Party — HRC — are awake to the issue Sanders claims they need to “wake up” to. As for the rest of your complaints about my post on a semi-obscure blog, consider forwarding them to Sanders; he’s the one who needs to be reminded that the primary is over and the mission now is to elect Democrats and help them get progressive legislation passed.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: I have to work my way up from the old threads that I left when I left for day & then get to these new shiny ones. When I retire shortly, I will have my own PC & you may get tired of seeing my musings :-)
magurakurin
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: That is too well written to be Sanders. I read some of the stuff he wrote way back when, and even more than the creepiness,it was the terrible writing that struck me. And as this as evolved I have come to the realization that Bernie just isn’t very bright or gifted in any special way.
Patricia Kayden
@negative 1: How exactly would Democratic Presidents reverse income inequality? You do know that since the late 1990s, Republicans have controlled either the House or Senate or both, except for a brief period at the beginning of President Obama’s first term? And you do know that Republicans fight tooth and nail to preserve income inequality to better serve their 1% supporters?
Of course, Democratic Presidents could do more. But they are certainly not solely to blame for the income inequality circumstances in which we find ourselves now.
Richard Mayhew
@Nick Reynolds: Thank you for your complex, nuanced take
Time to go find some pie
Technocrat
@negative 1:
That the Dems have not reversed income inequality is not Bernie’s argument. It’s that they’re not “awake” to it. It’s not clear that IE can be reversed, so requiring said reversal as a precondition is bogus.
dmsilev
I see someone must have lit the BirdSignal in the night sky. Bernie must be defended!
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
This.
In a way, Sanders’ shtick at this point reminds me of Sarah Palin’s claim that her part of the country grows “good people with honesty and dignity,” and the general Republican notion that we should vote for them because they’ve got things like Patriotism and Family Values – yes, and? You didn’t fucking invent patriotism and family values and goodness and honesty and dignity; you don’t have to go to red states and small towns to find people who have all these things. What are you offering, that’s not already being offered by people who are, frankly, better qualified (if only because they actually win primaries?)
Richard Mayhew
@rikyrah: probably another 3+ million on net
boatboy_srq
Sanders suffers from the cardinal sin of Bad Timing. His salad days were overshadowed by Vietnam, the oil crises of the 1970s and Watergate; his prime years were Reagan’s territory; and his one real opportunity for a POTUS run was 1992 – and he didn’t take it. Conservatist backlash against first Carter, then Bill Clinton and now Obama have fueled this last desperate push for relevance. And the fact that the foundational policies on which his agenda would be built have nearly been the work of – or credited to – someone else is just the last straw. Not trying to excuse his Rabid-Old-Cootism, but a history of being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn’t help him any.
Aleta
@Corner Stone: postrelevancy, archaeorelevant
negative 1
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Born that way, I guess? But seriously if Sanders is wrong and I’m too stupid to see it, why are you hoping I’m different than any other voter? Seriously what have the democrats done to reverse this trend, why hasn’t the trend reversed, and what can they do in the future to reverse it? These are the questions that will help in the midterms. Because what is not up for debate is that income inquality has gotten worse without fail since Reagan, through both parties control of all facets of government. So eventually the fence sitters, the people who think both parties are the same, will start voting frustrations — and 80% of the country put economic concerns in the top 3 of the electoral issues of the country. This means that it will be VERY hard to make any kind of long-term progress, or basically that we stay in the kind of morass we’re in now where we can’t quite flip the house or when we do it immediately goes back.
‘Fuck Sanders you sparkle pony’ or calling everyone names or screaming White Males at the top of your lungs won’t work forever.
Ryan
Amen sister Betty!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Nick Reynolds:
So, you’re in the denial stage of grief still? I feel bad for all of you cult members – your backbenching useless irrelevant messiah is a one-note fraud and now a joke, and hasn’t deserved the adulation and money all of you have heaped on him. BettyC brought the truth, bro, and the truth hurts, yo.
MattF
Hmm. Took longer than I expected to attract the trolls. The Troll Zeitgeist is weakening. Sticking your fingers into the electric socket doesn’t have the effect it used to.
Major Major Major Major
Why won’t democrats wake up to the fact that this train is bumpy and lacks cup holders?
The trains in Europe have cup holders, wifi, and a restaurant. If Sweden can do it, if it’s good enough for Switzerland and they are by the way by no means a progressive country, it’s good enough for America! These things, are not, controversial! It’s the 1% who’s convinced you that an unaffordable inferior train is the best America can get while they get all the private jets.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1:
That would be you and the carpetbagger from Vermont you rode in on who are equating the two parties.
Technocrat
@Chris:
Don’t you know it’s all about Real Progressive Americans?
negative 1
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Yes. I equate the two parties, you know me well. /s
You’ve done nothing but call names, so I’m going to guess you don’t have an answer. But remember that conservatives are angry and low-information. We liberals are way better than that, right?
someofparts
and fuck me for working two full time forty-hour-week jobs for the last 15 years
ingrates like me must be racists
scav
@Major Major Major Major: Worse, it doesn’t have an announced scheduled stop at his personal front door exactly in time for dinner.
Major Major Major Major
@Technocrat: I thought it was about ethics in primary campaigning.
Chris
@gene108:
I agree entirely, and it needs to be said and resaid. But yeah, I’ve come around to the notion that Sanders is just an egomaniacal clown. For a while now his main target hasn’t been Wall Street or income inequality, but the Democratic Party and its primary process, and while there are, indeed, things to complain about there as well, it’s pretty blatant with him that the “injustice” in this case is just “not playing the game by rules that would lead to my victory.” (As you can see from the outrage over “undemocratic” closed primaries, compared with the indifference to even more undemocratic caucuses).
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: Newsletter? Asking for a friend.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1: Bernie has done nothing, nothing to further liberal or progressive causes in this election, zero, zip, zed.
JustRuss
While i’m a bit tired of Bernie’s attention-mongering, if you had told me two years ago that a pol attacking the Democratic party from the left would be getting air time and prominent op-ed space, I wouldn’t have believed it. I know that powers that be are giving him the megaphone for all the wrong reasons, but there’s a bit of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch to this scenario.
Uncle Ebeneezer
To crush your enemies,
see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their womenand watch their arrogance and ego drive them to complete irrelevance!Kazanir
Man, this comments section has gotten preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty ludicrous when it comes to Sanders. Cripes.
negative 1
@Patricia Kayden: I agree with your first sentence. It’s a good one. To me the perfect illustration is John Oliver’s show on inequality (I’d link to it but anytime I try I end up in moderation limbo), where Obama lays out this exact goal as a focus and then the media blitz of commentators saying “class warfare” ad nauseum. It’s laughable, but it’s not funny.
In terms of mechanisms, either a.) raising the upper tax brackets tremendously or b.) controlling the movement of capital, and then spreading it to workers. Option b would seem to require tariffs as 30 years of tax incentives to create domestic jobs really haven’t done much, unless you want to go my proposed route of worker owned companies (think a stronger version of the German model). Option a would require getting a proper response to the “class warfare” argument.
If you can find where I said it was the democrats fault I’ll give you a prize, though.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1:
someofparts
yeah, the humanity of people who don’t have your advantages is such a laugh riot, isn’t it
hamletta
@negative 1: Bernie is irrelevant, so we don’t need to present an argument against him. Nobody cares at this point.
He just needs to go away.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Hey, do you use a spinning or casting rig? I spend enough time hanging out at the beach anyway, I thought maybe I’d try to catch some food, but not sure which way to go.
someofparts
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/randy_newman/my_old_kentucky_home.html#!
Betty Cracker
@negative 1:
These are good questions — worthy of exploration in a NYT op-ed. Someone who undertook such a project might point out that the Republican Party’s anti-tax hysteria and role as a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street has something to do with it rather than just bitching about the only party that has tried to address it.
KC from the DMV
I know that it could get me shunned around here, but is why it may become a need to select SPW for VP. Sanders’ actions exposes Hilary’s left flank. Trump’s campaign is really run by the last working Nixon disciple, Roger Stone. Ratfucky will be the SOP, and Senator Sanders seems willing to play the rat.
rikyrah
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Yep.
When others gave him the benefit of the doubt….I remember you.
negative 1
@Uncle Ebeneezer: Your enemies, by which you mean other liberals who supported a different liberal candidate? This place needs some perspective.
singfoom
I mean, he’s lost the nomination, but the op-ed in and of itself isn’t really that offensive is it? The content? I’m fully behind HRC and think the BoBs are ridiculous, but can someone help me understand the hate for Bernie and his op-ed?
If he keeps pushing the Democratic party to the left / towards progressive policies, who’s he hurting?
Maybe I’ve lost the plot.
NotMax
@Nick Reynolds
Gosharoonie, you plumb forgot “smelly doo-doo head” and “has cooties.”
Technocrat
@WarMunchkin:
Be nice if the democrats did something about income inequality:
WAKE UP, Dems!!1
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: Talking about fishing takes away from the only worthy activity, which is talking about what Bernie Sanders wants to talk about at all times, you neoliberal sellout.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@someofparts:
Who are you talking to? President Obama and the Obama coalition saved this country’s bacon in 2008 from a deep depression, and the Republicans and Blue Dogs, abetted by the purity ponies, did everything they could to kneecap every Democratic initiative to ameliorate the effects of the crash proposed by Democratic leadership. Remember all the news stories about Independent Bernie Sanders arm-twisting Independent Joe Lieberman to get him to stop threatening to filibuster the entire ACA because of the inclusion of a public option? No? Me neither. Bernie Sanders has done NOTHING to help, because he’s a scoldy PITA fraud, then shows up to bitch and moan about the Democrats who’ve done nothing other than let him use their infrastructure to mount a third party run, and use his shit-talking surrogates to bash the most popular successful president of my lifetime. Seriously, wake the fuck up to some reality, because there’s a real fascist at the gate.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Spinning, I don’t want to mess with the backlash of a baitcasting rig. You going to be at the rocky RI coastline? >
KC from the DMV
@someofparts: Welcome to America buddy. Ain’t it grand.
gwangung
@Betty Cracker:
Let’s just remember that the Republican Party has a great deal of popular support. That suggests the vector to deal with that is NOT to go for top down solutions like presidential candidates (or even Congressional seats); the inference is that you can impose “better” solutions from the top down and the masses will love you for that.
That’s a mug’s game; it’s exactly the strategy that works best for authoritarian types from the right wing. I would suggest a better solution is to build from the bottom up, focussing on local races (city and county) to show the better solution.
Betty Cracker
@singfoom: The harm is in the implication that the party, the president and the current nominee aren’t trying to address wealth inequality. It’s straight-up bullshit that lets Republicans off the hook and gives the gullible a reason to sit out another election.
different-church-lady
@J. C.: Has anyone else said Poe’s Law? I’m saying Poe’s Law…
NorthLeft12
Help me out here. Is Mr. Sanders a US Senator? Does he not see on a regular basis how that august body continually stymies any kind of progressive/moderate legislation? And the House? Remember that other part of your law making process? How do you get the changes that you are proposing through that simmering cauldron of far right wing nuttery?
Mr. Sanders is beginning to sound a lot like the ponderous Mr. Brooks and his fantasy of a more co-operative US government if only those Democrats would try a little harder.
An awful and embarrassing column.
Corner Stone
@KC from the DMV: SHUN!
negative 1
@Betty Cracker: Not entirely. The thing is the republicans openly admit they don’t want to reverse it and campaign on making it worse — their economic platform is devoted to making the 1% richer. They don’t hide it. The democrats are the only ones who need to explain why they campaign on the issue and haven’t been successful and hence why this time will be different. Besides, though all we do is apparently trash liberal candidates we don’t like I didn’t think this place was Red State.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: There’s plenty of sandy coastline.
singfoom
@Betty Cracker: If that’s how you want to interpret the implication ok. The way I read the op-ed is that Sanders thinks it could be addressed better, not that the current President or the party doesn’t realize it exists. I also think he just wants to keep harping on his signature issue until the convention so it doesn’t get lost. Personally if I were running his campaign or advising him I would have advised him to concede and fully endorse Clinton all the way, but he’s not throwing any shitbombs in the op-ed.
YMMV, but I honestly think the op-ed is pretty bland and non offensive. But hey, if people want to get outraged about it and hate on Sanders, go right ahead.
amygdala
CiC > COC
That is all, Or will be, if we all do our respective parts, in November.
NotMax
@J.C.
Want a cookie with that Kool-Aid?
Uncle Ebeneezer
@negative 1: It’s a joke. Bernie was never an enemy like any GOP official and as countless of us have said, countless times we mostly share his positions but disagree with his tactics and purity-over-results emphasis. So after 9 months of being condescendingly lectured about Bernie’s superiority on all things because he Doesn’t. Play. Politics., yes it’s rather enjoyable to watch his descent into irrelevancy and the corresponding sadz of his biggest Stans come as a direct result of his failure to play the game. “Never Compromise” is a feel-good phrase but it’s politically useless, which is what many Bernie critics have been trying to point out to the followers of the High Sanders throughout the primary.
Felonius Monk
@singfoom:
Yep.
Betty Cracker
@negative 1: RedState? Oh well. At least you had one paragraph of clarity today. Toodles.
Andy
@Nick Reynolds: –YOU DID IT NOW!…..Adam will banhammer you….and the crowd will cheer..
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@NorthLeft12:
He criticizes everyone but Republicans and Trump. What’s been preventing him from doing that? He and his bros are focused like a laser on the DNC, Hillary, and Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, and then insists his bullshit “revolution” isn’t about him.
D58826
@tobie: I would suggest that he be given an outdoor vendor stand to sell soft pretzels but that would be a waste of good soft pretzels. Beyond that at this point nothing at the convention.
Aleta
For a laugh: New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt: Silly Walk off a Cliff
nutella
@negative 1:
Not sure if Bernie is on our side. Depends on how you define ‘our side’. If ‘our side’ means finger-waving lectures about selected progressive issues but not actually doing anything about them, then we’re on the same side as Bernie. If ‘our side’ means working to achieve progressive goals with and in the Democratic party, then we’re on different sides.
NotMax
@D58826
Rather, he legitimately earned a primo speaking slot of the convention.
Whether he uses that opportunity to deliver the Speech of the Century or to publicly defecate in the punch bowl is entirely up to him.
planetjanet
@schrodinger’s cat: Ouch.
germy
15 hairstyles of Trey Gowdy, named.
Charles Pierce said the kangaroo committee isn’t done ratfvcking yet.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@NorthLeft12:
Bern never was much on knowing the actual function of what he does.
D58826
@singfoom: Well it isn’t just the NYT op-ed that shows Bernie is past his sell date:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/28/bernie-sanders-just-gave-an-amazingly-condescending-interview-about-hillary-clinton/?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_thefix%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
D58826
sigh in moderation again. does it have anything to do with the way I added the link?
Patricia Kayden
@negative 1:
So you’re saying that the Democrats should create worker-owned companies? I’m as leftwing as they come, but that sounds unworkable in the U.S. I can already hear the cries of “Marxism! Communism!” from our Conservative brethren. But that’s just my opinion. I grew up in Canada so I’m pretty used to Democratic Socialism, but I’m not sure that would be welcomed in the U.S. Look at the brouhaha over the ACA which is not even close to the single payer system in many other Western democracies.
schrodinger's cat
@J. C.: When is your working class hero going to release his tax returns. I think he is a part of the 1% himself.
Kazanir
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Your comment is total horseshit. Sanders’ stump speech has, for months, spent a large amount of time attacking Republicans and in particular Trump for their policies and also for Trump’s other extra-peculiar downsides. It was like this in March when I went to a Sanders rally in Salt Lake City — a place which elected a Blue Dog for years. Sanders is neither pandering to Republicans nor ignoring the threat they pose — for you to claim he is demonstrates either dishonesty or ignorance on your part.
Major Major Major Major
@singfoom: you have to read it in the context of the last six months/years, where he’s pretty much trashed the party and Obama and Obama’s accomplishments.
MomSense
@negative 1:
I was told by my SEIU organizer that we were dropping our card check campaign to put all our energy into passing the PPACA but of course you think this is some kind of proof Obama sold us out.
Some of us who are now called the establishment are actually just people who volunteer and do the fucking work year after year.
hamletta
@NotMax:
Not yet, he hasn’t. If you don’t endorse the nominee, you don’t get to speak. Them’s been the rules forever.
germy
negative 1
@Betty Cracker: Which is it you found confusing or disagree with? That republicans want to make the rich richer (they call it Trickle Down economics, or the Laffer curve) or that despite campaigning to reverse income inequality no democratic president (1992-2000, 2008-2016) or democratic controlled house and senate (1988-1996, 2008-2012) has been able to budge it. This is why I think the ‘it’s all republicans fault’ doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t doubt that the democrats have the desire, but if you accept that they do than you must accept that either their policies aren’t working or that it is not a priority.
I’ve been very clear, and if you are confused by something I’ve said I’ll be happy to clarify. Everyone keeps focusing on me rather than what I say, you included. Fine — I’m everything you want me to be. But short of my op-ed debut in the NYT, on a supposedly liberal site I’m trying to push a liberal agenda rather than insult people with hopes of getting better ideas as to how to change it. There are discussions on this site, some are good. Name calling is not.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@negative 1:
Really, liberal candidates are trashed here at the new “Red State”. Which ones? Warren, Franken, Brown, Boxer, name a name. I haven’t seen it. You’re so full of it.
Patricia Kayden
@Nick Reynolds: Why are you here? Most of the Front Pagers support Secretary Clinton and are glad that she won the primaries. Why are you picking on Betty? There must be other left leaning websites that you can visit where your love of all things Bernie can be indulged. Please spare us the histrionics because you cannot stand anyone criticizing Senator Sanders when he himself spares no effort in criticizing the Democratic Party, President Obama and Secretary Clinton.
@djchefron: Ouch. That burned!
Spacecakes
@J. C.: Interesting. President Obama has also taken millions from corporations. Have you ever called him a “corporate whore”? Why not?
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t think cries of Marxism would be inaccurate what with that being one of the central tenets.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kazanir:
The main focus of his has been whining about the “unfair” primary process and getting his idiot followers like you and J.C. up above to revile Hillary like good little right wingers. It’s hard to tell the difference between GOP ratfuckers and Berniebros, so whatever his message is about Republicans, he’s making sure it’s gotten lost in the whine of his entitled delusional followers. As far as actually making legislative progress for his so-called progressive values, he’s been a net negative.
schrodinger's cat
@djchefron: His votes on immigration and gun control, for starters.
NotMax
Fuzzy faith.
Cacti
25 years in Congress and zero ability to work with others.
Bernie is a useless gadfly.
Barney Frank was right.
negative 1
@MomSense: Unions just had no support on card check. SEIU may have focused their efforts on PPACA because so few of their membership had health insurance (think of who the ACA really benefitted after all) but every other union wanted card check and still wants it, especially the trades. It is the only way to expand into the entire country, realistically and our last great hope for reversing the slow decline.
Besides, organizers don’t generally go into a prospective shop and say ‘we got our a$$ kicked and no one listens to our priorities’ but off the record, yeah that’s basically what continues to happen. Unless SEIU is taking credit for the PPACA.
D58826
@negative 1:
Ah let’s do a bit of history here. From 1988-1992 the GOP owned the WH. Clinton and the democrats owned both ends of Pa. Ave in 1993-1994 but not by filibuster proof majorities. The democrats controlled all three branches between 2009-2010 but there were periods in which they did not have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Obamacare only passed because A. Spector went rouge and voted for it after getting kicked out of the GOP. Since 2011-to date the GOP has controlled both chambers of Congress either by majority or filibuster.
I’m not saying the democrats are perfect but the times that they had total control of Congress and the WH have been few and far between. And since 1971 they have faced an increasingly conservative SCOTUS that would have found a Mother’s day resolution unconstitutional if it was passed by the democrats.
Gelfling545
@Tractarian: Whenever I see ” wake up” I read it with the implicit “sheeple!”
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Cacti:
Barney Frank is a corporatist neoliberal warmonger. He probably won’t even volunteer to put up any Sanders delegates in his undoubtedly plush hotel suite in Philadelphia.
Gin & Tonic
@D58826: You have to use the “link” button, and not just put in a “naked” URL.
different-church-lady
@negative 1: You’re not trying to push a liberal agenda so much as you’re just parroting tropes.
Poopyman
OT, but a little while ago I got an email from Heather who’s running the GoFundMe for “West Virginia Fund Relief” that starts with
Followed by a link to the site. My work blocks the GoFundMe site, so I have no idea what the details are. Anyone else know what’s up?
Doesn’t sound like a real problem, anyway.
negative 1
@Patricia Kayden: I’m hoping, but no that’s why it was meant as a ‘the best idea no one will have’. Still, why on our comment boards do we give these ideas up? Alas. Yes, I’m a true socialist. I don’t hide it and I’m not ashamed. But income inequality doesn’t have to be my way; however my argument above still holds true — there have been opportunities, good opportunities, and some action and yet income inequality continues to get worse. So maybe some new ideas are needed?
My basic argument is that the ‘contract with america’ of newt gingrich was great marketing. Why not try running on a well marketed campaign? I argue that calling it something catchy, having all congresspeople/senators in the midterms run on it, and checking back in on every electoral victory would be great.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1:
…people without health insurance?
WarMunchkin
@Technocrat: So the basis of the claim is that the ACA includes a flat tax on investment income?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kazanir:
He and Trump are two sides of the angry white vote coin – ever wonder if Bernie’s so opposed to Trump, why Trump thinks he can appeal to Bernie’s supporters? I don’t. They both think they’re being treated so unfairly, and it has nothing to do with income inequality. Bernie hasn’t forcefully come out to denounce anything Trump is doing or saying by trying to get under his thin skin like Elizabeth Warren is doing. What’s preventing him? It would blow my mind if he did.
Gin & Tonic
@negative 1:
The Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 election.
Calouste
@NotMax: I’d make sure there are no punch bowls anywhere in the convention centre.
burnspbesq
@J. C.:
Thanks for that reasoned view, Trump supporter.
burnspbesq
If nothing else, Sanders has impressive message discipline.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/28/bernie-sanders-just-gave-an-amazingly-condescending-interview-about-hillary-clinton/
Kazanir
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
That’s your interpretation of his “main focus” — not mine, and not many of his supporters, a great many of whom I pay a lot of attention to. You are welcome to point out where I have “reviled Hillary like a right winger” — I don’t think you’ll find an example. Indeed, Sanders went out of his way during the primary to avoid many lines of attack and didn’t indulge in the various modes that characterize right-wing attacks on Clinton.
By contrast, Clinton did, in defending herself from attacks about e.g. her relationship with Wall Street, indulge in right-wing framing of the issues around campaign contributions and influence on government by private enterprise. Too bad about that — it makes it more difficult to fight against the Citizens United philosophy when your nominee has implicitly endorsed a lot of the ideas behind it.
I feel like a group of many millions of voters interested in Sanders’ message and his case for progressive policies (above and beyond what the Democratic Party is apparently prepared to support) is a huge positive for those policy outcomes. You obviously disagree, but I don’t think painting Sanders and his supporters as “whiners” or calling me an idiot is really much of an argument.
Cheers!
sherparick
@negative 1: The Democrats had control Congress and 60 votes in the Senate (a majority that included almost Republicans like Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, etc.) for all of about 8 months (from Al Franken’s being seated after recounts and litigation of his election in June of 2009 to January 2010 when Scott Brown took out Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s seat). This is what I never quite get with Tom Franks and Bill McKibben’s and Bernie Sanders of the world, the Republicans (and the fact that 45% of the electorate supports them) exist. That basically, we are electing Democrats and a Democratic Senate to make court appointments better than approve executive branch appointments, because getting anything out of the Republican House is not going to happen. If he and they want get a progressive agenda done, they need to figure out a way to elect a better set of state legislatures and congressmen and women then the House Republican Caucus under Paul Ryan. And if Bernie does not want Trump elected, he should stop making the economic case for him.
Kazanir
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
For you to say that Sanders’ has never “come out” to “forcefully denounce” anything Trump does or says is only evidence that you have never listened to a single one of his stump speeches. He was giving multiple 90-minute speeches per day for months with significant sections devoted to attacking Trump. If you don’t know that, it is on you. If you are ignoring it, that’s also on you. Fix your shit.
mario
jesus, why does Bernie Sanders turn so many people into assholes? If you’re a lib, you have to realize that Bernie Sanders is the best thing to happen to presidential Democratic politics in decades. If you don’t realize that, then, well, you’re kinda stooopid.
burnspbesq
@Major Major Major Major:
Zactly. Some of us literally owe our lives to the ACA.
negative 1
@D58826: I agree with your limitations. I would argue that in response to that the democratic party platform on inequality has basically been nibbling at the margins — raise the upper tax bracket from 32 – 35 percent, or tax incentives for domestic production. The type of things which could pass as compromise because both parties could point towards it working towards a goal. Empirically it hasn’t worked. So my argument is that much like the ACA, which represented a paradigm shift for our country, income inequality will instead take a massive concerted effort. Think raising the tax bracket WAY up, like 70% (back to Reagan’s first year). That would likely be as ‘controversial’ as the ACA.
singfoom
@Major Major Major Major:
I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t disagree that he’s done that trashing in the past. I’m not reading that into the op-ed being discussed. Honestly it doesn’t really matter. I don’t hate the guy and I don’t understand the hate directed his way at this point and I’m quite clear on the history of this primary.
I just thought it was weird to continue to direct so much bile at him even if it’s deserved. I’m waiting for the whole “party unity, let’s crush Trump” portion of this campaign now. If people want to continue to rage about Bernie, that’s their right.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kazanir:
If Trump is so unthinkable, then explain Bernie or Bust, because that shit is the shit that needs fixing, and only Bernie can fix it.
negative 1
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry was off by one election on the chart. Was looking at the 111th congress — 257 to 178.
Cacti
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
It’s funny how the past few weeks since the last primary, more than any of the actual contests, have shown how manifestly unfit Bernie is to hold the office of the Presidency.
He claims to be for the greater good, but is incapable of recognizing a good objectively greater than “what Bernie wants”. Far from being the organizer of a people’s revolution, he’d prefer to be our philosopher king.
Betty Cracker
@WarMunchkin: No — there are a lot of moving parts to it, which makes it hard to account for, but if you add it all together — taxes (of several types, not just investment income), subsidies, expansion of Medicaid, etc. — it is a huge and significant wealth transfer.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@mario:
Wow, I guess that black dude that won the last two elections doesn’t count. I guess history starts on 5/26/15 with you then.
Applejinx
@MazeDancer: Unions are dead, man. You’re never going to build them up again and they will never be relevant again. Not unless you figure out how to unionize robots and algorithms (actually, the GPL manages the latter…)
Unions are about as relevant as Bernie. Dems better not be putting their faith in unions and organized labor. That ship has sailed.
Emma
@mario: Thank you for confirming my opinion that people like you aren’t worth listening to. You know, for people who are always bitching about being insulted you throw insults around very easily.
And no. Bernie’s not the best thing to happen in presidential politics. That is Barack Hussein Obama, descendant of Irish and Kenyan ancestors, a man of color who’s revolutionized the way we look at the possibilities of politics.
gwangung
@negative 1:
Which means a massive grassroots efforts aimed at electing more progressive officials at the state and Congressional level.
Although I would point out, ACA was itself termed an incremental step by people wanting much more. I think the disdain felt for it was misplaced, as it is more progressive than given credit for. But it was still a battle to take even this step—it will take many more battles (and, ahem, even Blue Dog Democrats) to take further steps on income inequality.
Neldob
@Major Major Major Major: nice.
Applejinx
@Poopyman: He stopped having leverage the minute Clinton started going around with Elizabeth Warren. I guess we’re just making sure it sticks. Note that all he says is only insulting if you assume Clinton will weasel out of it. IF she was going to do all that anyway where’s the problem?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
No shit. The deliberate erasure and/or diminishment of this great president’s accomplishments, no thanks to Bernie fucking Sanders, is the thing about Bernies surrogates and Bernfeelers that makes me the angriest. They’re counter-revolutionaries technically, attempting to restore the center of power to an old white man.
Mike in DC
4 more weeks of this. If he doesn’t endorse Clinton, then by definition he is NOT doing everything he can to stop Trump.
Chris
@NotMax:
Fuck James Dobson. He’s a phony shitheel who went from proclaiming that he wouldn’t vote for McCain “as a matter of conscience” to quickly endorsing him anyway because, I can haz seat at table of power plz?
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: word. All of it. Except you are far more temperate in the expression of your opinions than I am!
MomSense
@negative 1:
It had nothing to do with wanting card check. One we didn’t have the votes and two the public doesn’t understand the issue. I made a ton of phone calls to Democratic voters and the amount of time required to explain the issue was prohibitive. Of course states who had swing senators in 2009 were inundated with ads making card check out to something like mob enforcers out to crack the skulls of workers.
On card check and health care reform we were up against major moneyed interests. Card check didn’t even have the benefit of widespread public acknowledgement that there was even a problem. What I find frustrating is that there doesn’t seem to be a grounding in the real world of what it takes to move public opinion and build the kind of support necessary to achieve legislative success.
One of the important things the labor unions learned from the ’92 experience was that you have to build a public movement in support of the issue in order to have any chance of success. The unions cut their losses to focus on health care. It wasn’t possible to do both in terms of volunteer support, resources, and public opinion.
Kazanir
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I’m not a Bernie or Bust guy by any means; I think that shit is dumb and have said so. But I respect arguments about the lesser evil a lot more from people who weren’t making bad pro-Clinton arguments during the primaries. (See https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/736709115259543553 for an example.) Bernie or Bust is already a fringe phenomenon that is getting amplified all out of proportion by people in the media and Clinton supporters who were upset that Sanders didn’t concede after Super Tuesday. Forgive me if I don’t take it very seriously when people like you complain about it.
In his big speech to supporters, Sanders said that defeating Trump in November is one of his top priorities. I cannot find any evidence that he has ever given the GOP any quarter either rhetorically or strategically. But part of his strategy is pushing the Democrats to the left because he and his supporters believe those policies are better and because he believes a more solidly-left-wing platform will help Democrats — not him, but other progressives — win in November.
negative 1
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, but my point is who were those people? Largely the working poor. Those living below the poverty level had Medicaid. People working full time usually got it from their employer. Those working two part time jobs to make full time, like many in the service industry, were the biggest group without health insurance.
From an organized labor perspective, which is the context of the conversation, only SEIU’s members or potential members were largely affected. The trades offered health insurance — that’s been a huge part of their appeal for years. Public sector are government employees, and get benefits accordingly. SEIU, however, doesn’t offer their own health and welfare fund (that I’m aware of anyway) and most of their membership fell into the group described above.
The Lodger
@Paul in KY: The ABAA is about to meet its Waterloo.
gwangung
@Applejinx: Hm. Interesting point. Unions were a mainstay of Democrats in the past. But they may or may not be in the future. And thinking up alternative organizing tools may be a useful tactic for the future.
Uncle Cosmo
Many years ago an HR guy at my place of employment related a pearl of wisdom that his father had passed on to his then-teenaged-&-heading-toward-major-trouble-with-the-criminal-justice-system son:
Inasmuch as the stormy season seems to have engendered a bumper crop of anuses herein, I think I’ll take that advice, & I advise the rest of the sane to do the same.
sherparick
@Gin & Tonic: Democrats, a loose agglomeration of interest groups, only one of which is the activist progressive white Left, held the House and Senate under a Democratic President since 1990 for only 4 years; 1993-94 and 2009-10. Since 1994, when the mostly blue dog, Bourbon Democrats of the South were replaced by Gingrich (or worse) Neo-Confederate Republicans, the Republicans have held majorities in the House for 20 of those 22 years. And given “Gerrymander” and concentration of Democrats in minority-majority districts and urban districts, it appears near certain that unless Republicans suffer a catastrophic collapse in their vote, they will control the House at least through 2020. From 1969 to Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Republicans held the Presidency except for the 4 years of Jimmy Carter. Again, with the Conservative, bourbon Democrats, holding substantial number of seats in the House and Senate, the coalition of Right Center & worse Republicans and these Bourbon white southern Democrats had a de facto majority in Congress. The legislative accomplishments of the 93-94 Congress, and particularly the 09-10 Congress, as imperfect as they were, are some of the most progressive of any Congresses since the Great Society Congress of 1965-66 (and it should be noted that the American’s off-year electorate in ’66, ’94, and 2010 gave the Democrats a major defeat in all three elections in appreciation of all that good work). I appreciate the push of the Overton window Bernie and his campaign have given country the last year, but I do wish they would remember their true enemies are concerning progress and the redemption of America.
cleek
@mario:
he isn’t even close to being that. in fact, he gives every indication that he’s trying to hurt the Democratic Party in the middle of the fucking election.
fuck Sanders.
MomSense
@burnspbesq:
I do. Two of my best friends do, too. They are dealing with quality of life and hospice care–but without the ACA I don’t know what would have happened to their families financially in addition to the nightmare of dealing with the illness.
Fuck Fucking Cancer cannot be said enough times.
TerryC
@J. C.: Tou seem nice.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
As somebody who recently moved from a non-Medicaid-expansion state (where I had all sorts of health problems on a shitty plan I was paying everything for myself) to a Medicaid-expansion state, fucking this.
Would I rather have a system where the government provides health insurance to all and I’m enrolled in that basically from the moment I get my Social Security number to the day I die? Sure. Does the ACA fall short of that? Sure. Did it nevertheless make an enormous fucking difference for good in the lives of thousands of people like me? Yeah, it did. So what if the insurance companies got something out of it too? Plenty of rich people got something out of the New Deal and “liberal consensus” eras of politics too (the liberal wing of the GOP were called “Rockefeller Republicans,” FFS), but it doesn’t mean all the reforms of those eras shouldn’t have been passed.
Betty Cracker
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Thank you. Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, the balls it takes to leapfrog over a dude who will definitely go down as one of our top 10 presidents to lionize a cranky back-bencher who couldn’t even win a primary…well, I hope that person has a wheelbarrow handy to roll that set around.
Paul in KY
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well, best of luck on converting them!
Major Major Major Major
@singfoom: It’s hard, for me at least, to read the op-ed without that context, though. Especially, maybe even mostly, since he hasn’t suspended his campaign and endorsed Hillary, so I’m going to read anything he writes as a continuation of his campaign. In which he shit on the party.
Gin & Tonic
@sherparick: Is there some specific reason you chose to lecture me about legislative/electoral history?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Paul in KY:
I think Trump is doing the heavy lifting for me, frankly.
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: Plus on our side in the Senate there are/were 4 or 5 ‘fake’ Democrats who always voted with GOP on monetary issues, of which taxation is probably number 1.
sherparick
@Kazanir: The favorite line of attack by Republicans on Secretary Clinton is that she is corrupt and elitist. This is also the favorite line of attack by Bernie, his campaign, and the H.A. Goodmans and Tom Franks of the world. In doing so they echo and and reinforce the belief that with so much smoke, their must be fire (forgetting that there are such things as smoke generating machines). The whole purpose of the Benghazi hearings was to drive up Hilary’s negatives. They were also the means that discovered Hilary’s mistake in using a private server for her official e-mail conference while a the State Department. So they worked as the Republicans intended.
Miss Bianca
@Andy: He hasn’t banhammered YOU, you tiresome PITA.
@Aleta: Heh.
Batgirl
@Smiling Mortician: $27? I’ve decided to donate to the Clinton campaign in $27 increments.
Also, at this point, I don’t trust Bernie with a prime time spot at the convention.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: OK, I see what you meant.
That card check (for whatever reason) would never have passed, might also explain why unions came around to support the ACA as their legislative cri de cœur. As @gwangung: noted, unions are still a traditional Dem constituency though not the powerhouse they once were. To me it looks like they’re dying out, hardly a natural death but perhaps at this point not arrestable. At least, not if we want to see things like robust manufacturers’ unions and stuff. That would take a bunch of protectionist policies. I personally think we need to unionize knowledge workers. But there’s not much support for this among… knowledge workers, at least the ones I talk to. So unions as the 20th century understands them are on the way out.
Andrew
And furthermore the opening paragraph of the article actually falls for the bullshit right-wing fig leaf of economic populism over what was always always ALWAYS about ‘those people’.
Chris
@negative 1:
No, they didn’t.
At least not in the state of Florida, where the requirements for being on Medicaid are extremely stringent. IIRC, the only way you could qualify for it was if you had dependent children. When I tried to get on it at a time when my income was an absolute zero, I found out that even having absolutely zero income still wasn’t enough to qualify for Medicaid. The same when I was working minimum wage.
From what I understand, it was far from the only state where that was the case. (Where that’s still the case).
The Medicaid expansion part of the ACA helped thousands of the poorest people in the country, and would have helped thousands more if the Nine hadn’t made it optional.
Applejinx
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Oh, come ON. Without backing down from any of the skepticism he’s shown, without in any way letting Hillary off the hook or trusting her with the party (that she straight-up owns and did from the start: futility much?), with all of that:
Bernie says, clearly and directly, he’s gonna vote for Hillary anyway and so should we because Trump is that much worse. A thousand times worse, if I remember the quote.
Give me a break. This was always going to be a Dem victory, we are just arguing about what that means. And Bernie is the new John McCain. Which is good news for J—I mean Bernie Sanders ;)
May he have many television appearances where he’ll push the Overton Window and represent the socialist hippie viewpoint to the fascinated media. They can turn to that rather than wingnuttia for ‘balance’.
Felonius Monk
@mario:
A very good question. So maybe you could provide an answer since you appear to fall into this category.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Sweet vid at Newport
Miss Bianca
@Patricia Kayden: Co-ops – worker/member-owned workplaces by another name – used to be very popular in the US. Many still exist – most of the rural electric companies out here are co-ops, for example – and I think their popularity could rise again.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Also, too medical debt was the number one reason people filed for bankruptcy.
Paying medical bills was also a big reason people refinanced and/or foreclosed on their houses.
Major Major Major Major
@Felonius Monk: The fish rots from the head.
petesh
A bad habit seems to be catching on: Several people have described someone who acts against conventional wisdom as using red power on their cheeks. This may be due to autocorrect, I suppose, but in any case the appropriate word is rogue.
MomSense
@Chris:
Assets can be disqualifying too.
les
@singfoom:
Not to go all old timey, but didn’t you once tell me that accusing Sec. Clinton of corruption and dishonesty was “nuance?” You really need to work on the reading and logic things; nice that you’ve come around but the best I can say is your naivete is showing.
Calouste
In news about that other Cranky Old Coot, Jeremy Corbyn has a small problem completing his shadow cabinet, because the only Labour MP left in Scotland (after they were wiped out by the SNP in last year’s elections) has resigned as Shadow Scottish Secretary, and Scottish Labour isn’t all that excited about having a non-Scot in that position.
Captain C
@Gin & Tonic:
And I’m pretty sure that Dems lost both houses in 1994.
Applejinx
@D58826:
How is this in any way controversial? How is this in any way different from what Hillary is doing already with Elizabeth Warren, rather than picking Jeb?!? as a veep and running with that? This isn’t being said in a vacuum, this isn’t being said in a world where it’s 90s or even 2000s Hillary running. With certain caveats and weaselings she’s doing all that. Sometimes as with the TPP omission from the platform she’s mainly not offending Obama and only slightly leaving room to turn around and go all neolib: the support clearly isn’t there for that so she won’t do it.
Getting mad about this nothingburger of a ‘challenge’ more reveals where some of you are starting from. Catch up. Hillary is leaving you far behind because she is smarter and a better politician.
Cat48
I saw that condescending interview Bernie did on msnbc and he had previously published an Opinion piece in the Washington Post. Now, the New York Times. He knows there will be no speech unless he concedes & endorses Hillary. Everyone has been really clear about it. His speech is in his hands–to do or not.
I could care less what he does. He’s really over exposed.
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: Two ideas:
Whorelevant? and
Fuckinirfuckinrelevant
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
You realize that this entire thread is predicated on Bernie’s claim that Democrats are oblivious to these issues, right?
He’s not attacking income inequality. He’s attacking Democrats.
Paul in KY
@Aleta: Oooh, like those 2! Wish I’d thought of them. How about neorelevant, in that anything with ‘neo’ in front of it means the exact opposite of what the word without neo meant?
Paul in KY
@negative 1: Have you ever heard of this political party, they call themselves ‘Republicans’? They pretty much are agin everything you seem to be for & I must admit, they’re pretty good at being agin it…
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major: As a pragmatic cuss, I tend to go after stuff that works. If it appears that unions are fading as a Dem source of power, there are a number of options to pursue. If they can be revived, that’s fine. If they can’t, then we need to develop alternative tools.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Pretty good analogy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Applejinx:
He couldn’t be more begrudging about “voting” for Hillary, and since he refuses to endorse, it’s a meaningless construction of words he’s strung together. His words don’t match his actions, at all, when it comes to defeating Trump. All of his recent actions point to having it all be about him now. His stump speech stopped being meaningful many moons ago, and now he’s shown us what he’s really about, which is being a small, petty man who is not a team player, never has been a team player, and never will be a team player, and it’s not like he’s going to grow out of it.
Paul in KY
@JustRuss: If the said politico had the chops of Brer Rabbit…
Major Major Major Major
@Paul in KY: I was complaining about CalTrain.
@gwangung: Agreed.
@petesh:
Usually when correcting spelling it is best to do so without a typo.
Shell
Isn’t he still fund raising? And isn’t he still receiving Secret Service protection on the taxpayers dime?
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Every year somebody gets swept off the rocks and drowned.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I’m still waiting for my prize.
Paul in KY
@negative 1: Really, the only way you can reverse the income inequality, other than taxing the fuck out of the rich (which I’m all for) is for them to give out nice raises to all the people who work for them.
Also, I’ve mentioned this before, you absolutely must raise the tax rate on investment income. That’s a killer right there. make it worth their while to invest in their people & infrastructure.
Aimai
@rikyrah: hey dont i get any respect? I have been anti bernie devant la lettre.
Mike Adamson
Nothing wrong with reminding the Democratic party that the job doesn’t end with a victory over Trump.
Aimai
@Applejinx: may he stop attacking the party frim the left and giving trump’s white racists aid and comfort.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
Your dates are wrong. Democrats lost control of the House in 1994 (Remember? Newt Gingrich? The Republican revolution?) and didn’t get it back until 2006. They then held the House from 2006 to 2010.
If you don’t know these basic things, why are we supposed to believe anything else you say?
Miss Bianca
@Aimai: “I was for being against Bernie before any of all y’all were for being agin him!!” //
Paul in KY
@NorthLeft12: He’s been absent from the Senate for awhile. He may have forgotten what goes on there.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mnemosyne: History started on on May 26th, in 2015, in a small town in Vermont. No liberal before that date ever did anything for anyone.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
I’m genuinely glad Bernie ran – he’s confirming each and every one of my presuppositions about the work ethic, character, thought process and ideology of the left end of the progressive left, and making that bundle completely distasteful to yet a new generation of center left voters…
Paul in KY
@negative 1: I don’t think they are that open to the rubes about it. They flog the single issues to their useful idiots.
Felonius Monk
@Aimai:
Yes, you do. I liked what you wrote while filling in for Steve M.
Paul in KY
@singfoom: The fucking title says ‘Wake up Democrats’!!! What are we supposed to ‘wake up’ to? Income inequality, right? Now, do you think we Democrats (including the current 2 term President) has not been aware of this situation?!
Mnemosyne
@singfoom:
Problem is, the Democratic primary is still ongoing, because Bernie hasn’t conceded. You can’t have party unity if one of the parties involved is refusing to admit he lost.
If you want party unity, maybe you should be asking Bernie to concede rather than demand that we all allow him to continue the charade that he can still somehow win at the convention.
More people voted for Hillary than for Bernie. Period.
Calouste
@Paul in KY: Wake up to the fact that Kim Jong-Bernie has lost the primary?
gwangung
@Paul in KY: Hm. I think a lot of people would think that’s too incremental and fooling around on the edges.
On the other hand, too many people may not be aware of the bang you can get with a little bit of buck…
Captain C
@mario:
You have to know this is both self-answering and self-referential.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
And I’m genuinely sorry he ran for the exact same reason.
eemom
AWESOME post, Mrs. Cracker! I think this is the first time I’ve shared a BJ post on FB. (Don’t tell different church lady.)
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Mike Adamson: Nothing wrong with pointing out that “everything in my power to stop Trump” also includes conceding, endorsing HRC full-throatedly, and supporting the Party that he joined.
Major Major Major Major
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Honestly, this is what’s happened to me over the last year or so. And not just with Bernie, but some of the sillier silliness with campus stuff and Twitter stuff. Frankly maybe even going back to Occupy, where they took hold of the Zeitgeist and then… didn’t do anything because they were more interested in the ‘occupy’ part and stupid internalia like running on consensus, than actually accomplishing things.
D58826
@Applejinx: Not controversial at all. Just at this point stop with the dance of the 7 veils, get with the program, stop the talk of a floor fight and endorse Hillary. He got a good bit of his program in the draft platform. He isn’t the only member of the party so others might want some of their ideas in the platform also. Besides it’s a stupid waste of time and energy at this point to be arguing over platform purity planks that have little or no chance of making it into legislation. Politics is about compromise. Time for Bernie to compromise.
hovercraft
@mario:
I guess it’s nice to be a position where you can discount all the progress made over the last eight years. For those of us not so fortunate we’d argue that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have been the best things to happen to the democratic party in the last 30 years. As a black woman the election of a black man was a significant achievement for my family, my party and my country. A woman speaker who is both progressive and practical enough to get shit done has been an inspiration. The progress that the democratic party has made has made real differences in the lives of millions of people. Bernie has been sitting in congress and the senate for what 30 plus years and apart from yelling at everyone, has barely achieved anything. So I’ll thank you to take your weak assed savior shit elsewhere where you may find someone who’s buying your shit.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Dubyaesq even…
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Aimai: We’re doing everything in our power to give you your due, it’s just that as we’ve seen recently, that phrase is pretty limiting ;)
delk
@Applejinx: It’s kind of funny but when I walk my dog I walk by the: Pipefitters Union Hall, Carpenters Union Hall, SEIU Hall, Painters Union Hall, Plumbers Union Hall, Police Union, and IBEW.
The plumbers just broke ground on a new training facility.
El Caganer
@Patricia Kayden: Actually, we already have worker-owned companies here – I think the Publix supermarket chain is employee-owned (Betty would know the answer to that), and there’s even a national cooperative business organization. Credit unions are owned by their members. Not sure exactly what negative1 is advocating for or against.
Paul in KY
@mario: Since 1992 we’ve won the office 4 times. Wish Bernie had been around in 2000 to help VP Gore. Wonder where he was?
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
Maybe Burnsie has an opinion, but don’t donations to youthful Sanders delegates for convention attendance need to be booked as income on the 2016 1040s?
LOL
Calouste
@Betty Cracker: @Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Along similar lines, Tom Watson, Labour Deputy Leader, said the following today after a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn: “I just think he feels very strongly that he has that mandate from the members. He holds less weight on parliamentary politics, and that’s where he is. ”
The problem that Corbyn has there, and what we also see with Sanders, is that in a representative democracy, it’s not the members of the party or the activists that vote which bills become law, it’s the Members of Parliament. You have to work with them.
satby
@delk: There’s been a bit of a union resurgence as the Boomer generation retires and kids my sons’ ages start their apprenticeships. Automated lines may reduce how many bodies are needed, but there still are humans required and a new generation is discovering how good a union job can be.
hovercraft
@sherparick:
It drove up her negatives, too bad for them they nominated a pathological liar who is also a narcissitic sociopath. Oh well the best laid plans.
Corner Stone
@Immanentize:
Hmmm, intriguing. Count me as intrigued. How would one subscribe to your fuckinnewsfuckinletter?
Paul in KY
@The Lodger: We shall see Comrade Lodger (or should I call you Bernlak Lodger). Bernaletical NeoMaterialism is a discredited theory that Comrade Botsplainer and the ABAA are working tirelessly to stop.
Mike in DC
Scenario 1: Bernie endorses before the convention, gives a full throated endorsement speech there, works to get Dems elected in the fall, has a positive influence on policy going forward
Scenario 2: Bernie endorses at the last possible moment, just after the delegates nominate Clinton, gives a slightly tepid endorsement, and makes a token effort to get Dems elected in the fall. Sanders retains some influence, but is greatly diminished.
Scenario 3: Bernie withholds his endorsement because reasons, takes the show on the road to promote the Revolution. Loses influence in the Senate and gets primaried.
Which is most likely? I’m taking bets. My money’s on #2.
daves09
@negative 1: People working full time got it from their employers? Are you aware of just what co-pays were? For people making $15 an hour the co-pays could take half their after tax earnings. Willfully closing your eyes to the fact that huge numbers of full time employees-shall we discuss full time minimum wage employees?-were being crushed by co-pays shoddy,sir, shoddy.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: All I will say is “amen!” to this!
El Caganer
@Major Major Major Major: I wonder if it’s worth considering a different model for unions, maybe something more like the Wobblies and less like the trade unions we have now. A strong union movement might also be a way to bring back the Angry White Guys: rather than begging them to be nice, tell them that they can get on the train – but the train’s going to leave with or without them.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike in DC: The window for #1 is closing rapidly.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kazanir:
One of? Oh fer fuck sake. If that were actually true, he would be endorsing Clinton and campaigning with and for her. Everything else he says is bullshit if he won’t/can’t do that. And as far as changing the Democratic party, he can go fuck himself about that too, since he never deigned to join until he wanted to exploit it for his own greater egotistical purposes. The shit you believe about your phony baloney savior is really pathetic. Where are his tax returns? Why didn’t that boondoggle trip to Rome set off every alarm? It’s just willful blindness to his feet of clay, and his all talk no walk bullshit.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
Young Sanders delegates need help getting to Philly, won’t really be able to crash couches or friends’ moms’ basements
Wonder if any fine operative from The Bern squad has mentioned that they may need to book the donated money ($4000 to $6000) as “income” on their 2016 1040s?
#feelthebernwhilepayingpenaltiesandinterest
satby
And I’ve been in the fuck Bernie camp for a long time: he’s supplying Republicans with soundbytes and it appears his only ambition now is to be the John McCain of the left.
And everyone yammering about how Bernie does too, does too, does TOO go after Republicans “in his stump speeches” knows perfectly well that’s not getting out to a wider audience. His NYT and Sunday morning appearances are, and he goes after Democrats and plays coy about endorsements when he has a wider audience.
So fuck him triple time.
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: He sure seems to think she hasn’t and/or won’t do any of that.
Chris
@Mike in DC:
Is there a “promises to endorse Hillary at convention, then uses platform to give a big speech about how cruelly he was wronged by the party and its undemocratic closed primaries” option?
Mnemosyne
@daves09:
Not to mention that, in the run-up to 2008, companies were dropping insurance coverage even for their full-time employees, especially small businesses.
schrodinger's cat
@satby: McCain endorsed both W and Romney. He is a party man, first and foremost.
WarMunchkin
@Betty Cracker: I agree that it’s huge and significant. I am just curious about other instance of wealth transfer throughout our history, and whether the ACA is indeed the largest.
satby
@Paul in KY: that’s ok, Applejinx isn’t all that sure she will either.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Isn’t it still a good analogy, if you replace ‘train’ with many other progressive things that are available/common in Europe?
Chris
@satby:
Did You Know Bernie Sanders Marched For Civil Rights?
davinatti
Hilary’s plan seems to be to remake the democratic party into the pre tea party republicans. Reading through this blog, she has definitely succeeded in turning it into a wing-nut like hangout. Bunch of raging nut jobs.
satby
@schrodinger’s cat: So you’re saying the Bern can’t even meet the low ground level bar set by John McCain. Agreed.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@davinatti:
So please explain to us like we’re all 5 year old nut jobs what white independent progressives have ever accomplished, you know, for real? What pieces of legislation have they passed?
gwangung
@davinatti:
This seems fact challenged. I think you need comprehensive citations.
Paul in KY
@gwangung: What the fuck else can you do? We don’t live in Soviet Russia! They have all the money. Short of expropriating that as part of a Socialist Police State (cause that’s what it would take), how do we get it better distributed?
The vast majority of people work for wages. The only way they get more money is when their wages go up. How do they go up? The people who own/run the companies make them go up. Tell me another way it can realistically be done.
aimai
@Major Major Major Major: And people with pre-existing conditions, expensive conditions, adults who suddenly gained access to medicaid, children under the age of 26, children with potential pre-existing conditions who were not going to be able to get health care in the future…the list goes on and on and on.
Mike in DC
@Chris:
4. Generic ratfck option–does something to deliberately undermine the nominee and the party. Destroys own political career and legacy.
Miss Bianca
@davinatti: apparently it’s beautiful weather for trolls around here! Or maybe it’s our picnic baskets – we certainly seem to be attracting a bunch of ’em lately.
Emma
@davinatti: I used to think you Bernie bots were just ideological purity ponies. Now I’ve learned that you’re also liars or ignoramuses. Anyone who can look at the proposals Hillary has put forth and think it will take the Democrats into tea bag territory… well, no need to continue a conversation, is there?
aimai
@hovercraft: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Paul in KY
@Mike in DC: If he did number 2 and we win, NO INFLUENCE.
Paul in KY
@El Caganer: The IWW wasn’t the best at PR. They did do a good job of scaring the shit out of the rich, back in the day when they could really be scared.
Unfortunately, those days have passed (IMO).
The Thin Black Duke
Thankfully, Bernie Sanders will soon be a forgotten asterisk lost in Hillary Clinton’s shadow.
goblue72
The amount of butthurt in these parts in not having Clinton’s assed kissed 24-7 is just comedic. Between you and the other MAWW FP’er, its like a vast echo chamber of inconsequential grievance mongering. I’m sorry, did some male supervisor pass you over for a promotion 20 years ago and you are still pissed about it?
Emma
@goblue72: You have given yourself away in a single sentence. Ain’t it fun you misogynist Bernista?
ruemara
@negative 1: considering the people the Sanders bunch have called low information understood how to register for a party and show up to vote, in harsh comparison to a very unrevolutionary failure to show up, yeah you’re low information.
Betty Cracker
@WarMunchkin: The WSJ article / Brookings study make a plausible case, IMO. I wish I could find a link to something I read back when the bill first passed that had a lot of historical data on other programs, but alas, the Googles aren’t helpful. That was probably predicated on all states accepting the Medicaid expansion anyway. Lots of wingnut sites make the “wealth transfer” claim, but I hesitate to link them for obvious reasons.
raven
@goblue72: Where ya been asshole?
satby
@goblue72:
There it is, the misogyny we all knew was behind a lot of the Hillhate. Thanks for demonstrating.
Paul in KY
@goblue72: Listen you stupid craptoid. There’s 2 people who are going to be President in 2017. Hillary Clinton or Donald Fuckin Trump. If you don’t want Trump, you have to sing the praises of the ONLY PERSON who will beat him.
Don’t care if you really feel that way or not. That’s what you do.
Betty Cracker
@goblue72: I’m the CEO of Cracker, Inc., you sexist motherfucker. You may now return to your middle-aged barrister people’s revolution cosplay group.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Why? Because you’re scared? You’re scared that the truth will finally come out and all your patter will be exposed as lies! Lies bought and paid for by the neoliberal Clonton machine?
You have fatally damaged your argument and your credibility PFC Butterfield. We all now know you’re a paid astroturfer typing stolidly in the underground facility the Pentagon has constructed in Utah.
Admit the truth or stand and be revealed as a liar!
burnspbesq
@Kazanir:
And that’s the problem. If sanders sincerely wants any of the things he claims to want, beating Trump cant be “one of his top priorities.” It has to be THE top prioroty, because beating Trump is the ONLY thing that matters. It’s a necessary condition to any progressive change. Everything else has to be on the back burner until 11/9. Anyone who can’t see that is not thinking clearly.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: LOL! And the richest part is that you *know* this little “people’s warrior” dweeb would be meeping up a storm if the boot were on the other foot and it was us Clintonistas who were refusing to “kiss Bernie Sanders’s ass” enough to suit his finicking tastes!
D58826
@Emma: If there is a risk of taking the democrats into tea party territory it comes from Bernie and his hard core supporters. The only down ballot candidates that he has supported are progressives. Now there is nothing wrong with supporting progressives for Congress but they have to stand some chance of winning. The kind of progressives that pass the Bernie test will lose badly in most of the country. Like it or not to get Nancy back in the chair we need to accept and elect blue dogs. Obviously that hasn’t worked well in the past but if you can’t elect a blue dog in Iowa your certainly not going to elect a Bernie certified candidate. There seems to be the temptation to starting a new species of public official – the DINO. Don’t really think that will work out very well.
Emma
@D58826: It’s like they’ve never figured out we’re in fact a coalition, not an army.
D58826
@Emma: Even Will Rogers in the 1930’s recognized that he didn’t belong to an organized political party
dogwood
@Applejinx:
You seem to be getting a pass around here lately, but I can’t be the only one who remembers the months and months of your ant-Clinton Sanders worshipping posts. You seem like a decent guy, but you are definitely a poor judge of character. Because advocating for single payer doesn’t equate with being a good person, promising free college isn’t a testimony to someone’s decency. Hiding tax returns, putting your incompetent wife on the campaign payroll, happily taking 6 digit payoffs for tanking a college, and whining about rules you don’t like are the tells when it comes to Bernie Sanders. Those are his personal values, the other stuff is just populist sloganeering.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Paul in KY:
I, alas, may suffer due to my status as “prematurely anti Bernie”….
D58826
@dogwood: His support for the Sandinistas and Fidel/Raul Castro dosen’t show very good judgement either
Technocrat
@goblue72:
LOL, you let the mask slip after one comment? Weak!
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Never fear, Comrade. The arc of history points towards a future where the Trotskyist Bernites will reside in the ashheap of history.
All hail our great nominee Hillary Clinton!!! The ONLY person who stands between us and The Deluge.
Major Major Major Major
@Paul in KY: well yeah, that was the point :)
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Dude, I know you have a problem with women, but you really should talk to a therapist about it. We are not here to help you get over your butthurt that Bernie got beat by a girl.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Lucky you. I had to go to UC Santa Cruz 25 years ago and spend a fair amount of money to learn the same lesson.
I considered myself a hardcore leftist, and by SoCal standards I was. I never went right – never could have – but I’ll never call myself a “leftist” again because I’m not. I have nothing in common with those people whatsoever.
burnspbesq
@goblue72:
Another Trump supporter weighs in.
Major Major Major Major
I already ignored goblue, but I guess I’ll go ahead and pie him.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Also, any thread here that I click on after having installed “Troll-B-Gone” and I see over half the posts are blocked is going to be a shitshow, and this one has been. Way not to disappoint, Berners.
Tim C.
@D58826: I think it depends. There’s a difference between a “best we can get” blue dog and someone who thinks they can poop all over core values of the party and not recognize the costs. For example, Joe Lieberman is a perfect example of a useless pustule. His only value seemed to be to occupy the village-approved middle of whatever argument there was and regurgitate whatever that wisdom was. (See 100% of his involvement in HealthCare reform) It’s a judgment call every time.
Mnemosyne
Also, since there seem to be a few people of the male persuasion here who haven’t figured this out yet:
Managing Your Feelings Is Not My Job — or Hillary’s, I may add.
rikyrah
@Richard Mayhew:
Thank you, Mayhew.
planetjanet
@mario: Wrong. Barack Obama made it all possible.
gex
@Mnemosyne: And dropping pregnant women from policies.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Then why did you say it was for CalTrain?
Mnemosyne
@dogwood:
Meh. Applejinx has slowly converted over the course of several months, so I’m willing to accept him as having honestly changed his views. But I didn’t get personally attacked by him about anything, so YMMV.
WJS
@goblue72: Just because I feel like it, go fuck yourself with whatever sense of self-entitlement you have left, you worthless poseur.
Major Major Major Major
@Paul in KY:
Richard Grant
@Nick Reynolds: Hello to you and to your horse, as I am certain that you have one.
rikyrah
@Chris:
This This This.
In NJ, you had phuckers like Krispy Kreme, who lowered the financial ceiling to SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS.
That’s all a person could earn – SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS.
$6,001 and you couldn’t get Medicaid.
A pattern repeated all across the country.
dogwood
@Tim C.:
Actually Joe Lieberman was not a centrist when it came to a woman’s right to choose or gay rights. He was a critical point person on repealing DADT. So keeping him around actually made some sense. He really had some influence with other Senators.
MazeDancer
@Betty Cracker:
That’s some grade-A, verbal dexterity, there, Ma’am. Those Scottish tweet bombs to Trump that David Tennant read on Full Frontal not even close. Brava!
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Well, that explains that :-)
different-church-lady
@mario:
Based on the remainder of your comment, I’d say you’re in a better position to answer that question than most of us.
srv
Only Sanders can keep Hillary honest when she tries to pivot to the right in the general as Trump’s jujitsu hits her from the left.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Advantage: Cracker.
D58826
@dogwood: And he helped to get to that 60 votes. And he certainly was democrat enough in 2000 when he was the VP candidate. Not really sure what happened to him between 2008 and 2010. I’m sure the ‘progressive’ primary challenge didn’t help.
different-church-lady
@Paul in KY:
Fixed, with extreme prejudice.
negative 1
@El Caganer: More of those. You named two. Harley Davidson is (or used to be, that info may be old). The thing is, if workers control the board they don’t vote to offshore their own jobs and lay themselves off. What I’m advocating for are ways to stop the flight of capital. It’s that, or tariffs that I can think of.
singfoom
@Mnemosyne: I think you missed my comment in this thread where I said that I wish hed concede and fully endorse Clinton. I stopped feeling any Berns months ago, i just dont understand the vitriol. Cheers
Paul in KY
@D58826: Yeah, he sure helped us out in 2000. Helped us take Connecticut, hammered Darth Cheney in their ‘debate’ and fought hard when the election was in doubt. Nobody more ‘Democratic’ than Droopy Dog.
Paul in KY
@different-church-lady: Want that to happen, but NO COMPLACENCY. Praise not the election until it has happened!!!!
patroclus
Yeah, Lieberman could certainly be a cranky old coot at times, but history isn’t going to remember him entirely for his inane criticisms of Bill Clinton, his love affair with John McCain, his love of the Iraq war, his labeling of any criticism of W. as treasonous, his threatened filibuster of a public option for health insurance reform or for his general unctuousness. He was quite good on gay rights, especially on DADT, on women’s rights and he did provide the 60th vote for the ACA to break the filibuster (along with Roland Burris, one of the three greatest Illinois African-American Senators of all time!).
As for Bernie, well, the primary’s over and I don’t really care all that much about him anymore, but I’m adding this to get to the TBogg!
negative 1
@Paul in KY: To add to your point — having a marginal tax rate approaching 90% disincentivizes the 7 and 8 figure salaries at the top. There is a study (that I can’t find atm) that shows executive compensation going up at the same trend that the top marginal tax rate goes down. It makes sense on a visceral level — if you were basically going to lose the next million to taxes, why not leave the cash in the company and spend more on r & d instead?
Schlemazel Khan
@burnspbesq:
It has been demonstrated that Fox news and theGOP both run boiler room operation with the goal of starting fights between Dems. I assume some of what we are seeeing is this
Schlemazel Khan
@burnspbesq:
It has been demonstrated that Fox news and theGOP both run boiler room operation with the goal of starting fights between Dems. I assume some of what we are seeeing is this
Paul in KY
@singfoom: BECAUSE HE HASN’T CONCEDED AND STARTED SINGING HILLARY’S PRAISES TO THE HIGH HEAVANS!!!!!!!!!!!
Jesus, you made me go all caps…
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
He actually started turning after 9/11 and jumped wholeheartedly on the war train. Flirtations with the right wing became more and more numerous, which is why he got primaried from the left.
Short version: he went Dennis Miller. He ain’t coming back.
Paul in KY
@negative 1: Good point, although I had mentioned taxing the shit out of the rich. We need a Democratic House to do that. Really Democratic as they will feel that bite themselves.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
The election’s not over, by Bernie’s choice. Why are we supposed to pretend it is and make nice?
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Calm down here’s some garlic and onion. Everything is okay now.
negative 1
@Mnemosyne: Because it is over, mathematically, and continuing to argue among ourselves will only depress participation and fuck over down-ticket dems. Additionally, most of this thread and its comments are literal name-calling, and nothing more and I doubt I have to tell you why that’s wrong.
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: Because we’re trying to get his voters to vote for Hillz? And, besides, he’s male and you’re supposed to take his feelings into account – isn’t that your role?
singfoom
@Paul in KY: Yes, he hasnt fully conceded, but everyone knows its over. Has been fir a while. He’ll go all the way to the convention as hes said. I dont agree with his decision and think it’d be better if he conceded now. That said, you can all caps all you want (thats your choice dont put it on me). Even after all of that I dont get the hate. Its just too tiring in my opinion.
So his relevance at this point is nil, bupkis, nada. I dont expect nice making at this point but active vitriol towards his campaign makes little sense to me. But hey, different people react differently, if you want to rage, get your all caps rage on. I hope it makes you feel better.
Chris
@patroclus:
I don’t know that history will remember him at all. History, especially popular history, tends to be president-centric. There were probably vital congressmen and senators who played a role in the passing of New Deal or Great Society reforms, but nobody remembers who they are nowadays. They remember FDR and LBJ.
Major Major Major Major
Can anybody tell me why I should respect Bernie’s choice not to concede and “take it to the convention” other than he’s a human with agency and I have to respect that he makes choices? Keeping in mind that the full spectrum of ‘choices’ that one could legitimately make includes skull-fucking kittens.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Major Major Major Major:
You’re supposed to imagine what the Berniebro shitstorm would look like if the roles were reversed and Hillary was pulling this same petty egotistical stunt – then forget about it and be a better person because fee fees and reasons.
Mnemosyne
@negative 1:
I agree with you, but I think you’re misidentifying the source of the vitriol. A lot of people here have been working for the Democratic Party for years by doing voter registration, phone banking, canvassing, volunteering as precinct captains, etc. Those people now feel that their hard work has been denigrated and they’re being called “corrupt” because they’re loyal, working members of the “corrupt” Democratic Party.
You can’t tell people to their (virtual) faces they’re corrupt corporate whores and expect them to respond nicely to you, and yet that’s what BernieOrBusters are saying both on and offline.
singfoom
@Major Major Major Major:
1)He’s a human with agency and he makes choices
2)He thinks he’s doing the right thing
3)He thinks going to the convention will end up with more of his supporters being more enthusiastic about swinging over to Clinton by acknowledging him (and thereby them) at the convention
4)He’s not skull fucking kittens (that we know of)
All of the above is supposition. It is less than optimal, but that could be said about many things in this campaign. I’m most interested in #3 because I have some BoB friends that I suspect will need a cathartic moment like that to wake the fuck up.
Cheers
nastybrutishntall
@negative 1: One guy tries to help a drowning cat. The other guy keeps shooting at him, preventing him from being able to get to the cat. Therefore they both suck.
Is that about right?
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t remember Applejinx attacking anyone, he was just very earnest in his conviction that Hillary was evil and Bernie was a saint. He then rationalized that he could support her because she was so evil. It all seems pretty convoluted to me, but like I said, AJ seems like a decent person. I’m rarely disappointed in the public servants I vote for because I understand the who and the what I’m voting for. I’ve never been disappointed in Barack Obama because he’s never surprised me. I had some policy areas where I disagreed with him, so I was neither shocked nor outraged when he didn’t follow my preferred course of action. i’m always disturbed by the number of people who don’t vote for the real candidate, but for the fantasy candidate they’ve created in their minds. That’s not idealism; it folly and it leads to cynicism.
Applejinx
@Paul in KY: I can go one step beyond that.
There is only one person out of ANY of the potential candidates who could run this damn country at all. That is Hillary Clinton. Literally everyone else including Bernie would just wreck it worse’n Dubya did.
This is for different reasons. Trump’s a bozo, or a Manchurian Clintonist ratfuck. The rest of the Republicans were losers. And Bernie didn’t have answers, plus the Clinton loyalists would have ruined everything just as vengeance, with the ample help of the Republicans. Bernie could never have been President, and we dodged a bullet bigtime: the fact that said bullet would also be a Clinton bullet? Welcome to politics, asshole.
Bernie will be forgotten UNLESS he is vindicated by events.
I think that’s why the campaigning with Warren encourages me. The fact is, we can’t have ‘old Hillary’ from the 90s, because world politics (and economics) has moved on. If you pay attention to guys like Mark Blyth it’s apparent that austerity ‘worked: it was never more than a direct bailout to the banks, and as such they’re (so he says) not in as much systemic danger as they were. On the other hand, the moral hazard factor is even worse.
RIght now the world’s dependent on Hillary winning and turning American into the consumer nation again, because everyone must compete and export to survive. They’re willing to operate on our currency to do it. We’re gonna have to run massive deficits, and only Hillary can make that happen.
The key thing is, everybody ends up owning dollars and unable to survive without us. That’s a pretty good geopolitical power base. You can argue we don’t deserve that kind of empire, but we live in interesting times. Looks like Hillary gets to be the supreme leader, very likely for two terms if she can put all this into practice. We could all do a lot worse.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: Plus I think it’s just a level of frustration. The primary was effectively over after New York. But fine if Hillary could play out the string in 2008 then so can Bernie in 2016. But once the primary string ran out in 2008 she flipped and backed Obama whole heartedly. Here we are 3 weeks past the end of the primary season, three weeks from the convention and with one of the most consequential GE in decades ahead and people are still talking about Bernie and his, his , his whatever. Rendell is speculating that the democratic convention will see some ‘ excitement’ from Bernie fans but nothing like the GOP convention. Why should there even be that level of ‘excitement’? Save it for the general. Even if Rump is dumped there is no GOP candidate that would not try to turn the country back to the 18th century. At this point Obamacare, for example, might not be perfect but it is better than the repeal option that the GOP has on offer. If Bernie and his supporters can’t see that then there is not much sense in continuing to argue about it.
Chris
@Applejinx:
More generally, pretty much all Republicans have embraced the Grover Norquist notion of government being something that needs to be “drowned in the bathtub,” so you can pretty much expect nothing but disaster from putting them in charge of the government. It’s like asking a pacifist to run an army, or a communist to run Wall Street.
patroclus
@Chris: Yeah, but real history remembers Carter Glass, Henry Steagall, Sam Rayburn, Alben Barkley, Robert Wagner, Howard Smith, Adolph Sabath, Burton Wheeler, Marvin Jones, Joe Robinson, Buck Buchanan, Luther Johnson, Joe Martin, Hamilton Fish, Robert Taft, Arthur Vandenburg, Herbert Biemiller, Arthur Mitchell, Adam Clayton Powell, Wilbur Mills, Helen Gahagan Douglas, John McCormick, Ed Cox, Carl Albert, Everett Dirkson, Mike Mansfield, Margaret Chase Smith, Maury Maverick, and many many more. That’s who made the real changes (or opposed them). We haven’t always been so President-centric and I don’t think we always will be.
My Truth Hurts
You sure are a nasty and bitter old partisan aren’t you? People like you are what’s wrong with the Democratic Party. Incapable of introspection and hostile to constructive criticism and the democratic process itself. Good luck with that.
Also, name calling? Really? Is Bernie really THAT much older than Clinton? Get a grip.
Mnemosyne
@My Truth Hurts:
Hillary got more votes than Bernie. Deal with it.
Corner Stone
@My Butt Hurts: Well I hope you get some good paste or cream for that.
Cacti
@My Truth Hurts:
But enough about Bernie.
D58826
@singfoom:
Maybe that is is idea of 11 dimensional chess but he has a funny way of going about it. It’s only Tuesday and he spent Sunday talking about how Hillary had to see the light. On Monday he talked about how Hillary the the democrats had to see the light And today it was only he has the light that will shine at the convention. That isn’t going to start letting his supporters down gradually and it isn’t going to win many friends in the Clinton camp.
Now it’s true he keeps saying that he will do everything he can to defeat ‘old little hands’ but in his mind that could simply mean going around the country post-convention and running a free lance campaign of one part anti-Trump and one part pro-Bernie
Major Major Major Major
@Applejinx:
Mm, yeah I was really mad when they did that in 2008.
patroclus
@My Truth Hurts: What do you think is good about the Democratic Party? Or, what do you think Sanders thinks is good about the Democratic party?
aimai
@patroclus: He was actually horrible on abortion rights, which is the key women’s right at issue for most of the last century and the first decade of this one.
Cacti
@goblue72:
Sometimes it’s so hard to tell the Brocialists apart from the right wing cavemen, when they sound so much alike.
LeonS
@hamletta: Maybe diaries and comments about him aren’t helping then?
philadelphialawyer
The Bernie excuses really make you wonder.
When I hear drivel about Bernie taking on Trump in his “stump speeches,” so it is cool if goes after the Dem party in the NYT and won’t endorse Hillary in the WaPo, I don’t know what to think. Are the folks who make these claims really that stupid, or are they arguing in bad faith and think the rest of us are that stupid?
Nobody gives a damn about Bernie’s “stump speeches” anymore. But when he has a national media platform, yeah that does get some attention. So, based on how he uses those platforms, is he really all about stopping Trump, or isn’t he? Apparently, tooting his own horn and badmouthing the Democratic Party are higher priorities for Bernie than stopping Trump.
Cuz the best way to stop Trump now, in terms of the words and actions of Bernie Sanders, would be to concede to, congratulate, and endorse Hillary Clinton. Full throatedly and without reservation. Anything else coming out of his pie hole means that stopping Trump is NOT his number one priority. And, worse yet, by doing so he is actually hindering that process.
Another head scratcher Bernie meme I have heard is that the insistence on concession, congratulation and endorsement is somehow akin to the talismanic, magic words position of the GOP on President Obama’s non use of the term “radical Islam.” Um, no stupid or bad faith Bernie supporter, they are not alike. President Obama, in substance, is fighting ISIS. Whether you think that is a good or a bad thing, it does not depend on his use of the term “radical Islam,” or any other term. But Bernie, in substance, has NOT conceded, congratulated and endorsed Hillary Clinton, and his non use of any of those particular terms is NOT the basis for the complaint. If Bernie were to say…”I have lost the presidential primary race. Hillary Clinton has won. I commend her on her victorious campaign, and I whole heartedly, and without reservation, support her, and want everyone who voted for me, campaigned for me, caucused for me, etc., to do the same,” everyone would be cool with that. He does not, actually, have to use the words “concede,” “congratulate,” and “endorse.” Just do the substantive thing.
Do the right thing, Bernie, and do it now, for fuck’s sake, instead of playing hard to get with Hillary when the WaPo comes calling, and pontificating and preening on the Op Ed page of the NY Times.
But his not doing the right thing, and doing everything else instead (complaining about the rules, the platform, the policies of the Democratic party, and so on), is what has folks pissed off. NOT because we think income equality is a wonderful thing, and Bernie saying it isn’t has got us mad.
Is that so fucking hard to understand?
aimai
@dogwood: The thing people are sick of is that Applejinx is like any convert to a new religion. He went from being all in for Bernie, and extremely offensive about it, to being all in for the crazy, bitch queen Hillary of his imagination. And the entire time he lectures EVERYONE else, and mansplains Hillary to women, for paragraphs, without ever stopping to take a breath or consider that the people here might know more (quite a bit more) about politics and about Hillary Clinton than he does.
dogwood
@Major Major Major Major:
Don’t you understand, it was never Republicans who made life difficult for Obama; it was the neoliberal, neocon, neoDLC Clintonistas who held up progress out of vengeance. They really believe this fantasy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@My Truth Hurts:
Projection much? Sanders supporters have been the most harrassing, condescending, delusional, politically uninformed, dismissive, whiny, math challenged sore losers this life long voter has ever seen. But, yeah, it’s the Democrats who try to get progressive shit done, and have been the only ones that ever have gotten progressive shit done no thanks to big talk no walk Bernie fucking Sanders, that are the problems. You need more kool aid.
singfoom
@D58826:
I’m afraid that you’re going to end up right about this. My hope is that he goes to the convention and does a barnstorming speech telling his supporters to get behind the Democratic party and Clinton and make it better (not that that means it’s bad) by being permanent participants in the process and the party at all levels. That would be a good that would go beyond this specific campaign if he can get his supporters to join in….
If he doesn’t do that and especially if he finger wags AT the convention and talks about himself / his supporters being the only light, then yeah, I’m all on the “fuck Bernie” train because at that point he’s actually fucking shit up and not helping the very causes he professes to champion.
aimai
@singfoom: There is absolutely no evidence that Bernie thinks that by going all the way to the convention, whatever that means to him, will result in a better outcome for Hillary Clinton with his voters. He has specifically said, over and over, that its not his job to get her elected or to even ask his supporters to switch and support her. He has specifically said that this is her job. He has explained to his fans –and they have explained to me–that Bernie’s strategy is “more than electoral” and because it is focused on the bigger picture: inequality, climate change, globalism, and capitalism that it can’t be bounded with our petty politics or this petty political season.
Contra your (very nice) position I expect Bernie to keep trying to negotiate for a prime slot at the convention to lecture the Democrats on their failings as a party, to attack Trump and the Democratic Oligarchs and Billyunaires on his last big stage, and then to exit, stage left, and retreat to Vermont. He will not campaign for her. His endorsement will be seen as half hearted and will be disregarded by those of his crew who are really greens, libertarians, anarchists, or general misogynists.
The Lodger
@Paul in KY: As long as you don’t call me Bjorniak Lodger.
philadelphialawyer
The Bernie excuses really make you wonder.
When I hear drivel about Bernie taking on Trump in his “stump speeches,” so it is cool if goes after the Dem party in the NYT and won’t endorse Hillary in the WaPo, I don’t know what to think. Are the folks who make these claims really that stupid, or are they arguing in bad faith and think the rest of us are that stupid?
Nobody gives a damn about Bernie’s “stump speeches” anymore. But when he has a national media platform, yeah that does get some attention. So, based on how he uses those platforms, is he really all about stopping Trump, or isn’t he? Apparently, tooting his own horn and badmouthing the Democratic Party are higher priorities for Bernie than stopping Trump. Cuz the best way to stop Trump now, in terms of the words and actions of Bernie Sanders, would bet to concede to, congratulate, and endorse Hillary Clinton. Full throatedly and without reservation. Anything else coming out of his pie hole means that stopping Trump is NOT his number one priority. And, worse yet, by doing so he is actually hindering that process.
Another head scratcher Bernie meme I have heard is that the insistence on concession, congratulation and endorsement is somehow akin to the talismanic, magic words position of the GOP on President Obama’s non use of the term “radical Islam.” Um, no stupid or bad faith Bernie supporter, they are not alike. President Obama, in substance, is fighting ISIS. Whether you think that is a good or a bad thing, it does not depend on his use of the term “radical Islam,” or any other term. But Bernie, in substance, has NOT conceded, congratulated and endorsed Hillary Clinton, and his non use of any of those particular terms is NOT the basis for the complaint. If Bernie were to say…”I have lost the presidential primary race. Hillary has Clinton has won. I commend her on her victorious campaign, and I whole heartedly, and without reservation, support her, and want everyone who voted for me, campaigned for me, caucused for me, etc., to do the same,” everyone would be cool with that. He does not, actually, have to use the words “concede,” “congratulate,” and “endorse.” Just do the substantive thing.
Do it now, for fuck’s sake, instead of playing hard to get with Hillary when the WaPo comes calling, and pontificating and preening on the Op Ed page of the NY Times.
And his not doing the right thing, and doing everything but, is what has folks pissed off. NOT because we think income equality is a wonderful thing, and Bernie saying it isn’t has got us mad.
Is that so fucking hard to understand?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
BINGO.
Betty Cracker
@My Truth Hurts:
Self-awareness isn’t your strong suit, is it?
D58826
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
There was an article on Twiter, I believe, that one of Bernie’s campaign leaders in Nevada suggested that they buy coins with the same head on both sides if case a tie was decided by coin flip. (We know that Hillary cheated on the coin toss in Iowa). Only thing is in Nevada they decide a tie by cutting a deck of cards. These folks could not even cheat correctly.
Mnemosyne
I forget, how many posts get us to a Tbogg unit? Are we there yet?
D58826
@Mnemosyne: 500.
LeonS
@D58826: If you want to take Cillizza’s word for it anyway. There is nothing between the lines but his imagination, however.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@philadelphialawyer: This is a great comment, and no they will never understand.
Cacti
@aimai:
I was a Bernie doubter from the start, going back to his call to primary Obama in 2011.
At this point, he just seems like a bitter old crank, determined to use every opportunity to remind us mere mortals how much better he is than the rest of us, and what fools we were to reject his leftist gospel. I join you in believing he will never endorse the Dem nominee, and will be no help in the general. B**ch has to pay for daring to beat him in a fair nomination contest.
philadelphialawyer
“If you’re a lib, you have to realize that Bernie Sanders is the best thing to happen to presidential Democratic politics in decades. If you don’t realize that, then, well, you’re kinda stooopid.”
I’m a lib, and not at all stupid (or “stooopid” either), and yet I “realize” that, going back five “decades” or so, the following folks, just off the top of my head (and forgive me the spelling errors), are better “things” to happen to Democratic presidential politics than Bernie Sanders: Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Shirley Chisolm, George McGovern, Edmund Muskie, Jimmy Carter, Paul Simon, Fred Harris, Birch Baye, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Barrack Obama. And it also seems to me, that it is not at all clear that Bernie Sanders is “better” than Al Gore, Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Joe Biden, Bill Bradley and John Kerry.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
You gotta love the troll who whines that we’re “hostile … to the democratic process” but can’t accept that his candidate got fewer votes.
Talk about cognitive dissonance …
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@D58826:
There has been no mention of that little factoid in my FB feed from the last Bernfeeling holdouts – if it doesn’t come from USUNCUT or Salon, they won’t see it, and even if they did, they’d excuse it or explain it away, like the million other facts they dismiss when it doesn’t comport with their carefully constructed reality. Seriously, I’ve never seen such willful delusion in my life outside of North Korea. I never really want to hear the word progressive again, if it means your beliefs don’t survive first contact with reality.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
Almost there!
Miss Bianca
@singfoom: He’s ALREADY fucking shit up, and has been ever since he segued from being All About Income Inequality in America to being All About Bernie Sanders and How He Was Robbed by the Corrupt Democrats. Which was quite some time ago. Every time Ive heard people say, oh, well, maybe *this* time he means it, this time hell get with the program, I hate to say this but I start thinking about victims of domestic abuse Ive known who say, oh, but *this* time he really means it, this time he will change…no. Not buying it. I mean, sometimes people *do* change. But not often.
Major Major Major Major
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: What the hell is “USUncut”, anyway? Is it just a Berntard propaganda outfit?
les
@My Truth Hurts:
It would be easier to ease up on the Bernistas if they weren’t so fucking stupid. I don’t know where you grew up, pained one, but where I come from accusations of corruption, dishonesty, rigged elections, ignoring important issues aren’t actually constructive. Screeching slogans with no plan whatsofuckingever for implementation is not constructive. Hostile to democratic process??? Bernie got fewer votes. He thinks he should win anyway. Hostile much? The WASP hegemony is over, sonny. You, the Trumpistas and the Brexiters are losers. You can help move the program forward, or STFU.
singfoom
@aimai:
Well, this Tbogg isn’t going to make itself. The above is not the worst case scenario, but it’s close. As I said above, if he does that, he’s working against his professed goals. Driving an even bigger wedge between the center and the left of the Democratic party and even the lefts could fuck things up spectacularly. It could depress the D vote even beyond the BoBs.
We live in interesting times.
Matt McIrvin
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m thinking the most plausible hypothesis is that whoever said that was making a joke. But maybe I’m just choosing to believe nice things.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Was there a single occasion among Bernie’s many losses where his campaign didn’t cry about being cheated?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Major Major Major Major:
I think it came out of the Occupied movement, but like everything else about white left progressivism and tea party-ism, requires angels and demons. I swear half the problem with Bernie/Hillary is gaming – turning Hillary into the evil witch and Bernie into the white wizard. A lot of the screaming, over the top characterizations of the negative and positive aspects of both of them from the Bernfeeling side has no basis in reality – it’s just all imaginary friends and enemies writ large.
gwangung
TBogg unit?
Citizen Alan
@J. C.:
Show me on the doll where Hillary and Obama touched you.
singfoom
@Miss Bianca:
I never accepted the “Robbed by the Corrupt Democrats” line anyways, there were no shenanigans and HRC won fair and square. Again, I agree, he would be more helpful if he’d already conceded. But he hasn’t and while I disagree with the choice, I don’t think he doesn’t have the right to wait until the convention to concede. Tactically and strategically I think he’s doing the wrong thing, but I think it’s being done in good faith. That’s supposition and I know it, but so is it to assume bad faith. The point for me of assuming bad faith is what he does and says at the convention. YMMV
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@philadelphialawyer: Exactly, and some of those folks were murdered for their troubles. That troll’s comment was unbelievably offensive.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
No. Every single one he lost was rigged, and every single one he won, was legit. A better question is, can any Bernfeeler point out where Hillary complained about any of her losses? Anyone? Bueller?
aimai
@Miss Bianca: Right–his actions are already having consequences. This is something that a lot of us predicted from the beginning. There is an educative function to the primaries, especially when it comes to independent, young, or occasional voters. The candidate has to inspire and educate them about the nature of politics. Bernie took the time to inspire and create despair and rage as the primary attitude of his voters towards the political system and the Democratic party. Right now his voters, the remainder of them, are hard core opposed to the Democrats who are actually fighting the election. All this “gimme gimme gimme” stuff that Bernie has taught them to demand at the convention is just the tip of the iceberg of their overwhelming entitlement. And its harmful to the country and to political participation to have raised people’s hopes and expectations unrealistically and then let them be dashed by the hated Hillary. The ONLY thing that could have fixed this was Bernie’s early and gracious concession. A barn burner of a speech at the convention–which I doubt very much he will give–will not make up for it because he has trained his supporters, like hand reared puppies, to accept food only from his hand. They won’t easily transfer their votes or their energy to Hillary.
Chris
@singfoom:
No, the worst case scenario is his telling his supporters to stay home and not vote for either of the corrupt Both Sides. (I’m told he doesn’t have time to get on the ballot as a third party nominee, but he doesn’t even need to do that to fuck things up. And throw the election to Trump). Hillary being careful not to do anything that might be construed as a provocation is probably being done with the full awareness of this.
But as you say, that scenario’s plenty bad enough, and more likely as well.
les
@singfoom:
It may surprise you, but people’s reactions to an op ed or speech by Bernie are not, in fact, based on what you may or may not accept. They are based on what Bernie, ya know, says and does. Chiding commenters for not responding properly to the world in your head is not very effective.
Chris
@singfoom:
I hope you’re right.
philadelphialawyer
@singfoom: Who cares about his “good faith” or not? Or his “rights?”
Sanders SAYS that stopping Trump is Job One. NOT reforming the Democratic party or any particular issue or issue set. If that is the case, he should concede, congratulate and endorse, like, weeks ago. Objectively, leaving aside what is in his little Bernie heart, and also leaving aside what he has the “right” to do, the right thing for him to do, again, if beating Trump is the primary objective, would be to C, C and E. That is as close to a “fact” as anything can be in politics.
It is not about varying mileage, it is about stopping a neo fascist from becoming President of the United States. Is that the main goal or isn’t it? Bernie keeps saying it is but then acting like it isn’t, and folks here don’t like it. And you oh-so-generously giving Bernie the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his subjective mental state, and telling us about his “rights,” is pretty much irrelevant.
aimai
@singfoom: You are a sweet person–I can tell! But, again, I think the kind of excuses being made for Bernie (“he has a right” to withhold his concession speech until the convention”) is part of why people are so disgusted with Bernie and why they aren’t willing to accept the excuses or assume good faith on his part. The idea that Bernie cares more about his supposed policy goals than fame, attention, and adulation is absurd. Because he can’t achieve any of his policy goals at this point–even building his new movement–having pissed off the very Democratic office holders (his own CO WORKERS) who would be necessary to put forth a winning agenda. So Bernie is, perhaps, delusional but I see no reason to join him in that delusion. He’s acted abominably, and insultingly, to the first African American President and the first Woman to win the nomination of a major party in the US. He has disregarded and insulted her voters and supporters–especially those who served with him in congress who declined to endorse him. And there is no excuse for it. Just none. There’s no “old fart white guy exception” to how people are supposed to behave when they are in an intra party race for the presidency.
And if he can’t figure out how to get his supporters to support the nominee of the party then they should go back in time and strip him of his party membership for being a craptacular leader as well as a lousy human being.
dogwood
@singfoom:
Here’s a myth that everyone seems to buy into when it comes to Bernie. He is not driving a wedge between the center and the left of the party. Clinton received more votes from self-identifying liberals than Bernie. 56% of his voters were moderates. His campaign was designed to drive a wedge between white voters and POC. People who tell me that he’s the future of the party scare me.
Citizen Alan
@Chris:
I’ve always been amazed and horrified that no one made a big deal of that. That line was from an essay by Westwood Pegler, a pundit from the 40’s and 50’s who actually cheered for the assassination of JFK and who actually got kicked out of the BIrchers for his extremism. The only person the she-demon felt the need to directly quote in her 2008 Convention speech and it was a god-damned fascist.
Betty Cracker
@singfoom: I used to think Sanders was acting in good faith too, but reality has overtaken that hypothesis, IMO. There’s no doubt in my mind now that there will be a big divisive stink at the convention and media coverage of Bernie dead-enders protesting outside about how the process was rigged by the “establishment.” And the media will fall all over every sign of discord on our side to try to normalize the Trump freak show. Le sigh.
aimai
@dogwood: That is an excellent point.
philadelphialawyer
@Chris: Who gives a shit about his “good faith?”
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@dogwood: You have posted this before and I agree, he’s actually running the Jim Webb playbook.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@dogwood:
This is exactly right – he set out to drive a wedge through Obama’s coalition in order to cater to the white working class. That was his whole campaign strategy, as Devine explained to Politico back in January. Sanders set out to divide black from white, young from old, north from south, and that’s what he’s been effectively doing, and he’s been hand waving away people of color and their votes since Super Tuesday, when he effectively was told to fuck off. Like I’ve said many times, his bullshit “revolution” is a reaction to Obama – to the real revolution of building a winning coalition which happened in 2008, which sidelined white males as the overwhelmingly dominant force in electoral politics. His bullshit “revolution” was about reasserting white male supremacy disguised as left white populism. It explains Cornel West and his inability to be gracious in his loss to Clinton. Fuck him.
Fair Economist
The polls are indicating that Bernie’s genuine supporters are getting behind Hillary in a hurry; much faster than hers got behind Obama. I don’t think a tepid endorsement or convention protests will do much to change that. What they *will* do is profoundly marginalize the hard left in the Democratic party by convincing all the rest of the membership that they’re nuts and can’t be trusted. Meanwhile these preposterous corruption allegation are convincing the lefties to return to whining from the sideline and third-party actions, which will get them ignored, just as they have been the last 40 years.
It’s heartbreaking to me that Bernie’s campaign, which seemed to be awakening a genuine left movement in America, looks to finish by burying it.
Davebo
@singfoom:
At this rate he may not get a chance to do or say anything at the convention. And who could blame actual Democrats from making sure he doesn’t. It is the Democratic convention after all.
philadelphialawyer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: So true. Sanders is a divisive, entitled prick. Fuck him.
Chris
@philadelphialawyer:
Good faith implied, or at least it seemed to to me from singfoom’s post, that he did intend to endorse at the convention, in which case, fine. It’ll be late, but not insurmountably so.
aimai
@Davebo: I am absolutely praying that Bernie doesn’t go to the convention. I think whatever imagined good could come from him giving a good speech endorsing Clinton is widely counterbalanced by the liklihood that he would give a shitty, begrudging, egotistical speech, like some ranting Pat Buchanan of the far left. And, frankly, I don’t think he’s a man of his word. I actualy don’t believe that he would let the Clinton campaign have veto power over his speech and I am sure he would fuck her over in a moment during the speech regardless of what he showed them beforehand.
philadelphialawyer
@Chris:
Miss Bianca, quite correctly, stated that Bernie was ALREADY fucking things up. That is the issue with his not CC and E’ing. Not his mental state, which Singform introduced, quite extraneously, into the conversation. Bernie is objectively fucking things up, right now, by not CC and E’ing, right now. What he intends to do at the Convention has no bearing on that. Nor does the purity quotient of his reasons…
D58826
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Sounds like good old Marxist economic determinism. Workers (white?) of the world unite. Racism/sexism/etc do not exist because they were not relevant to Marx.
Chris
@Fair Economist:
I wouldn’t go that far.
Whatever good, genuinely worthwhile, economic populist messages were expressing themselves in the Bernie Sanders vote, the torch will simply be carried on by Elizabeth Warren. She’d already been doing this for a few years before Sanders got him day in the light, and she’s frankly much better at it than him.
les
@Chris:
My understanding, which I hope is correct, is that if he doesn’t endorse before the convention, he gets no chance to endorse at the convention. If that’s not true, somebody better be on the dump button. Even if he does, really–I’ve gone from glad he’s in the race to not trusting him as far as I could throw Philadelphia.
Major Major Major Major
@dogwood:
Not quite, but that’s been the effect. We talked about his ‘race-blind’ flavor of Marxism the other day, I don’t remember if you were around. I’m terrible with names.
@philadelphialawyer:
Ah, but the BoB’s will let you have it with both cannons here. Don’t you know the system is rigged so that you always end up having to vote for the sellout neoliberal squish to advance the
Bilderbergcrypto-Zionistcorporate agenda, “in order to stop a fascist”? How convenient for the neoliberals.the Conster, la Citoyenne
@D58826:
Bernie himself has characterized racism and sexism as “distractions”, and boy, were the Berniebro assholes quick to form, and run with that ball. I wonder why all of their targets were persons of color and/or women? Hahahaha, no, I don’t.
Chris
@philadelphialawyer:
Hence this phrase:
Yes, he’s already doing damage compared to what he would have if he’d endorsed a week or two ago. As long as he endorses at the convention, it’s not insurmountable, and I’ll get over it. Beyond that point, not so much.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
TBOGG, TBOGG, TBOGG….
D58826
@les: As bitter an old coot as he seems to have become I think he is smart enough not to go full throat ‘screw Hillary’ in a prime time speech. But it will be a speech full of little digs and dog whistles of various intensity. That will leave him able to say ‘what me I didn’t say that your putting words in my mouth’ In the end will still do more harm than good.
philadelphialawyer
@aimai:
I agree. I think it would almost be better if his die hard delegates, the assorted “protesters” (what are they protesting?…this is not Chicago, ’68, and the nomination is not going to be given to HHH by the bosses…instead the woman who won the damn thing, democratically, is going to get it), and King Asshole Himself are left marginalized in some “First Amendment Zone” miles away from the Convention in Fairmount Park. I can just see him ranting and raving about all of his bullshit complaints, with his last ditch accolytes oohing and ahhing over his every word, while no one else but Fox News is paying attention to any of it.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
I actually had no idea where the line came from, and assumed she or her speechwriter came up with it. I suspect that’s why it didn’t get more attention – most people don’t know what it is, plus, it blends seamlessly with all the rest of the Republican rhetoric about how you should vote for them because they’re just such awesome people.
Thanks for the education, which manages to lower my opinion of her just that much more. And, damn; too extreme for the John Birch Society is like being too racist for the Ku Klux Klan.
Major Major Major Major
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: We’re doing our best!
philadelphialawyer
@Chris: Fine that you will “get over” the damage that Bernie is already doing.
But I won’t. Anything but maximum effort on the part of every political figure on the Left to defeat Trump is unacceptable to me.
Chris
@philadelphialawyer:
Okay then. We have established how you feel about things and how I feel about things.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: Great point about Warren. I’ve been holding a grudge against Sanders for so spectacularly fucking up a golden opportunity to leverage economic populism, but as you note, Warren got there first, does it better and doesn’t feel the need to sabotage the party to gratify her ego along the way.
philadelphialawyer
@Major Major Major Major: I know you are being tongue in cheek. But I would tell the BoBs, even accepting all their premises, that I don’t care how bad the neo libs are or how convenient it is to them to have a neo fascist as their opponent, it is still more important than anything else to stop the neo fascist.
les
@D58826:
Maybe, hopefully. But I can sure see him spending more time on needing to reform politics and politicians than actually saying anything positive about Clinton or Dems. Or on bashing Trump. The Revolution is what he cares about, and himself as its avatar.
Davebo
@aimai: I’m not ready to go that far but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a concern.
singfoom
@philadelphialawyer: My apologies for extraneously introducing Bernie’s mental state into the conversation.
@les:
Go fuck yourself, I wasn’t chiding Miss Bianca, I was agreeing with her that the whole cheated by corrupt democrats line from Sanders was bullshit, try Hooked on Phonics asshole.
@Davebo:
That may be for the best now. We’ll see how it plays out in the next couple weeks.
@Betty Cracker: I hope that we don’t have a shitshow convention as well.
D58826
@philadelphialawyer:
Fairmount park doesn’t deserve that. I remember that there is a small island in the middle of the Delaware river just off the south end of the main runways at International? It’s out of sight and Bernie would be drowned out by the jets taking off and landing.
aimai
@les: This. I just don’t get people’s insistence that Bernie really has a good heart at this point. I think its obvious that he has an enormous ego and he no longer sees any need to respect the rights, beliefs, or positions of other people in the party. The Op Ed the other day was a classic. How on earth do you talk about health care without tipping your hat to the sitting President? How do you have the gall to write that op ed from your position as candidate for a party that has rejected you at the polls? He’s a little man who has gotten a swelled head.
philadelphialawyer
@D58826: LOL! That would be perfect….Bernie wagging his fingers and flapping his gums, but all anyone could hear would be the jets….Not that the Bros would swoon any less!
philadelphialawyer
@singfoom:
Thanks for that nice apology. Really, it is all good.
But you do realize, don’t you, that, just as les implied, your “accepting” (or not) of the fake “rigged process” claims is just as extraneous to the conversation as was your estimation of Bernie’s mental state? The point, as has been made known to you, is how Bernie is acting, right now. NOT anything else, including whether or not you accepted the rigged primary process narrative.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Not to sound like a broken record, but, totally sounding like a broken record, and this is why I pray that Hillary doesn’t pick her as VP and that she doesn’t seek the White House. She can do more good as a voice for the economic left from where she is in Congress.
Mike in DC
They should have the ability to cut his mic the second he goes off script, or just have a 7 second delay.
That said, I do think that somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Bernie does understand the repercussing of dragging this out too long.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in DC: Oh, man, the Bernfeelers would go apeshit.
D58826
Oh my. The election has totally gone off the rails. I actual agree with something Michael Savage has said. Savage wants Gowdy impeached for wasting taxpayer money. And he thinks Hillary turned GOP members of the committee into idiots.
Just proves even a broken clock is right 2 times a day.
Its on the rightwing watch blog from Twittert
patroclus
TBOGG! TBOGG! TBOGG! I think Bernie and his bros are the greatest! Anyone have a comment on that??!!
singfoom
@philadelphialawyer: Yes, reality doesn’t give a fuck about me accepting or not accepting anything. Not sure where along the way in this thread that I said anything otherwise. Same as it goes for the rest here… I was responding to Miss Bianca about the “rigged primary process narrative”, agreeing with her.
I’m done with this conversation. I had an opinion on the op-ed which I put out way above. I have said repeatedly that I disagree with his campaigns actions and think he should have already conceded. Somehow by stating that I thought that Sanders was acting in good faith I have gone out of bounds. I’ll see myself out. You guys have fun, only 20 (probably less) till the TBOGG.
Miss Bianca
@singfoom: I dont know that the DNC can actually *keep* Bernie Sanders from speaking at the convention, but at this point I’d certainly be looking at giving him a not-for-prime-time spot if he can’t bring himself to endorse HRC pre-convention.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: It took awhile, but this is the conclusion I reached as well. And it sure as hell wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophesy as I started off liking and respecting Sanders. I am incredibly disappointed in the man and appalled that he appears intent on damaging the party’s prospects against a monster like Trump to satisfy his own petty need for score settling.
gwangung
@les:
More the latter than anything else, IMAO. If he wanted changes, he could exert a lot more effective pressure through persuasion and working within the machinery. The Dem party is long standing organization, and because of that, it has organizational inertia and presence. Those has its advantages, as well as disadvantages. Working within those capabilities is the sign of someone who wants long lasting change; not respecting those long lasting procedures is someone who, consciously or not, sabotaging the usefulness of the organization.
Miss Bianca
@aimai: Not only a diss to PBO, with no mention of his role in the ACA, but also no mention of HRCs role in really spearheading the modern health care reform movement. Way (not) to go, Sen. Sanders! : (
Does he really not see and appreciate what they did? Or could it be as simple, sad and spiteful as jealousy?
D58826
@Betty Cracker: And the thing is, it’s not like others are speculating on his positions. He is saying these things himself. Even when questioned he won’t back off his positions. He could not even say unequivocally that he would vote for Hillary. He made it seem like he was doing her some kind of favor by soiling his hands when he pulled the Hillary lever. He is hoisting himself on his own petard.
bmoak
@Betty Cracker:
What are the odds of the Black Bloc crew joining Bernie’ protestors in Philadelphia?
philadelphialawyer
@singfoom: Again, “not out of bounds,” just irrelevant. When the topic is whether Bernie should have conceded already, you can stop with a “yes.” When you bring up his “right” not to and his “good faith” it looks like you are trying to make excuses for him. And, when you go out of your way to state that you don’t “accept” the rigged primary nonsense it seems as if you are trying to establish your bona fides to make those excuses.
As for the TBogg unit thing, whatevs. Frankly, I don’t get the big thrill out of pointing out that heated primary threads tend to be longish. I actually enjoy reading them, and participating in them. Those that don’t, as you say, can see themselves out.
les
@singfoom:
Actually, you’ve shifted from screeching about SPEECHES and corruption and unqualified, and calling it “nuance,” to grudgingly supporting Clinton, to meeping about how awful all the vitriol and incivility by Clinton supporters is, because entirely without evidence you just know Bernie’s pure of heart and gosh we don’t want to drive his supporters away, do we, do we?
You’re BJ’s David Brooks, and the act is tiresome. Self centered and tiresome.
Elizabelle
Popping in solely to help give this thread another Friedman unit. Haven’t had a chance to read the comments yet.
Peace out, pals.
aimai
@singfoom: Don’t be upset, singfoom–I know you well as a perfectly reasonable, long time commenter! Other people are just getting into it like you do in a game of table tennis, lobbing ideas and things back and forth. Please don’t feel bad. Hang around for the tBogg unit!
les
@Miss Bianca:
That’s absolutely within their power. And I’m pretty sure I read the position is “no endorsement before the convention, no speech.” Could be just wishful thinking though.
Elizabelle
@Chris: Yup. I put my faith in Elizabeth Warren.
Pocahontas Power! That slap aside, she is the real deal. Team Hillary has a deep bench.
patroclus
That Justin Trudeau guy sure is cute! If it was him running instead of Bernie, I bet they’d be less criticism of him “taking it to the convention”!
aimai
@bmoak: I definitely think the blac Block people will be there with the Bernie or Busters, and perhaps some Roger Stone type ratfuckers. About the only thing the Republicans will have going for them after the obvious disaster of the Republican Convention will be headline stealing violence at the Democratic Convention. And I think we would be crazy not to expect that enough violence (or even one shirtless guy holding up a bottle of beer, as happened during the anti Iraq war protests) will totally push the carefully choreographed Democratic convention off the TV screens. If I were the democrats I would actually prefer, I suppose, keeping Bernie in the tent pissing all over everyone to having his supporters and his fake supporters literally rioting in the streets. I’d rather have the coverage of the convention than a split screen of my nominee accepting the nomination with black masked people smashing windows on the other side.
D58826
OT but the karma would be a b**h. from huffington:Can An Openly Gay Man Be Elected Senator In Kim Davis’ Backyard?
Jim Gray makes his case to the people of Kentucky.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
TBOGG!!!!
Major Major Major Major
tbogg?
EDIT: Woohoo! What do I win?
gwangung
@les: Got no problem with that. Both he and the DNC should be clear on that.
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major: Ding ding ding ding!
philadelphialawyer
[email protected]aimai: Sure, but who is to say we won’t get both…Sanders pissing on everyone inside the tent, and his delegates cheering him on, while, outside the tent, the dead enders, anarchists, or whatever they are start smashing windows and so on. Your way, both sides of the split screen suck. If Bernie and his Bros “boycott” the Convention, then at least half the split screen is good, and all the bad stuff is on the other half.
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Premature Tboggulation. I hear that happens some times in older gentlemen.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: you get to feed the troll of your choice for the next week:-)
Miss Bianca
@philadelphialawyer: there’s always the chance that a bunch of his *delegates* won’t show up, since it appears to have taken at least some of them by surprise that theyre supposed to be paying their own way…
dogwood
@patroclus:
Saw a picture of the three amigos together in Canada. They’re all pretty cute. I’m always proud and confident when Obama does these address a foreign parliament gigs.
philadelphialawyer
@Miss Bianca: They really are the gang who couldn’t shoot straight, aren’t they?
I have actually seen some BoBs imply that the evil DNC has made it hard for them to afford to get to and stay in Philly!
D58826
@Miss Bianca: What the corporate shills at the DNC and DWS won’t foot the bill. Just shows how corrupt they are.
D58826
@philadelphialawyer: Well if they take the surekill crawlway i.e. schuylkill expressway, they may have a point
Corner Stone
@D58826: God Damned naked link moderation. Do you even realize what you have wrought here? Do you?
Assface donkeyball licking naked link driving piece of blogarbage.
Citizen Alan
@Fair Economist:
Agreed. Between the BernieBros and the Jill Stein crowd, Progressivism is rapidly becoming defined by the worst caricatures drawn from 60’s hippies and 30’s Trotskyites.
gwangung
@philadelphialawyer: Couldn’t they have, you know, asked about it at the start of the primaries? (Yes, yes, I know…rhetorical question here).(As well as the observation that the “corrupt” local Democratic machinery will hold fundraisers to help delegates pay their way).
D58826
@Corner Stone: sigh. worked yesterday. I guess I’ll just have to go off and read the collected wit and wisdom of St Ronulus the Unprepared.//// ok done I’m back
NotMax
@patroclus
Small revision: Hamilton Fish (all of them).
philadelphialawyer
@gwangung: Being a Bernie Bro means you think you should get everything for free.
D58826
@gwangung:
Well in this case the quotes around corrupt are not really needed. Going after crooked Philly pols is job security for the local federal prosecutors. Sad but that’s the way it is. ‘D’ in Philly and ‘R’ in Deleware county not much diffewrence
Original Lee
@MazeDancer: AFL-CIO here, married to a Teamster. My parents are union, my siblings are union, and my in-laws are union. That’s what ticked me off about Bernie from the beginning. I thought Socialists were pro-union?
eponymous coward
I’ma make a prediction (we’ll see if I am right): Sanders will make a qualified endorsement of Clinton before or during the convention. Qualified because he won’t try to paper over the legitimate disagreements with her brought up in the primary campaign, and he will make it clear that his goal once she is elected is to keep driving things towards his goals during the Clinton presidency, should that come to pass, in the hopes that it will be “safer” for politicians to follow the people if there’s continuing pressure from them. Think gay marriage; Obama and Clinton wouldn’t endorse it in 2008. By 2012? It was safe. It took four years. So what kind of progress can we make on income inequality or reforming the Democratic Party in four years if we put our backs into it?
Sanders can legitimately do this kind of endorsement, because he made it clear during the primaries that Clinton was a far better option than any Republican, and an endorsement of “well, OK, but our movement isn’t over yet, and our support is for you as a better way to get to our goals than that monster Trump” is one that doesn’t break faith with his followers or tear apart the party.
(It also preserves the option of him running in 2020 if she’s a colossal cockup or breaks faith.)
D58826
@eponymous coward: if he lives that long. Running/electing a president who will be 78. High hill to climb. He better start thinking about a really really great VP. And she will break faith if for no other reason than events beyond her control will happen and force her to act. Even W went against his philosophy and signed TARP to prevent a depression. same thing will happen to Bernie if elected. Hopefully he woulds be flexible enough to set ideology aside.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
Lol project much?
Betty Cracker
@eponymous coward:
Realistically, we won’t make much progress on addressing income inequality until we retake Congress. That should be obvious as President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have been beating their heads against that wall for damn near eight years now.
As for reforming the Democratic Party, the Sanders campaign has made a believer out of me; I used to be agnostic on open primaries, but now I think it’s a good idea to restrict participation to Democrats. But regardless of what I want, it’s up to the states and likely to remain so. I couldn’t give a shit less about the superdelegates, which had fuck-all to do with the outcome of the 2016 primaries, but the fact that you mentioned “reforming the Democratic Party” in the same breath with addressing income inequality is pretty telling.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Can’t imagine why no one here takes you, or your fellow bro travelers, seriously.
Lurker Extraordinaire
Wake me up when Sen. Sanders starts helping to defeat Trump.
eponymous coward
@Betty Cracker:
Well, all the more important to get people voting in 2018, no? That has to be part of putting your backs into it. Surely Sanders knows that and can help communicate that (there’s been a nice start in 2016, but it’s only a start). If the biggest problem the Democrats have is placating a House/Senate majority that has 10-20 Bernie Sanders acolytes in it than only one Bernie Sanders, and an emerging social democratic wing of the party (and the demographics of the Sanders coalition seems to indicate this will be a bigger “problem” in 2020 or 2024 as Reaganite Baby Boomers die off), that’s not a horrible problem to have. (FWIW, there’s considerably less daylight between Pelosi and Sanders on issues than, say, Clinton/Obama and Sanders.)
As for reforming the Democratic Party, I don’t see why another commission and changing the rules for 2020 is going to mean that much in the near term during a Clinton presidency, so why not throw Sanders and people who want to make this less of a shitshow a bone here, as well as fix some problems this primary process has illuminated (I think a 6 month deadline to change party registration like in NY is ridiculous and caucuses are stupid)? Clinton presumably is an incumbent in 2020; let’s say the DNC penalizes delegate counts for states with caucuses, penalizes states that don’t allow same day registration as a Democrat to participate in closed primaries OR open primaries (or alternately/in conjunction rewards states that eliminate caucuses for primaries) and finally eliminates supers or makes them vote as their state did. No state is FORCED to change anything regarding elections; you’re just penalized or rewarded for going in a direction the DNC wants or doesn’t want.
Clinton’s either still going to win the nomination in 2020 or she’s screwed the pooch so badly that she’s taking on water like LBJ. This really affects 2024. How is making it easy for people to join up with the Democrats and participate in voting bad, exactly? I thought we were about expanding voting rights as Democrats. We should take our own medicine. (I get wanting to have Democrats decide who their nominee is… I think ratfucking in Presidential primaries as a risk is overrated, though, and feel the principle of “we want people to join our party and vote” is more important.)
I think the Sanders animus is overdone, personally. He hasn’t really done anything to make a rapprochment impossible, and there are legitimate differences a social democrat is going to have with someone who was the Senator for Wall Street and is clearly more comfortable with the liberal interventionist wing of the party than he is. I’m with Harry Reid on this one (who is a savvy pol and wouldn’t be afraid to stick a knife in Sanders); Sanders was a positive force in this campaign. It costs very little to try and harness the energy of his followers and to give them substantive wins, and have them in the tent as a “let’s push this party to the left” force. I’ll take it as a problem over the Tea Party Taliban.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I don’t have anything to add to the discussion. I just wanted to have the 530th comment in a thread.
Oh, and fuck that cranky old coot. Fuck him sideways.
philadelphialawyer
@eponymous coward: “Legitimate” my ear. Sanders, if he really means it about stopping Trump, should CC and E, right now. As a side, and most definitely less important, issue, his “movement,” to the extent that there really is one (and I doubt it), would not in the least be hurt by that.
LAC
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: thank you!! I never was taken with this self righteous sputtering windbag. Proof is in the legislative pudding, not in how many times you appear on the fucking Ed show.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Lurker Extraordinaire:
maybe or maybe not he’ll deign to on his precious snowflake schedule… any day now, I’m told by my progressive betters… any day now.
philadelphialawyer
@eponymous coward: What a lot of drivel. Shut up, Bernie. Unless you are conceding to, congratulating, and endorsing the presidential nominee of the party you chose to compete in, and the only person who can stop Trump. All the rest of it can wait, or can be negotiated. You and Bernie want open primaries. Good for you and him. But nobody gives a fuck about that now, or about what the two of you want. Even substantive, policy issues (as opposed to waah, waah, waah, we lost the primaries, so there must be changes….because I say so, and to make my loss look less bad, and my opponent’s victory less legitimate, and because, I, in my wisdom, find the current rules, some of which, like the NY primary law, have been in effect for a hundred years, to be “ridiculous”) can wait until after we get our act together to beat Trump.
“I think the Sanders animus is overdone, personally. He hasn’t really done anything to make a rapprochment impossible….”
That is so NOT the point. The point is that he is not helping to beat Trump. Right now. What he can do later to make it better does not erase the fact that he is not doing all he can do now. So, no, the animus is more than well deserved. Again, a neo fascist is running for the other party. Our sole focus now should be defeating him.
“….and there are legitimate differences a social democrat is going to have with someone who was the Senator for Wall Street and….”
Oh give it a fucking rest, will you. You, your “legitimate differences,” your phony “social democrat” bullshit, and your “Senator for Wall Street” slander. We heard all that already. So did the primary voters. And they chose the candidate who wants to continue the progress we have made under President Obama, and who has assembled the multiracial coalition we need to beat the Republicans, over the Senator from White Folks who like Guns and Moral Preening, Entitled College Students.
different-church-lady
Next time Betty posts about Sanders we should just declare a TBogg and close the thread immediately.
eemom
Notwithstanding all the above correct observations, people who really are NOT stupid, nor young, nor entitled assholes, continue to THIS DAY to fall for the Bern-schtick. I wasted a good part of my afternoon arguing with one, AGAIN.
WTF is up with that?
different-church-lady
DON’T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND CLINTON WILL NEVER WIN OVER ANY BERNIE VOTERS UNLESS PEOPLE STOP BEING SARCASTIC IN OBSCURE CORNERS OF THE INTERNET?!?!!!!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@eemom:
Seriously. What the ever loving fuck is his appeal to anyone not a politically naive, uninformed, gullible kid who believes in unicorns for everybody, totemic repetition of words like neoliberal and corporate sell-out, and free stuff? A very good woman friend of mine who’s 60 and politically aware, is retired on money she got from her divorce from her executive husband, and thinks “he’s the best!” He’s not even the best Senator from Vermont. It’s infuriating in the failure of his appeal to be based on any empirical reality.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
Amen! The fact that we’re screaming at Bernie and his bros about the fascists at the gate, means this whole Sanders bullshit is about something else entirely, and it’s not progressive, and it’s definitely not “revolutionary”.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: We won’t know if we’ve reached a Friedman unit until six months from now.
philadelphialawyer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Reminds me of something from “An Homage to Catalonia.” The Communists and anarchists (and others) in Barcelona arguing among themselves while the fascists are literally at the gates. The Bernie Bros want to debate about superdelegates, open versus closed primaries, strategies for the 2018, 2020 and 2024 elections, and the “legitimate differences” their ever-so-pure, “democratic socialist” demigod has with the “Senator for Wall Street,” while Trump and his fascists are threatening to turn our country into Franco’s Spain.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
and, just like clockwork, there’s a post on my FB feed from the die hard dead ender Bernfeeler posting that Susan Sarandon STILL isn’t convinced that Hillary is worth voting for over Trump, unironically. What.the.everloving.fuckety.fuck.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
Bernfeelers are apparently incapable of learning from the past, and the Bernfeelers insist on forcing us to repeat it to heighten the contradictions, man, the effects of which they will blame on neoliberalism and Wall Street and not taking advantage of the chance when we had it to vote for Bernie Sanders, the Great Deliverer from that awful tool of the Establishment Obama and his winning coalition of women, PoC, and the highly educated.
LanceThruster
Hillary’s ‘theme’ is whatever seems expedient at the moment. She will be the Dem’s Titanic if she gets the nod.
Bernie or bust.
philadelphialawyer
@LanceThruster: “if she gets the nod”
Says it all. Reality meet idiot.
different-church-lady
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Jesus… we’re gonna have to figure out a way to win this thing without the Sarandon bloc…
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
Who would you rather go to war with against the Fascist and his orc army – the reality based Obama coalition all coalesced around tough as nails and clear eyed Hillary, Warren, Biden, and **OBAMA**, or an army of reality challenged whining clueless Berniebros like LanceThruster who can’t even accept the fact of delegate math? Thinking…. thinking…
@different-church-lady: OH NOES WE WON’T HAVE SUSAN SARANDON
different-church-lady
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You have to forgive them: they were never interested in being involved in politics before Bernie spoke to them, so for them there was no past to learn from.
eemom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Sounds exactly like my 54 year old woman physician friend. I kid you not, she posted the other day that she’s still hoping Hillary will be indicted so “my man Bernie” will get the nod.
Again, we are seriously talking some Jonestown level cultshit here.
And as for Susan Sarandon, FUCK. HER., eleven ways to Sunday. I happened upon Thelma and Louise while switching through the cable channels the other day, and the very sight of her stupid face made me sick.
Betty Cracker
@eemom: Literally every Sanders supporter I know in real life has accepted the primary loss and is resigned to voting for Clinton. Not all are happy about it. Some still think Sanders is the bee’s knees and don’t get why it’s a problem that he’s tying the party up in placating his precious fee-fees instead of focusing on hanging the orange buffoon around every down-ticket wingnut’s neck, but wevs — they aren’t Trump enablers like this moron.
philadelphialawyer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Totally see your point, but how is that even the choice at this point? It’s over. Even if I preferred Bernie (and I am chagrined to say that I almost voted for him), why would that matter now? Assume Lance Thruster (nice name, bro!), is right, and Hillary is “the Titanic,” still, shouldn’t he, and, more importantly, Bernie, be working with her to avoid the ice bergs? Or helping her do something to stay afloat when she does strike them? Bernie lost. Hillary is now our only hope of stopping Trump. You either get onboard the Hillary boat and be a lookout and/or grab a bailing bucket, or you are helping Trump, even if only by omission. That’s all there is to it.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
That would mean he, and his bros, cared more about the country than their own egos. Facts not in evidence, clearly.
philadelphialawyer
@eemom: Sarandon lives in a two million dollar penthouse in Greenwhich Village. If Trump wins things will go sideways for most folks, but Susan, like Tom and Daisy at the end of “The Great Gatsby,” will simply retreat into her money. Fuck her.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
Too many people like Bernie and his supporters who purport to be progressives, are just careless people.
philadelphialawyer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Carelessness, yes.
I couldn’t remember the other thing, besides money, that Tom and Daisy retreat into….
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness….”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@philadelphialawyer:
Yup. Anyone hanging onto Bernie and withholding their vote for Hillary at this point, regardless of their economic status, can afford to be careless – probably due to their whiteness/maleness/socioeconomic privilege. When the vast majority of people of color and other marginalized communities overwhelmingly voted for Hillary – because she’s not promising half baked pie in the sky – that was my cue that they want nothing to do with Bernie, because they can’t afford carelessness. There’s no retreating into wealth or carelessness for them. There’s no margin for error, because they’re already hanging on for dear life. That was all I needed to know about the viability of Bernie’s candidacy in the Democratic party.
Harold
Why, oh why, does the left feel the need to always tear itself apart!?
This is why we lose, people. We NEVER see the Right cannibalize itself as the Left does, via articles like this. Look to the UK, and its the same story, the Left can’t shut up and be happy with Corbyn. Look to the SPD and they aren’t even happy with themselves. Look to Syriza and its the same story.
Please, people lets stop getting angry at the people on our side. Lets be cohesive. Remember solidarity?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Harold:
The coalition needs Bernie supporters too. It’s up to them to come on board, because there’s no option other than Trump. We just wish Bernie would get with the program. Is that so hard to understand?
Applejinx
@eemom: We can keep telling you but if you keep not listening it’s kind of pointless.
Never mind Bernie. People both here and in the UK have figured out that ALL politicians in the last 20 years have screwed us completely, setting up a globalization hellscape that’s the worst of all possible worlds. Rich people get to not notice. Everybody else gets increasingly preposterous lies.
The fact is, it’s time for that to change. I do honestly think Hillary Clinton can get out in front of that change and take credit for it with the help of Elizabeth Warren. I also think it’s god-damned laughable to pretend she’s been this liberal darling all along.
And you’ll never see those speeches, and that’s a GOOD thing because it means she doesn’t want to admit them or cosign them. They’re un-speeches, and all they ever were was a tongue bath to Wall Street and some tiresome hagiography of bankers and MOTUs that Hillary’s having second thoughts about, for good reason.
Applejinx
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
This. Every now and then I agree with Citoyenne completely. It’s my black friends I looked to for this, and it was a wake-up call. It also taught me something about Clinton loyalty to constituencies.
LanceThruster
She picks ‘themes’ based on what is expedient at the moment. Hillary is the Dem’s Titanic.
Bernie or bust.
philadelphialawyer
@Applejinx:
“And you’ll never see those speeches, and that’s a GOOD thing because it means she doesn’t want to admit them or cosign them. They’re un-speeches, and all they ever were was a tongue bath to Wall Street and some tiresome hagiography of bankers and MOTUs that Hillary’s having second thoughts about, for good reason.
You know what I “think?” I think the all fucking important “speeches” are deck chairs. You want to re arrange them. Remember, Hillary is the Titanic, but you, at least, know she is our only ship. Why focus on the deck chairs?
“I also think it’s god-damned laughable to pretend she’s been this liberal darling all along.”
I “think” that it is laughable that you think that this matters at all. Your “liberal darling” lost. So Hillary is all we’ve got, whether you have a crush on her or not. And, again, more importantly, I wish Bernie would see it that way, and start acting like it.
philadelphialawyer
@LanceThruster: Derp. Rinse and repeat.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Applejinx:
Yes. I get tired of the trope that Bernie pulled Hillary left, when his left flank was exposed around the issues of racism and sexism. All he did when confronted with that reality was dismiss it, and flail around moving the goalposts trying to justify why those millions more votes didn’t count.
Ruckus
I just sent Bernie a reply to his latest email.
If anyone reads it I’d bet they won’t like it. I’ve tried to unsubscribe to his emails before but they just keep coming.
Fuck this old coot. And his horse.
You don’t like Clinton, fine. She isn’t the person that the republicans have been telling you she is for the last 30 yrs, nor is she the person that Bernie has been telling you she is for the last yr.
And more importantly Bernie isn’t the person that you think he is either. And he FUCKING LOST.
Let me make that last point clear. Once again.
BERNIE FUCKING LOST.
Be a fucking adult. Move the fuck on.
philadelphialawyer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yep.
Applejinx
@philadelphialawyer: Yes. Nobody’s mentioned those speeches for a while, predictably. And Hillary is all we’ve got, and it’s up to her.
There is one more thing: if she learns from all this (and Brexit, etc) she’ll straighten our economy out for regular people, even if it takes unusual means. Bernie could not possibly have done this. We can give Hillary the power to do it.
If, against all the current signs, she goes full Wicked Witch Of The Banksters and gives no fucks about any of us once she’s got power (just like the wild fantasies of BOBs) she ain’t gonna last a term. Things are not stable enough to get away with that, and anyways the banks are more stable now so you can’t say they desperately need to be rescued first.
philadelphialawyer
@Applejinx:
You are mentioning them, though. You are not in the “Bernie should not concede” group. But you do seem to be in the “Bernie should concede, but….” group. As in, “Bernie should concede, but….’speeches.'”
“There is one more thing: if she learns from all this (and Brexit, etc) she’ll straighten our economy out for regular people…If, against all the current signs, she goes full Wicked Witch Of The Banksters and gives no fucks about any of us once she’s got power (just like the wild fantasies of BOBs) she ain’t gonna last a term. Things are not stable enough to get away with that, and anyways the banks are more stable now so you can’t say they desperately need to be rescued first.”
Again, I don’t quite know how to put this in a nice way, but all of that is not really the point. Bernie is bloviating and virtue signaling in the NYT. The OP is a critique of him doing that, and not conceding, congratulating and endorsing.
As I see it, that is all that matters. NOT what you, or me, or the BoBs, or anyone else, thinks Hillary will do, or should do, or what she can or can’t “get away with.” Neither what you think she should “learn” from Brexit (which, by the way, is more than a little bit condescending), nor whether you think she can “last a term” or not (also somewhat condescending, by the way). Not your (or my) predictions, or warnings, or musings about anything involving her putative Administration.
Bernie needs to concede, congratulate and endorse. Or else he is a liar when he says he is all about stopping Trump.
Hillary doesn’t need to do shit.
different-church-lady
Fuck it… let’s go for a DOUBLE TBOGG!!!
Harold
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Citoyenne, if one wants the Bernie people to come on board, which is what I want, then you don’t continually bash their candidate. You’re being just as irrational by complaining about the Berners as they are when they say Bernie or Bust. Also, it truly is the onus of the winners to convince the losers to come on their side.
Frankly, I never was psyched about either candidate. It just makes me sad to see people get all hyped up about THEIR candidate rather than a platform of sensible leftism. This sort of bickering is entirely counterproductive.
Stop it.
philadelphialawyer
[email protected]Harold: Wrong. The loser has to concede, congratulate and endorse first, Then, and only then, is the “onus” on the winner to be gracious, and to make reasonable concessions. That is how it has always worked, and that is how it worked back in 08, when the shoe was on the other foot.
You are also wrong with your “both sides do it” crap. Bernie is the loser. So, of course, it is on him to concede. Unless and until he does so, what the fuck do you expect but that Hillary supporters (as well as everyone who is focused on defeating Trump) are going to be exasperated with him, as well as with his dead end supporters whose stubborn refusenik attitude he is encouraging and enabling? Hillary has actually tried to appease this asshole, but nothing is ever enough for him, or his groupies.
Get it? Yeah, we all want unity. Now, how about Bernie doing his part, which is only fair, reasonable and customary? And then the process can continue. Or, instead, he can keep playing at being coy, and acting like he is still a “candidate.” If he does, the rest of us are not going to like it. Too bad if that hurts your fee fees and gives you a sad.
philadelphialawyer
@Harold: Also, we are hyped up about our candidate partly b/c she won, but, much more importantly, b/c she is all that stands between us and President Trump. And, right now, that matters a lot more than any platform.
LanceThruster
@philadelphialawyer:
We’ve had her supposed inevitable coronation pushed on us before a single primary vote was cast. Instead, we have a far preferable and viable choice.
I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don’t want, and *do* get it.
The ‘derp’ is the DNC’s ‘damaged goods’ candidate. She will sink like a stone. Before I saw how detestable she was, I was ‘vote BLUE no matter WHO.’
That is no longer an option. Bernie as the Dem candidate, or the Green Party.
Jill Stein knows how to put country above personal ambition. That would be completely alien to Sec.Clinton.
That ‘fucking old coot’ may just save the Republic yet.
LanceThruster
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/no-lesser-evil-not-this-time/
El Caganer
@LanceThruster: Before Bernie can save the Republic, he has to get the nomination…..I hate to be the one to break it to you, but he already lost that.
Rex Everything
[I saw the following online today & feel it’s worth quoting at length:]
Progressives trust Bernie, and when he eventually gives the nod, it will carry far more weight than if he had thrown in the towel without fighting to the bitter end. Deep down, I suspect that Clinton’s supporters understand all this. So what’s actually making them mad? Let’s lay it out in ten easy steps:
1. Many of Clinton’s supporters were politically progressive before this election, and would have been quite happy with a presidential candidate like Elizabeth Warren. Happier, actually, because she embodied their beliefs—especially in the economic realm—in a way that Clinton did not. It’s the self-identified progressives, as opposed to the actual centrists, who are displaying the most anger today.
2. These progressive voters seized on Clinton’s candidacy based largely on identity politics. They wanted a female president, and the emergence of Sanders’ candidacy was a complicating nuisance, coming after they’d committed ideologically.
3. At the same time, they didn’t want to believe that they were supporting a war hawk and a fiscal conservative, because that ran against their progressive ideals. Life was better when Clinton was the only viable non-Republican option, because they didn’t have to explain themselves.
4. On some level, they recognized that their politics were more closely aligned with Bernie. Nevertheless, identity politics kept them in Clinton’s camp.
5. In order to erase the cognitive dissonance and justify their support to themselves, they employed several strategies, like falsely attributing widespread sexism to Sanders supporters, and trying to paint them as exclusively male in an attempt to efface the vast majority of young women and people of color who backed him. If Bernie and all his people were covert misogynists, then their progressivism was phony, and it was okay to support Hillary. It also erased the need to discuss real issues—a convenient out, since Hillary’s political history doesn’t stack up well from a progressive standpoint.
6. By muddying the waters, they could convince themselves that in reality, there wasn’t much policy difference between the two.
7. Adding Elizabeth Warren as an ally made them feel good, because it reinforced that idea—if a true progressive is supporting our campaign, it must be okay.
8. After Clinton won, and Bernie began to fight for the platform, the cognitive dissonance began to rear its ugly head once again. A look at the finer points revealed the truth mentioned above—that if you support Clinton, you’re also on the side of fracking, free trade, carbon pollution, increased fossil fuel drilling, non-universal health care, and a frozen minimum wage. Again, this had the potential to make them question their progressive bona fides.
9. They didn’t want to feel like political centrists, much less fiscal, environmental, and foreign policy conservatives, so yet again, they had to drum up anger against Sanders. Sexism wouldn’t work this time, so the narrative shifted—Bernie is arrogant, Bernie is presumptuous, Bernie should just shut up and pretend everything is hunky-dory.
10. In this way, their self-conception is preserved, and the narrative is once again shifted away from actual policy. The dominant discussion is not whether fracking is a good thing that should go on indefinitely, but whether Bernie Sanders is hurting the country and the party by being a stick in the mud.
It’s a pretty impressive act of self-delusion. This is how certain progressives, faced with a real chance to change the country, have betrayed their own politics—and in many cases, their own generation—and handed the presidential election to neoliberals that will inevitably disappoint them. The only way to avoid looking in the mirror, it turns out, is to remain in a state of vigilant anger against anyone who threatens your feeble, contradictory belief system. In this way, they have more in common with Trump’s supporters than they’d ever like to admit.
philadelphialawyer
@El Caganer: Yeah. I don’t even get this. The argument is over, at least as far as the Dem nomination is concerned. If Bernie is going to run third party, well then, he is even more of an asshole than I thought. I guess that is theoretically possible. But continuing to bad mouth Hillary is not going to cost her the Dem nomination. Does this guy even understand that much? When he says “Bernie as the Dem candidate,” you have to wonder.
Emma
@Rex Everything: Nice try. Get the data to prove it and you have a MS in Political Science. Good luck and remember,no more than five years!
philadelphialawyer
@Rex Everything: Not you, I know, but another one with this “get the nod” thing. Bernie lost. There is no way in hell that the superdelegates, Dem regulars all, whom he has insulted and delegitimized since Day One, are going to break all precedent, overturn the will of the voters, and the majority of the pledged delegates, and give “the nod” to Mr. Maverick Outsider “I’m Not a Democrat.” What part of that don’t they comprehend? He admits at one point that Hillary “won,” and, I would think, that being the case, the rest of it doesn’t really matter, right? But, no, right at the top he is still talking about Bernie “eventually” getting “the nod.”
LanceThruster
@El Caganer:
And yet the convention has not been cancelled. SD’s might actually prove prescient. Again, if Hillary has the lock and Bernie dead-enders are inconsequential, then she’s on her way to making history and glory.
I see a gathering storm on the horizon. It ain’t over till it’s over.
I fucking love that ‘old coot.’ (so do ‘da yoots’) Her…not so much.
philadelphialawyer
@LanceThruster: And yet we are the self deluded ones….
LanceThruster
@philadelphialawyer:
The delusion isn’t that she doesn’t have a strong advantage in a rigged contest, it’s that she is a strong candidate in the general.
Ruckus
@LanceThruster:
IT’S FUCKING OVER.
Now it’s official.
Ruckus
@LanceThruster:
And the guy who FUCKING LOST to her is?
Speaking of delusional.
You should get that looked at by a competent medical professional.
El Caganer
@LanceThruster: If I were a Democrat, I’d find your suggestion to be very disturbing. You appear to be proposing that the SDs stage a coup and overturn the express desire of millions of voters. Coups tend to be incompatible with representative government.
Betty Cracker
@Rex Everything: Christ, what a load of horseshit.
philadelphialawyer
@LanceThruster: The delusion is that it isn’t over.
Miss Bianca
@LanceThruster: What are you smoking? I hope it feels good, because the shit it makes you talk is just whacked out.
eemom
[redacted]
Elizabelle
@LanceThruster: Hillary will be a fine candidate in the general
Way better than Sanders ever would have been. I wish he would deploy his skills for good. If he thinks the Democratic Party is as corrupt and empty as the Republicans, it is Bernie who is delusional
So much good has come from Democrats. Hillary will build on President Obama’s successes
Not that much you can do w dead Enders, be they Fox News morons or delusional far leftists. Got to live in the actual world.
Barb2
Cranky old coot – that’s a keeper. His name for the history books!
Or should that be Stone’s Cranky old Coot?
There were lots of guys like Sanders back in the 70s. Those guys grew up and moved on. But the cult mind contol tricks of the 70s still work on the youth of today.
Who wants to be talked at, lectured as we are brainless fools? He is projecting.
LanceThruster
@El Caganer:
SD’s have pledged for Clinton in states Bernie has won. How democratic is that? Her endless shapeshifting (such as her kabuki dance with Warren ‘scolding Wall Street), Hillary is for Hillary.
She will get too many innocent people killed to be right for the job. All the other handwaving about her so-called qualifications are just so much horseshit.
LanceThruster
@Elizabelle:
‘Far leftist’ only in relation to Hillary’s Republican-lite. Bernie was ahead of the curve on issues throughout his career, whereas Hillary endlessly triangulates.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Bernie dead enders just need to accept that they’re in a cult now, and that they’ve been duped. Bernie lost, fair and square, and nothing is going to change that. Every empirical data point – everything based in reality – confirms it. Everyone but them have moved on, and they’re clinging to delusions of their own making. It’s sad, and I hold Bernie in utter contempt for taking their money long after the possibility of him winning was a thing. He’s a con artist, and I hope his delusional followers wake up before it’s too late for them to come back to reality.
LanceThruster
@Ruckus:
Voter purges and other voter fraud certainly helped, along with a compliant media and DNC in collusion. MSNBC ran Trump 24/7 but the Bernie blackout was quite real.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@LanceThruster:
Yet, when the media gave him a forum, he showed how massively uninformed he was about his own pet issues, and well, everything else. He hasn’t thought through anything in 40 years, which is why all he can say is is his stump speech. He’s a fraud. Ever wonder why even Pat Leahy couldn’t support him?
LanceThruster
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
But Hillary will magically get money for more war, more state security apparatus, and more Zionist apartheid colonialism.
Ever wonder why noted economists support Bernie?
Bernie is true hope and change. Hillary is more of the worst aspects of corporatism.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@LanceThruster:
Bernie lost and both he and you are delusional.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
TBOGG Unit + 1!!!!
El Caganer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: No fair! You’ve stacked the deck with super-comments.
D58826
The Bernie plot thickens. The Hill has an article on Twitter about the next chairperson of the Health committee. Sen. Patty Murray by seniority and interest is in line for the chairmanship if the D’s take the Senate or the rankling member if they don’t. She is a long time ally of Hillary’s and would work with a Hillary WH to push Hillary’s agenda.
But Bernie has his little old heart set on leading that committee so he can push, among other things, single payer. Now if he had shown himself to be a team player, willing to compromise, then maybe that would be the plum that he would get. Murray would then take over Appropriations. Unfortunately he hasn’t shown him self to be a team player so why would Hillary want to see one more opponent in a key Senate role. She will already have the entire GOP against her program.
Betty Cracker
@LanceThruster: You mean like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman? Oh wait…
LanceThruster
@Betty Cracker:
PK happens to be team Hillary, but he is not the only one who’s weighed in.
LanceThruster
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2016/6/29/the-defeat-of-bernie-sanders
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think my response there was particularly ‘nice’.
LanceThruster
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/14/170-economists-bernie-sanders-plan-reform-wall-st-rein-greed.html
Paul in KY
@singfoom: I did & thanks for the OK. I makes me mad that he hasn’t & makes others mad too. Surely you can see that the only sane thing to do (if you want best chance of beating Trump) is for him to have done what I yelled.
It is very frustrating.
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: Glad you understand the stakes, Applejinx
Rex Everything
@Betty Cracker: Really? I find it to be broadly accurate. I mean, predicting your particular case would be too much to ask of such an analysis, but I’d say “progressive & early Bernie adopter, but blogs so frequently at a site with a toxic neolib commentariat that it’s her de facto community” is the exception that proves the rule. I mean clearly your only choices were (1) toe the HRC line, (2) become an utter pariah around here long-term, or (3) go MIA until the heat blows over, like Kay.
Paul in KY
@philadelphialawyer: Glad you got in here when I had to leave. Righteous comments!
Paul in KY
@Mike in DC: I wonder if his wife is the real deadender here. On the Repub side there are several examples of the wife actually being the nuttier/more hardass of the 2.
Paul in KY
@D58826: Jim Gray is a fine man & I would be beyond ecstatic if he could return Aqua Buddha to a life of self-certified teeth cleaning.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Paul in KY:
I’m actually quite convinced that this is the case. He only listens to two people now – Jane and comic book guy, who feed his worst instincts. She was behind the Rome trip – she loaded it up with her family members. I think she’s enjoying the Secret Service protection too- she’s got her hand in the cookie jar, big time.
schrodinger's cat
I know that Bernie’s followers like to toss the word neo-liberal like confetti on people who have not drunk the Bernade. I seriously doubt they know what it means.
Neoliberals were economists who believed in the micro foundations of macro theory. Prominent examples would be Milton Friedman, Lucas etc. Hillary and most Democrats are not neoliberal but Keynesian in their policy bent. They believe that government should interfere and step in when the economy hits the skids or heats up too much. The focus during Bill Clinton’s time was to interfere less
(no deficit spending) and now the consensus is more
tinkering may be necessary.
Bernie’s philosophy and rhetoric is straight up Marxist, which has been shown to be as ineffectual if not worse than the worst excesses of unbridled capitalism.
Paul in KY
@Rex Everything: That excerpt is so fucking stupid…
Paul in KY
@LanceThruster: Oh, by the way, you are a complete dipshit on Bernie or Bust.
schrodinger's cat
Posting again because moderation.
I know that Bernie’s followers like to toss the word neo-liberal like confetti on people who have not drunk the Bernade. I seriously doubt they know what it means.
Neoliberals were economists who believed in the micro foundations of macro theory. Prominent examples would be Milton Friedman, Lucas etc. Hillary and most Democrats are not neoliberal but Keynesian in their policy bent. They believe that government should interfere and step in when the economy hits the skids or heats up too much. The focus during Bill Clinton’s time was to interfere less
(no deficit spending) and now the consensus is more
tinkering may be necessary.
Bernie’s philosophy and rhetoric is straight up Marxist, which has been shown to be as ineffectual if not worse than the worst excesses of unbridled capitalism.
Rex Everything
@Paul in KY: On the contrary, it’s accurate, and it describes folks around here particularly well.
Paul in KY
@Rex Everything: ‘Toxic Neolib Commentariat’ would be a good band name. Maybe a ska act or some kind of punk, for sure.
Paul in KY
@Rex Everything: Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree there, Rex.
Rex Everything
@schrodinger’s cat: I strongly disagree with the notion that Hillary is Keynesian; I’m positive Sanders isn’t a “straight-up Marxist” (much as I wish he were). True Marxism seeks to do away with the redistributive welfare state altogether in favor of actual ownership by the working class — you don’t need to tax the rich when you’ve broken their vehicle for plundering the people. Bernie’s “socialism” is the classic Keynesian compromise: the rich still own everything & keep drawing their dividends, but we get a bigger piece of the action. As many leftists have pointed out, he’s no further left on the political-economic spectrum than the typical post-WWII, pre-Reagan (i.e. Keynesian era) candidate. Clinton is clearly & susbstantially to the right of this position, as a matter of both stated policy and historical record.
LanceThruster
@Paul in KY:
That Jill Stein invited Sanders to be at the top of the Green Party ticket shows that love of country over personal ambition has true merit.
That Hillary claims to be “fighting for us” is laughable on its face. Her campaign slogan should simply be “My Turn.”
schrodinger's cat
@Rex Everything: Neoliberals do not believe that government should interfere in the functioning of markets at all, with the exception of some monetary tweaking (Federal Reserve interventions) that’s all.
The Democrats have never been neoliberal, what has changed over the years is debate of what level of government tinkering is OK. The original neoliberals came to prominence at a time when inflation was very high. Many of their policies made some sense then and do not make much sense now.
The big debate in economic policy circles was is increased inflation a good price to pay for low unemployment.
D58826
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: You forgot the little voice in his head:-)
Rex Everything
@schrodinger’s cat: Leaving aside the fact that any comprehensive analysis of neoliberalism would have to include as defining characteristcs its faith in military intervention, its devotion to finance, its enthusiam for trade agreements and “globalist” policies that favor wealth, its hostility to public sector expansion, etc, and the fact that the first Neolibs weren’t Friedman and the freshwater school in the 70s but Hayek and Mises in the 30s… Rarely — or, actually, never — do you find the perfect specimen of any “ism” in the wild, particularly if you’re talking about actual candidates rather than economists. There’s no reason this shouldn’t hold true for neolibs, and in fact it does, even for Reagan and Thatcher. As for Clinton, if she’s not a neoliberal, she’s a whole lot closer to being one than Sanders is to being a “straight-up Marxist.”
Betty Cracker
@Rex Everything: Alternatively, you could grant me the assumption of agency and good faith; I’ve been pretty open about my journey and the reasons behind it. But since you put such stock in a theory that assumes women prioritize gender solidarity over policy and electability, I guess that’s out of the question.
Paul in KY
@Rex Everything: I do agree that his economic theories are not ‘Classic Marxism’.
Paul in KY
@LanceThruster: Jill Stein is a loser. You are a loser. Hillary will not be.
Rex Everything
@Betty Cracker: I don’t put that much stock in it; I just pasted it because it struck me as accurate. The point of it is not to deny your agency but to explain your anger. The tone on display above, and in many posts by many people, doesn’t strike me as consistent with “good faith.” Possibly that’s a sign of oversensitivity-in-defeat on my part; for what it’s worth I don’t think so. (By the way, the analysis isn’t that “women prioritize gender solidarity.” Progressives of whatever gender ID want a woman president; a number of them found they had prioritized this above actual policy. Again, I find this to ring true but I suppose YMMV.)
Jesse
Hillary Clinton earned my vote by enthusiastically nominating Barack Obama at the 2008 convention and serving as his Secretary of State. She’s proven to my satisfaction that she has principles and is capable of working with others to advance worthwhile goals. I categorically reject the characterization of her as ruthlessly power-mad. That person would have wanted to run against Obama in 2012; Actual Factual Hillary Clinton did not. Instead, she took a job that ensured she would not be able to do so. Because principles.
Bernie Sanders has proven to me that Bernie Sanders really likes to hear Bernie Sanders talk. Sure, he talks a lot about the greater good. When has he ever humbled himself in pursuit of it? Show me one time.
And before we hear more patronizing crap about gender solidarity: I’m a middle aged white dude. I just happen to honestly believe, having bothered to inform myself about Clinton’s actual record instead of a bunch of conspiratorial bullshit, that Hillary Clinton is by far the best candidate running this year.
But, Lance and Rex, you fellas have a good time with your bullshit.
Betty Cracker
@Rex Everything: It doesn’t work that way, actually: When you tell me my anger is motivated by something as dumb as peer pressure, you’re denying my agency. And you’re also ignoring and/or unaware of evidence that doesn’t support your theory, such as the weeks I spent defending Sanders’ behavior — often incurring derision in response — until I could no longer do so because I didn’t believe the excuses myself anymore.
I’m angry at Sanders for trashing the Democratic Party, dissing the president and nominee and undermining our most vital mission over the next few months, which is to keep a malignant, dangerous, narcissistic demagogue out of the White House. You’re certainly entitled to think I’m wrong in that assessment, but ascribing super-secret psychological motives is demeaning.
Also, I was using the term “good faith” to connote the sincerity of my professed views, not their comity. I believe that’s the generally understood definition of the phrase.
As for the “number” of mystery progressives who allegedly prioritize gender politics over policy according to the theory you posted, I don’t doubt such creatures exist somewhere — hell, we’ve got unicorn-believer Lance right here in this thread, so magical thinking is clearly a thing. But I see no evidence of it here.
The theory you posted starts off by assuming bad faith (“Deep down, I suspect that Clinton’s supporters understand all this. So what’s actually making them mad?”) and constructs a self-serving explanation out of rhetorical burlap, twine and hay. I find the resulting straw-liberals unconvincing.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jesse:
No one can, except some picture that purports to be him being arrested in a civil rights march back in the 60s, after which he disappeared to whitest white Vermont, never to be heard from on that particular subject again.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: He thinks private ownership is bad. That’s why he is against insurance companies. If that’s not classical Marxism what is?
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Classical Marxism is much, much more than that. If he is really against ‘private ownership’, he would be against all private companies, etc. That is if he was espousing ‘Classical Marxism’.
That’s just my personal take on it.
redshirt
It’s gonna be a sad day for page views when Sanders finally winks out.
Sanders supporters are like unlimited energy for this blog. Almost guaranteed TBoggs.
Scotian
I was going to let this go, but I can’t, it simply irritates me too much not to.
Applejinx:
Paid public speakers tend to, how did you put it, tongue wash was it, their audiences routinely as a part of what they are being paid to do, it doesn’t actually have any actual bearing on their actual positions/feelings for that audience. This is why the paid speeches angle was always a character smear attack disguised as some sort of principled proof of her “corruption”, of being “bought and paid for by wall Street”, and why so many people were and still are so offended by this particular line of “reasoning”. This was a large part of the essence of the “artful smear” that HRC called Sanders out for, and from watching this from next door, I found watching the Sanders campaign cloaking itself in the mantle of ethics and integrity and claiming to be running a positive issues based campaign while pulling this ugly nasty character smear one of the more blatant examples of political hypocrisy I’ve seen in a while in either of our countries.
Sanders ran a very nasty character attack campaign from early winter onward against HRC disguised as some sort of principled movement and frankly, it was one of the more disgusting shows I’ve been forced to watch in a long time. That so many were blinded by their adoration of Sanders to fail to see what is right in front of their noses, and still to this day do for many even some that have moved over to camp Clinton for the general, has not been a reassuring sight about what it says about where American politics on the left is concerned. We already knew the right side of the voting public as well as its politcos was bat-shit crazy and had been for decades now, so seeing such delusion and self-deception happen in the left side does not leave people who have to live in the shadow of American power feeling all that comfortable.
The paid speeches issue was always vapourware, and its use truly Rovian in nature and essence.
Rex Everything
@Betty Cracker: I’m not denying your agency. Everyone‘s choices are affected by their community. You’re still the one making them & the one responsible for them. I’m aware of your struggle with continuing to support Sanders, but — if you can’t see how a person could say this respectfully, I hope you’ll take my word that I don’t mean it disrespectfully — I don’t think you realize the extent to which these mountainous Sanders problems look like the puniest of molehills to anyone outside the bubble of this weird, nasty little comment section.
I do admit ascribing bad faith to you, but I deny assuming it. Don’t want to harp on this, but you’re right that I accuse you of bad faith.
Maybe it is demeaning, but I don’t like seeing people I think are basically very cool, like you & Ann & even Cole on his good days, warped and stunted by these shitty environs. Don’t want to demean anyone other than the average BJ commenter…so only a few hundred people, give or take. But not you.
Specific to this: I think it’s significant that moderate HRC folks attack BernieBros, i.e. the candidate’s supporters, while more progressive HRC folks attack Bernie himself. Just what it signifies, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s an easily observable phenomenon and the thing I posted takes a pretty good crack at figuring it out. Of this I’m sure: there are certain tacit understandings in this comment section that are rigidly enforced, and that also happen to be antithetical to any long-term progressive ideology. Among them, for instance, is the never-spoken but clearly strictly observed belief that you’re more culpable for voting for Nader in 2000 than Hillary is for voting for war in 2002. But the worst is the orthodox dogma that, no matter how many decades go by, no matter how many hard-won Left victories are stomped on and thrown away, it’s still basically the morning after Mondale lost to Reagan and the party needs to do every ugly, pragmatic, hypocritical thing possible to save itself as a party. You’ve thrown so many babies out with the bathwater already, but it’s like you won’t stop until there are none left.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
And of course, St. Bernard the Pure of the North just asked for another 45 day extension to file his personal disclosure form with the FEC, because he’s too busy “campaigning”. Uh huh. He and his wife are such grifting frauds. Why anyone would believe a thing this phony ungracious sore loser asshole says is beyond me.
Betty Cracker
@Rex Everything: I’ve explained in plain English why I think Sanders is behaving destructively and why that pisses me off. Believe that I arrived at that conclusion as a human being capable of forming opinions for herself or attribute it to my being warped by the Balloon Juice borg into professing that — whatever.
As for your theory that “moderate HRC folks attack BernieBros, i.e. the candidate’s supporters, while more progressive HRC folks attack Bernie himself,” that strikes me as bullshit just judging from what I know about the beliefs of the people who comment here. Some Bernie detractors on this blog are indeed progressives, but IMO, the most vociferous anti-Sanders commenters are moderate Dems, i.e., people who didn’t seem disturbed by the NSA disclosures, aren’t especially troubled by the drone program or TPP, etc.
If there’s a reliable predictor of enmity toward Sanders, I’d peg it to support for President Obama: lower tolerance for criticism of the president corresponds to a higher likelihood of contempt for Sanders. Still, I wouldn’t even call that theory airtight — it doesn’t really fit Cole or myself, I don’t think. It’s just an observation that debunks your pet theory — at least to my satisfaction.
Rex Everything
@Betty Cracker: I’d say that’s kind of an additional observation rather than a rival theory, and if debunking has occurred I’m missing it, but unlike Bernie I am willing to end this now.
Paul in KY
@Rex Everything: ‘but unlike Bernie I am willing to end this now’ – Got a laugh out of that!
Harold
@philadelphialawyer: Thanks for only addressing a single sentence of whose “responsible” for the unity. I shouldn’t have said it because it obviously has distracted you from my main point, which is: People on the left have to stop being a bunch crybabies about people ON THEIR SIDE. No matter how you spin it, Hillary and Bernie are both heading in the same direction, one opposite the people on the right. That’s my point. It goes well beyond all these petty presidential politics. The Left has historically spit on people on its own side far more than it has against the real threat. This is why we’ve lost 30 hence. Secondly, to quote Obama:
“You can be completely right and you are still going to have to engage folks who disagree with you.”
Its absolutely petty to complain about how BERNIE MUST CONCEDE. Why? You’re missing the point. The point is winning. You’re not going to win by bashing people on your own side.