The primary election season is fundamentally over. Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination. Compared to the 2008 election, it wasn’t even close.
The only way Sanders can win now, and he knows it, is to get all those undemocratic superdelegates to unilaterally switch over to vote for Sanders, ignoring the popular vote, which makes them even more undemocratic. He can’t do that without betraying the a core principle of his campaign, that he’s representing the will of the people.
My wife and I are Sanders supporters. He’s the guy we want, because we want someone to shake up the status quo (in a positive way, not a Trumpian way). We stayed up late to listen to his speech, because face it, the campaign has basically been over for weeks, and his further efforts are becoming quixotic. I wanted to see the man address the reality.
He didn’t. He lost California, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, and New Mexico, and won North Dakota. And he vowed to fight on to the very last primary in Washington DC, which is sort of defiantly virtuous, I suppose, but it isn’t going to help. Worse, I listened to his audience, and when he mentioned Hillary Clinton (graciously!), they booed. This worries me, because Sanders has two paths to take at this point.
One, he ignores the data and goes to the convention in Philadelphia, determined to get his way, with his supporters determinedly anti-Clinton. Clinton simply ignores him, takes the official nomination on the first ballot, and starts campaigning against Trump without looking back. This is where “fighting” gets him: he loses, and he loses influence.
Two, he recognizes reality, admits he lost to the better politician, and goes to Clinton and tells her that he can deliver the general election to her — he does have a solid base of support. Then he gets concessions on the party platform, maybe has a say in the vice presidential pick, and in return pledges to campaign for her against Trump. If he wants influence, he’s got to stay in the loop with Clinton for the next six months and beyond.
And to do that effectively, he’s got to stop fighting and start working to get his supporters who are booing Hillary Clinton on board with the election that counts.
Hillary Clinton is not the candidate I wanted, but she’s competent and will be decent middle-of-the-road president. She will be a better president if she listens to and respects the voice of Bernie Sanders, and that’s what I want to see happen in the near future.
I somehow agree with you regarding Bernie. However, in a system which is so unfair to a candidate, I am not sure (this is not a rhetorical point) how your argument regarding superdelegates holds. From the outset, the media, and the majority in democratic convention have been against Bernie; a process that was deeply undemocratic.
Furthermore, I think HRC is a terrible candidate (not worse than Trump of course), but as a Middle Easterner I cannot support her in any way. If I were American, I still wouldn’t support her, because she is not for the people, but for the banks and the corporations.
Also, it is HRC’s job to respond to Bernie supporters’ needs, not the other way around.
Yeah, I totally agree. The best thing Bernie Sanders can do at the moment is to stop Hillary from moving to the right in the general election.
That graph shows that even if you eliminate the superdelegates, Clinton still wins.
I agree that the Democratic establishment stacks the deck against renegade outsiders with radical new ideas. But that’s part of politics, and Sanders, as a career politician, has to know that. What he has to do is play the political game now, because I don’t want him to just disappear.
“But that’s part of politics, and Sanders, as a career politician, has to know that. What he has to do is play the political game now”
Status quo rhetoric from the guy who claims he wants to shake up the status quo.
I’ll be voting Stein in 2016.
I just hope that Bernie Sanders doesn’t grimly stick to a lost cause such that he functions as a spoiler against Clinton’s Presidential campaign against Trump. For all Clinton’s many faults, we had all better hope that she wins the Presidency, since the alternative is sure to be disastrous.
For Sanders himself, I agree that I don’t want to see him needlessly lose influence when he could help push a Clinton administration in a more enlightened direction, and I also hope that he isn’t unwillingly held up as a standard by the same kind of misogynistic dudebros who have dogged his campaign for months, and care not a whit for what he actually stands for but simply see him as a means of keeping a woman out of the White House. Sanders deserves better than that.
At this point, if all the superdelegates went to Sanders, he would not have enough delegates to win. Neither would Clinton. At that point, it would be a contested convention. Which, if the system and the party and the media and whoever else were really against Sanders, would mean that he had no chance at all: how could he, the underdog that the system hates, win a contested convention with superdelegate support?
Contrary to what Sanders’ supporters and possibly Sanders himself would have you believe, the system is not biased against him. On the contrary, he has been treated very gently by the media and by the Democratic establishment. He lost because he did not convince the voters. Specifically, he did not convince the non-white and non-male voters. Look at the map of California and consider where he won: northern California, the white belt. He thoroughly lost the more integrated southern areas. He and Trump are fighting for the same demographic, the disaffected white man. Oh, I know there are Sanders supporters who are neither white nor male. Heck, if I want proof I can look in a mirror and find a mixed race female ex-Sander supporter. But that’s not who gave him 90+% of the delegates. That’s not who gave him the chance to influence the ticket. That was the white male vote. And it wasn’t enough. I hope that in 4-8 years we’ll have a woman running who can be a “Sanders” economically but also be inclusive. There are candidates for the Senate now who might be that person, if they get elected. Sanders can help make that so if he will or he can set fire to the possibility. His choice. And that of his mostly white male supporters.
anarchobyron, #4
That’ll shake things up.
anarchobyron @ 4;
A recognition of the political reality on the ground is not the same thing as an endorsement of the status quo. Politics has reasonably been described as the art of the possible, ignoring that doesn’t advance the cause of progressiveness, but instead condemns it merely to the oblivion of supercilious political pomposity.
As is your right, but equally it is the right of others to adopt a longer headed look, and vote for Clinton even if they don’t have any time for her simply because she is infinitely preferable to Trump and his horrifyingly bigoted policy platform. By all means have your protest vote, but try to bear in mind that it is the people who hold their noses and vote in order to keep dangerous candidates like Trump out of the White House who are protecting the fundamental rights of all Americans, including your right to vote for whatever candidate you choose.
I’m firmly in favour of the superdelegate system, as an Australian. The start of our recent political chaos (look it up, if you’re curious) was a prime minister named Kevin Rudd, very personally charismatic, but loathed by most of the people who had to work with him. Still, the voters liked him, so they held their noses and put him in charge, and he romped home with policies that could charitably be described as like the opposition’s, but with computers.
Rudd had strengths – he was possibly the very best person Australia could have had in charge dealing with the GFC, and we didn’t fall into recession in large part because Rudd grasped the complex economic situation quickly and put through a hasty stimulus package and guarantee for the major banks. But he also had weaknesses, chief among them that he was absolutely fucking terrible at working with the rest of the party. Two years in, with the shine coming off, and having abandoned many of the policies he’d previously described as vitally important (chief among them an emissions trading scheme), the party decided the drama of nominating a different prime minister and overriding the will of the electorate was less harmful than having to deal with one more fucking moment of the guy.
Yes, sure, if the Republicans had superdelegates they wouldn’t have had Trump. But look at the kinds of people who are superdelegates – governors, senators, party thought leaders. Exactly the kind of people you need onside in a presidential system to be able to *govern* effectively. Sanders needed the party to agree with him on his agenda, or else he would have been a lame duck president as soon as he got elected. That’s what superdelegates are for.
Voting Clinton wouldn’t shake things up either, since it’s an obvious reproduction of the establishment and status quo. But the lesser of two evils platform has literally gotten us all the evil we hoped to avoid, and is a race to the bottom. Every election cycle the overall platforms move further and further right, but keep up the lesser evil, with the rightward tilt voting.
“By all means have your protest vote, but try to bear in mind that it is the people who hold their noses and vote in order to keep dangerous candidates like Trump out of the White House who are protecting the fundamental rights of all Americans”
You do know Obama has also been a HUGE part of eating away our rights. Killed the first American without due process, expanded the war powers act to defy congress, right to privacy is literally gone, and passed indefinite detention for American citizens. But yeah, that lesser of two evils approach is really securing our rights…. (my eyes are rolling).
If Trump comes to power and starts tramping all over your rights, just know he can legally do so given Obama’s precedents. And if Hillary wins, she’ll eat away at your rights too (but it will be okay cause she’s a democrat!), and eventually a future republican will have more non-rights to work with!
Actually, no, I don’t. Want to provide references for those claims? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I haven’t seen anything about these specific accusations before. Also, I thought indefinite detention was a Dubya era thing and that the Supreme Court torpedoed the “right to privacy” some time ago. Possibly the 1990s?
A vote for Stein is a de facto vote for Trump. You don’t understand math, and it shakes nothing up.
#11
I am for the better path which even you admit is Hillary in the short term. What data do you have that the next Republican to be elected will be worse than Trump (or even worse than Clinton)?
Your argument depends on your confidence that helping to elect Clinton now will be worse in the long run than supporting a third party candidate and effectively helping to elect Trump. I don’t buy what your selling.
Right. The Padilla case. Definitely before Obama and a case of indefinite detention without trial. From what I can tell, Obama signed rather than vetoing a bill that renewed and possibly expanded the government’s ability to detain citizens indefinitely, although stating that his administration would never use it. Not the best thing he could have done, IMHO, but the primary blame should be laid on Congress’ doorstep, not Obama’s. Vote Democratic downticket, even if you refuse, for whatever reason of your own, to vote for Clinton and that should improve the chances of that particular law changing in the near future.
In terms of Sanders as a candidate, he was only really vulnerable to Clinton if she hadn’t been working for this moment for 8-30 fucking years. His campaign strategy was fundamentally flawed – he started off trading the black vote for the white working-class vote – and never really recovered. More importantly, he was up against a candidate that was never going to win exhibiting traditional leadership traits (which all skew masculine, very few of which are actually important for leaders to have), and so changed the game by building as many relationships possible early so that the campaign was effectively over almost before it begun. Sanders pushed Clinton to adapt her platform to what the Democratic base wants in 2016, and I’m glad he ran, and it’s a shame that at some point during the campaign he died and was raised as a wraith, seeking revenge against the living.
The Sanders campaign (and staffers are now claiming, to the admittedly disreputable Politico, this started from the candidate) fell into a paranoid style of campaigning. Either Sanders was the future of America, or you were captured by special interests. They were trying to save America, and so the African-Americans who were aware that smashing the system means inequality gets worse, not better*, were told they didn’t know what was good for them. If you intimidated enough ‘shills’, usefully defined as anyone who disagrees with you, then the people would be heard, ‘the people’ usefully defined as ‘anyone who supports Bernie Sanders’. When you start assuming that people who disagree with you are enemies of the state trying to subvert it for reasons unknown, you start playing with fire, as we saw in Nevada, where dealing with a couple of unprofessional delegates ended up resulting in death threats for some Democrats.
Sanders would have been much more effective as an outside advocate, following in the footsteps of Al Gore, getting others to pick up his agenda and shove the Overton window to the point where America could start talking about universal healthcare and worker protection without seeming like a commie Nazi. Unfortunately, the wraith of Bernie Sanders can do none of these things – it’ll be hard to convince people to listen to your message if the people inclined to pick it up are more likely to whine about how the election was stolen by someone who won more votes.
* This is a common view amongst Marxists as well, I’m told, or at least the ones who’ve never been at the pointy end of structural inequality. The assumption is that if you get rid of the structures, then you get rid of the inequality. The list of counter-examples is long, from warzones to the clusterfuck the Occupy Wall Street movement became, but in general, structures are built by people, the inequality comes from those people and it becomes their cultural heritage. The only way to actually get rid of structural inequality is to fix the systems then get rid of the people. More practically: stop making new racists and wait for all the old ones to die off.
Okay. First for killing the first US citizen without due process:
http://www.thenation.com/article/jeremy-scahill-killing-anwar-al-awlaki/
http://www.salon.com/2011/06/01/free_speech_4/
He also killed Al Walaki’s son, an american citizen, who was 16 and killed by Obama’s drone strike:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/
Okay, now in regards to expanding the war powers act, this when he invaded Libya which was NOT A THREAT TO US LIVES (war powers act explicitly only allows the president to intervene, without approval, if the US is at risk)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/how-obama-ignored-congress-and-misled-america-on-war-in-libya/262299/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/opinion/21Ackerman.html?_r=0
Here’s an article on Obama APPROVING INTO LAW the INDEFINITE DETENTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS:
https://www.rt.com/usa/160832-ndaa-gitmo-detention-approved/
“Pres. Barack Obama vowed when he signed the 2012 NDAA into law on December 31, 2011 that he would not use the indefinite detention powers provided to him by Congress. When that provision was challenged in federal court, however, the White House fought back adamantly and appealed a District Court ruling that initially reversed the indefinite detention clause, eventually sending the challenge to the Supreme Court where it stalled until earlier this month with the justices there said they would not consider the case. ”
So again, this is all just under a Democrat. If you’re scared of Trump killing US citizens, throwing them in jail, spying on them, etc., you have the precedents set by Obama to thank for that fear! But again, he’s a democrat, the lesser of two evils, so why worry (I bet if Bush was doing this stuff you would have known about it, but because it’s Obama it all flew under your radar).
If you don’t know about how the right to privacy is gone I would have to ask: how the hell have you not heard of Edward Snowden and what he leaked!?
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files
“A vote for Stein is a de facto vote for Trump. You don’t understand math, and it shakes nothing up.”
And a Trump supporter would say it’s a de facto vote for Clinton. Considering I’m so radically off the spectrum from either of those two candidates, I’ll let you two bicker about which of you is really right.
Dianne, I replied to what you said, but it’s awaiting moderation (I guess cause it has a half dozen links).
Killing an American using carefully targeted military power, overseas, not in a state of war, sure, that’s probably a new Obama thing. I don’t like it, but it seems like small potatoes. To me the issue with the drone war isn’t the citizenship of the target, it’s the fact that it’s murder.
Killing an American without due process has been going on since there’s been a country calling itself America. Under Obama, it’s become an issue that actually makes the news, which is progress of a sort.
“From what I can tell, Obama signed rather than vetoing a bill that renewed and possibly expanded the government’s ability to detain citizens indefinitely, although stating that his administration would never use it. Not the best thing he could have done, IMHO, but the primary blame should be laid on Congress’ doorstep, not Obama’s. ”
Yes but then when ID was challenged in court, his administration adamantly defended it, and took the issue to the supreme court. He fought to secure it. So not only did he not veto it, he tried to ensure its continued existence.
Try talking to some gay people about how their rights are being secured under Obama. Try talking to some trans people about whether the State Department and the Department of Justice has their back. Some people have rights they didn’t have before, but it doesn’t matter because they’re not you and your cup does not runneth over with compassion when you feel threatened.
Try talking to the people America tortured. It’s difficult, several of them can’t speak, but America was violating human rights and has now stopped that because that is apparently how low America has fallen. That is what America looks like when it feels threatened.
I could probably draw an analogy here, but if I imply it it’ll sound more convincing.
Are you KIDDING me with this comment:
“Killing an American using carefully targeted military power, overseas, not in a state of war, sure, that’s probably a new Obama thing. I don’t like it, but it seems like small potatoes. ”
SMALL POTATOES!?
Jesus, I bet if Bush or Trump did this, it would be a big deal.
It violates the 5th and 14th amendment and is ENTIRELY too much power to give any human being!
You do the UN considered the treatment of Chelsea Manning to be torture under Obama.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un
Hey I’m super happy that we have gay marriage now, but I don’t know if that totally tips the scales in regards to everything else I just mentioned (wanton death policies).
@17: Thanks. I found the reference to the killing of an American without due process (thank you for pointing that out: it’s better to have the truth than to sleep at night). I would note that this act was also legally based on Bush’s post-911 laws and that at least one Bush official quoted was unsure as to whether they had assassinated any US-Americans or not. So not exactly Obama going power mad more than the average Republican either.
I’d also note who else was in the Senate when these acts occurred: Bernie Sanders. Maybe I’ll try to find his vote on these issues.
I’m dead serious. I don’t believe a US passport makes someone more worthy of life.
“I’m dead serious. I don’t believe a US passport makes someone more worthy of life.”
That statement I agree with. of course. But I also think as a matter of US government, that’s not a small potatoes act. not only do US citizens deserve due process, so do people we are suspicious of overseas.
Dianne, he also killed a 16 year old American, who was definitely NOT a terrorist. That’s lunacy.
Funny how all the Trump supporters are out in force.
Clinton is the only viable candidate to stop Trump. That is my goal for this election, sending Trump back to his bankruptcies.
Time to quit complaining about Obama. He will retire in a few months.
I don’t either but I do believe that if the concept of a country has any meaning at all, one of the major duties of the country is to protect its citizens so an argument can be made that US citizens should have better protection against the US government than others. Though if I could stop the Obama administration from doing one thing, it would be drone killing in general, not specifically from killing US-Americans with said program.
Totally agree Dianne @28!
But his policies won’t. They’ll still be haunting us like the Patriot Act has haunted us the past 8 years. Clinton can possibly be successfully pressured to stop some of this crap. She has been pressured to change her position* on immigration to a rather Merkelesque one. She may well be ready to repeal the Patriot Act and the War Powers Act if she gets the right signals from the electorate. Trump will never be in a position to be so pressured.
*Or maybe she had a genuine change of heart. I don’t know. All I know is that her campaign page has a much more liberal proposal for immigration than currently in place. Certainly way more liberal than Trump’s would be. Not that anyone in their right mind would want to immigrate to Trump’s America…except someone whose current home had been destroyed by Trump, of course.
As seems to be the case with elections in general, this post ignores the obvious third option— Sanders endorses Stein and uses his influence to back her for the presidency.
After all, Sanders is politically much closer to Stein than to Clinton, while Clinton is much closer to Trump than to Sanders. Stein is already on the ballot, but she has no means of running a campaign; Sanders lost his shot at the ballot but he has run a campaign and has the means to continue running it. If Sanders can pivot his already-existing support base to back Stein, we might be saved the certainty of another four years of the White House being occupied by a warmongering Wall Street coddling bigot.
Of course, playing politics could mean that Sanders uses the threat of backing Stein to extract concessions from Clinton, but it also means lying like a rug to get elected. I wouldn’t trust anything Clinton says on the campaign trail; Sanders shouldn’t either.
With that slick combination of falsehood, sanctimony and projection, you might want to consider voting for Trump.
First, you characterize a Clinton vote as the “longer headed look” when voting for an evil DINO out of fear of a technically-worse Republican is a completely reactionary position to take, in contrast to the long term view that understands (a) that voting for a right-wing DINO only moves both parties further to the right, (b) a right-wing DINO losing to a third-party liberal may well bring the Democrats back to the left, (c) there is no chance the Republicans will win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate so the next two years are guaranteed gridlock no matter what, (d) the President and their party tends to be disproportionately blamed for anything that goes wrong, meaning that if we’re guaranteed to have gridlock it’s better that it happen on Trump’s watch, and (e) even the worst case scenario of Trump ruling with an iron fist for two years is worth it if it brings the Democrats out of their march to the far right.
Second, you classify Clinton as “infinitely preferable to Trump.” This is essentially an article of faith among Democratic brand loyalists. In nearly every debate, I hear someone say that Clinton is clearly and unmistakably better than Trump, yet when asked to support this position they tend to draw a blank.
And third, you use the “your rights are upheld by the people who threaten them” line which is basically straight out of the Republican playbook— sure, you have the right to free speech but you should keep in mind that you only have that right because American soldiers are murdering Iraqi children in your name! Obama has been a disaster for our fundamental rights, and he beat Clinton in 2008 because she was promising to be worse.
If you didn’t vote for Bush in 2004, you have no business voting for Clinton in 2016.
He didn’t do any of those things! I know this because I believe on faith that all Democrats are infinitely better than all Republicans by definition, and since Reagan didn’t do any of those things it means Obama couldn’t have. Don’t bother citing any actual evidence, because I’ll just call you immature and then sprain my arm patting myself on the back for being a Very Serious Person who understands that Politics Is The Art Of The Possible, and not torturing political prisoners just isn’t possible.
Also, if you support Stein rather than Clinton, that proves you’re just a sexist who hates the idea of a woman being President.
Recent history (ie, over the past 40 years) has taught us that any Democrat who takes the White House from a Republican will be just as bad as the Republican they unseated, while any Republican who takes the White House from a Democrat will be worse than the Democrat they unseated. Hence, there has been a constant shift to the right— Reagan was worse than Carter, Bush Sr. was just as bad as Reagan, Bill Clinton was just has bad as Bush Sr., Bush Jr. was worse than Bill Clinton, Obama was just as bad as Bush Jr., and now we’re offered the choice between Clinton (who is just as bad as Obama) and Trump (who is worse). If we continue the policy of blindly supporting any Democrat, we’ll end up going into the 2028 election with the Gregory Greenwoods and the Nerds of Redhead arguing that we need to support a Democrat that has been functionally equivalent to a third Trump term because the only alternative is a Republican who is even worse.
Obama on his own could have negated/repealed the Patriot Act (Bush, 2001), an act of Congress? I don’t think so Tim. Not with rethug control in congress. They are the problem, not Obama or Clinton.
@32 Obama came into office with a democratic majority in both houses of congress….
I got an idea, how about instead of blindly defending a party, you defend progressive values?
The former is predicated upon power, the latter morality.
@32: Tim? Is this some sort of slang the kids are using these days or is wordpress doing something odd to the names?
Of course Obama couldn’t have repealed the Patriot Act on his own! Neither will Pres Clinton or Trump* or even Sanders be able to unilaterally negate whatever Obama chooses to do in the next few months. Which is reason enough to continue to pressure him to do the right thing during that time. Because his successor will live with whatever he does.
*Though Trump with a Republican Congress will have a good chance of repealing a lot of the better things Obama has done.
Okay. How? That’s not a rhetorical question. What do you think the best move at this point would be to defend progressive values? Which values are most important to defend?
anarchobyron, #34
How does voting for Jill Stein in the 2016 election defend progressive values?
I’ve talked to some bi people about Obama regularly and their opinion has generally been sour— marriage equality may have made the news, but Obergefell v. Hodges ended discrimination against bi and gay people to exactly the same degree that Loving v. Virginia ended racism. Worse yet, Obama actually opposed that— he ran in 2008 on the principle that same-sex couples should only be entitled to separate but equal “civil unions,” and he fought to defend DADT and DOMA until the bitter end.
Incidentally, I’ve also talked to them about Clinton. Perhaps you can guess what opinions they have about a candidate with a long history of pushing cishet bigotry. You get three guesses, and “Clinton became the staunchest supporter of LGBTQUIA+ people the minute public support for gay marriage hit 51% and she ‘suddenly’ had a change of heart and realized she supported it” doesn’t count.
I think you’re the only Trump supporter here, so technically your presence means “all” the Trump supporters are posting in this thread.
Does this mean you stopped complaining about anything Bush did in June of 2008?
I disagree.
The idea of nations is much like the idea of race or gender— it’s a social construct that does great harm and little if any good and should be abolished. Treating it as legitimate by ascribing a “duty” to nations to “protect” their citizens (by treating non-citizens as subhuman) is abhorrent. At the same time, being illegitimate and a social construct doesn’t make nations any less real, so it’s incorrect to say that the concept of a country is “meaningless.”
That said, there is a continuum between “in-group” and “other” where gay white cismen are closer to in-group status than any black transwoman, and progress (or regression) can be judged based on how far from the core in-group we are willing to extend basic human dignity. As such, being willing to put out a hit on a US citizen is a regression because a US citizen is closer to the core in-group than a foreigner.
I wouldn’t count on it. If Obama couldn’t be persuaded to support any liberal policies, do you really think his conservative challenger from 2008 will?
She’s changed her position or she’s changed her website? This is Clinton we’re talking about— she will promise anything to get elected and you’d be a fool to think a change in her campaign rhetoric means a change in her position.
Exactly what “signals” do you seriously think she’ll receive that Obama didn’t?
I believe Sanders did address his current situation in his speech, but you kind of had to read between the lines. He emphasized — and of course he’s always said this, but it seemed to me more central than usual to his points last night — that it wasn’t about him; that change required all of us. He said “the struggle continues” — rather than, necessarily, the campaign. He spoke of carrying “our ideas” to the convention, IIRC. And so on.
I don’t think he’s going to fold before next week, before D.C. gets a chance to vote. Not that he’s going to win D.C., not that there are massive numbers of delegates to gain, but because there are still supporters there, who’ve been waiting all this time for their turn to vote, and quitting now would be to betray them, in a way. But after that, we’ll see. I doubt that turning the superdelegates has ever been a serious strategy — more just a rebuttal to premature claims of HRC victory.
Do you seriously need me to explain the concept of an election, and how your votes signify a very real support for the candidates in question because they actually choose the candidate?
I’m not too worried about most of Bernie’s supporters coming around to support Hillary, or at least showing up to vote against Trump. Yeah, there’s the dead-enders (including the ones in this comment thread), but at the end of the day most Democrats are going to vote for even a morally compromised Democrat over the wannabe fascist thug heading up the other party’s candidacy.
The foreign policy stuff almost doesn’t matter. That stuff carries on between Presidents precisely because it’s so institutionalized, and Bernie wouldn’t have been that different. What matters is who gets to pick the next couple Supreme Court justices, because that can totally redefine the policy environment for the next quarter century. If you don’t believe me, go look at how much trouble the Lochner Era Court gave for any and all progressive reform efforts before the Great Depression – that was damn near 28 years of obstruction.
If Trump wins, that will not teach the Democractic Party to be more like Sanders, it will teach them to be more like Trump. I thought that much was obvious.
@19
“Killing an American using carefully targeted military power, overseas, not in a state of war, sure, that’s probably a new Obama thing. I don’t like it, but it seems like small potatoes. To me the issue with the drone war isn’t the citizenship of the target, it’s the fact that it’s murder.”
And this is precisely why ten or twenty years from now you’ll be telling yourself that a president who only kills 10,000 atheists is an improvement over one who wants to kill 20,000 so you should support them instead.
Pharyngula caves. Wow! Shocker!
Well, consider the difference between Carter and Bill C. Clearly, 12 years of Reagan/Bush did not convince the US public that they wanted a leftist.
Do you seriously think voting for a non-viable (meaning electable by the general populace), sends any message other than I hate the democrats and fallaciously think a Trump presidency will lead to a leftist resurgence? There is no clear thinking going on.
Stein will be unable to govern, as she lacks what is required. People of the same party in the House and Senate to help with her agenda.
Concern troll is concerned.
“Two, he recognizes reality, admits he lost to the better politician, and goes to Clinton and tells her that he can deliver the general election to her — he does have a solid base of support. Then he gets concessions on the party platform, maybe has a say in the vice presidential pick, and in return pledges to campaign for her against Trump. If he wants influence, he’s got to stay in the loop with Clinton for the next six months and beyond.”
I reject that Clinton is the ‘better politician’, but independent of that, what should he do if Clinton and the rest of the DNC refuse his offer of support? It has seemed abundantly clear that Clinton has no desire to tack to the left on any of her policies beyond a few speaking points, and that the Clinton camp doesn’t care about the votes of Sanders supporters in the general election. So – instead of advice to Sanders, what is your advice to *Clinton*?
Jake Harban, #40
I’m not talking theory. I’m talking about this upcoming 2016 election to decide who will be president of the United States starting in January 2017.
Is there any actual evidence that this is a likely issue? The last interaction I heard was Sanders picking five members of the committee that will write the Democratic platform (Clinton picked six). This doesn’t sound like an absolute rejection and refusal to tack left to me.
dianne @49 :
“The last interaction I heard was Sanders picking five members of the committee that will write the Democratic platform”
except for the one that was rejected:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/06/bernie-sanders-dnc-union-platform-committee-223787
Yep – they’re working with him alright. I think there is every possibility that they will take this fight as done and marginalize or ignore Sanders and his supporters as Clinton pivots to the *right* for the general election. And once to the right, that’s where she’ll stay. Welcome to a second era of Reagan-ish policies for the next decade.
OK, see, in an election, everyone casts a ballot and then the ballots are tallied and whoever gets the most votes wins the election. This means that when you vote for a candidate, you’re actually supporting them.
This means that if one candidate on the ballot supports progressive values while the others do not, a vote for the progressive candidate constitutes support for the progressive candidate and the progressive policies that candidate supports.
I disagree that HRC is a better politician than Bernie. It is frightening to think of President Trumpty Dumpty. There are polls that say HRC can’t beat him!
Incidentally, part of the democratic “expertise” has been to suppress votes. Do the democrats really think that all those suppressed voters are going to come back and vote for HRC in the general? I would bet that a large portion of them will be so enraged that they’ll pick up their marbles and quit voting. My experience is that it’s really hard to get democratic votes in the first place. Suppression of democratic votes?; watch out! Here comes Trump!
Cross-posted from the Moments of Political Madness thread.
Current Democratic delegate count:
Clinton total 2,755 (2,184 pledged delegates)
Sanders total 1,852 (1,804 pledged delegates)
Hillary Clinton won in California, and by a bigger margin than polls predicted. Clinton 56%, Sanders 43.1%. Clinton added 257 delegates to her total, Sanders added 188.
Sanders won in Montana with 51.1% to Clinton’s 44.6%. Sanders added 11 delegates, Clinton 10.
Clinton won in New Jersey with 63.3% to Sanders 36.7%. Clinton added 73 delegates, Sanders added 47 delegates.
Clinton won in New Mexico with 51.5% to Sanders 48.5%. Clinton added 17 delegates, Sanders added 14 delegates.
Clinton won in South Dakota with 51% to Sanders 49%. Each candidate added 10 delegates.
No need to pay much attention to Republican results. Trump won everywhere and took all of the available delegates. In most of the states, people continued to vote for John Kasich and Ted Cruz, but to little effect. Kasich got 11.3% of the vote in California, for example. Trump now has 1,536 delegates. 1,237 are all that is needed for the nomination. Republicans are screwed.
If progressives wanted to shake up the Democratic Party and bring it to the left, they could have done it when McCain or Romney were the nominees (I remember making this argument at the time). Both would have been bad presidents, but they wouldn’t have been as historical awful and dangerous as a Trump presidency will be. Clinton is so clearly head and shoulders above Trump as a candidate yet people seem to be choosing now as the time to burn it all down.
I’d like to sit back and be happy that I have Trudeau as my prime minister, but unfortunately the “leader of the free world” does affect the rest of the world.
And that’s not even going into how a Trump presidency will affect your Supreme Court and reproductive rights in your country for decades to come…
alkaloid @43: I suggest reading what you quoted.
If the government were routinely killing atheists by the thousand, using the military to kill foreigners abroad and the police to kill citizens within the country, then no, I wouldn’t see it as a big deal the first time they used the military to kill a citizen overseas.
Hillary Clinton’s victory speech is posted here:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/california-primary-hillary-clinton-historic-speech-democratic-nominee
and here:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-pledges-dem-unity-and-reflects-historic-victory
Jake Harban @ 31;
I love you too Jake.
I’m not an American, so I can’t vote for any of the candidates, though my life is still effected by the outcome.
I like the way that you write off Trump ruling with a free hand for two years as a price worth paying to effect some kind of policy trajectory correction in the Democrat party. I imagine many Muslim Americans, many Americans of Mexican descent, LGBTQ Americans, and pretty much anyone is both American and woman (cis or trans) might feel rather differently, not least because the price they will be paying will not be the price you would be paying. Other people have more riding on the outcome of this election than you or I.
At the same time, the outcome you think this will secure for the Democat Party is far from certain – there is no basis to assume that the Democrats would react as you suggest, and indeed the political experience across continental Europe, where Far Right candidates and parties have had significant success in recent years, is that victories for the Right not only embolden other Far Right groups but also push more centrist politicians toward a more Right leaning position in the belief that this might allow them to secure some of those votes.
Just look at the narrowly avoided situation in Austria recently which very nearly had it’s first Far Right President (the Austrian system is different than America in that the President has far fewer powers, though could still dismiss Parliament if they so chose). Assuming that American politics is not a beast entirely alien to other democratic systems, it is eminently possible that a Trump win would shift the Overton Window decisively to the Right, since if such an extreme candidate for so long viewed as a joke can get into the Oval Office, then others – from both sides of the political divide – may well decide that they could and should seek to emulate his approach. Trump wasn’t always a Republican after all, and the possibility of a Trump type candidate arising from the Democrat Party is far from an impossibility, especially if the Trump brand of politics is proven to get results at the polling booth.
Clinton isn’t planning to build a cripplingly expensive (in terms of initial construction costs, maintenance, and political capital) wall on America’s border with its southern neighbour.
Clinton isn’t openly and unapologetically Islamophobic and racist, especially toward Latinate peoples.
Clinton actually has political and foreign affairs experience beyond judging beauty pageants in Russia.
Clinton is making a stand for the rights of women, where Trump mostly sees women as disposeable and interchangeable sex toys, and assumes that any hard questions they ask him are products of their menstrual cycles.
Clinton isn’t dangerously paranoid and given to personal attacks upon anyone who criticizes her in a fashion that would complicate important working relationships once she enters office. The same can’t be said of Trump.
Clinton doesn’t fixate on the notion that entire swathes of the judiciary are engaged in a personal vendetta against her, and hasn’t intimated that she plans to use the power of Presidential office to try to muzzle the judicial system in her favour in a fashion that would fatally undermine the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.
Clinton doesn’t have a fantasist mindset such that she is proven to have pretended for an extended period to be her own press officer, and in that role boasted to journalists about herself in the third party and her supposed business acumen and various sexual conquests.
How’s that for starters?
If you read my words again, I am sure you will see that I was describing the people who vote tactically to prevent the most dangerous candidate getting in, rather than Clinton herself. And yes, a vote for Clinton does protect rights relative to a vote for any other candidate, since she is the nominee with the best chance of beating Trump, and if he gets into power attacks upon the rights of marginalized groups are a certainty. It is not as though he makes any effort to hide his intentions. Split the Democrat vote to spite Clinton, and you risk the outcome of the election of a man who is practically the living definition of the word ‘bigoted’, and then have to rely on Congress maybe holding him in check, which is a risky proposition at best.
Again, I would have difficulty voting for any US candidate without engaging in some serious electoral fraud. Democracy also doesn’t work that way – you don’t get to tell people which candidate they have any ‘business voting for’. The whole secret ballot and political enfranchisement rights thing must be terribly annoying when you are just so darn certain you know better than other people how they should use their vote, but there it is. You’ll just have to try to use persuasion (or, in your case, the literary equivalent of yelling really loudly and obnoxiously at people to do what you say) like the rest of us. Them’s your breaks I’m afraid…
Jake, #51
The fault is mine. I think I wasn’t spelling it out enough:
What will the vote of the people who are saying they’re voting for Stein do for progressive values on January 20, 2017?
The one thing that made me regret voting for Bernie was a recent article which argued that Hillary would need to move to the *right* to appeal to Bernie voters.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/how-can-hillary-clinton-win-the-bernie-vote.html
What was even the point of voting for Bernie? The point was to push Hillary to the left, but apparently it doesn’t do that, because of who Bernie’s supporters are.
@59: It kind of makes sense. Sanders voters are white men. No matter how much they affect “progressive” values, their core concern is and always was and always will be remaining in charge. The only way Clinton is going to appeal to them is to grow a beard.
Saad @58
It will help the progressive Green party get over the 5% threshold and qualify for Federal funds. This in turn will help a progressive party fight for progressive values. I am not entirely sure why you see that as a bad thing.
Anyone have any actual science on what voting for a third-party candidate does? Up thread, there are competing claims: do our progressive causes get furthered or hurt by strategic voting in the US.
Seems like there’s good questions to formulate and answer around that, but I don’t know much about political science.
The first woman ever just won the nomination for President from a major party. Lighten up a little and celebrate — this is a BFD. And she’s going to win the Presidency. That is a BFD.
I have been a Clinton critic since my active support for Jerry Brown’s candidacy in 1992. I wanted to support Sanders, but I have grown to dislike him over the course of this campaign, notably for his tone-deaf approach to any kind of identity politics and now for his staggering hypocrisy about superdelegates and general grumpiness. I voted for Clinton yesterday, and the best part about that was seeing the joy in women’s faces, including (to her own surprise) my partner’s.
Next up: shattering the Republican party. And celebrating.
It is “mowing the grass”. It is Trump’s strategy silently put into action: “kill them and their families because their sons will grow up to be terrorists too”.
I agree with the basic premise that Sanders should concede, join the fight and seek influence. But if this was the 1st Pharyngula post I ever read I probably wouldn’t come back. Among other howlers,
>admits he lost to the better politician
Why on earth would, or should he do that? He lost to the machine, not to Hillary per se.
Wrong. He did lose to Hillary. You may think otherwise, but it isn’t the truth, and seems rather like a conspiracy theory justification for his loss.
I have been sharply attacked by the resident raging Bernie Bros on Pharyngula, but the FACTS SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE ENTIRELY.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/257028/story_image/HillaryWins.jpg?1464543213
In stark contrast to the usual Bernie Bro lies the nomination got stolen the FACTS show clearly that Hillary would’ve triumphed over Bernout in any scenario under any rules! And while we’re at it, the hateful, harassing Bernie Bros love to deny their own existence, but there’s plenty of proof of their ugly vitriol!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ch9H98YUkAAko6z.jpg
Not content with voting and arguing for their candidate, they energetically harass the supporters of Clinton online and elsewhere and demonize this infinitely more competent candidate.
What could Hills possibly learn from listening to the empty bank-smashing-fake-revolution rhetoric of that empty suit? Nothing, that’s what.
@62 numerobis,
I’m also pretty interested in what political scientists have to say about third parties. The US has a plurality voting system, which makes it extremely vulnerable to the spoiler effect. For instance, if Trump had a clone and voters didn’t coordinate, he would be virtually guaranteed to lose. This is possibly the only problem that having more Trump in the world could solve.
IMHO, the main effect of third parties is to modify the correct strategy of the main candidates. So if you want to push Clinton’s politics, threatening to vote third party could be effective. But if you just don’t like Clinton as a person, what’s she supposed to do about that, you’re SOL.
Oh yes, and to pre-empt the usual whining of the Bernie Bro brigade, “Bernie Bro” is a unisex term. As Rand and that woman who founded the Quiverfull movement have proven, women can be mouth-foaming bros too, and there’s plenty female Bernie Bros.
So don’t waste your energy to piant me sexist, Vivec.
@62:
Just ask Ralph Nader’s supporters in Florida and New Hampshire how voting their hearts instead of their heads turned out.
We don’t need a hypothetical statistical analysis, we need only look back to the 2000 election.
How the other (almost) half of the Democratic party she will be a candidate for thinks?
@67 applehead:
Well, the more interesting question is if Hillary could still win if all states allowed everyone to vote and not just the registered Democrats. I read some article that tried to answer it but the methods were not sound.
kdemello1980@70: “We don’t need a hypothetical statistical analysis, we need only look back to the 2000 election” — looking at one example and having a strong visceral reaction is pretty much the antithesis of a scientific approach.
Siggy@68: the US system is unique far as I know in being so strongly 2-party: fewer than 1% of seats are won by independents and minor parties! It is not at all unique in having plurality voting. So something else is up.
lotharloo@72: or, could Clinton win without having started as the anointed one. Then again, it’s because of her hard work with the oligarchs that she *did* start there, and the US is an oligarchy.
As far as the demographics of Bernie’s voters go, it’s kinda obvious where the problem comes from. He’s VERY much a single issue candidate which is all well and good…IF that single issue is also the only issue you have in your life.
For example, I’ve asked many Sanders supporters this and have NEVER gotten an answer: How in the hell does free college and breaking up banks help Tamir Rice? Or Trayvon Martin? or Michael Brown or Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, ect?
This is why Sanders bombed so hard in the south. Because the primary problem facing African Americans is not economic issues, it’s Racism. Now, sometimes that Racism takes the form of economic oppression, but it’s still Racism at the core. And I have never seen the slightest HINT that Sanders grasps this and it is something that many African American’s actual LIVES often depend on.
Additionally, voters in red states, such as southern African Americans, are actually highly loyal to the Democratic party, largely because the few Democrats they manage to get elected tend to be the only shield they have against the Republican majorities in their states. Which tends to make Sander’ jihad against the DNC unappealing to them.
The fact that Sanders dismisses those same southern African Americans “low information voter” racist bullshit doesn’t exactly help either.
For contrast:
Most of them have since endorsed Clinton.
—–
So, yeah, if you have a uterus, you could be left to die like Savita Halappanavar, but hey! Bernie will send Wall Street bankers to jail! That’s helpful!
Granted, Sanders is not terrible on reproductive rights, but Clinton is better.
And, to be blunt,Sanders calling Planned Parenthood “the establishment” while embracing the (apparently not Establishment?!) Vatican didn’t exactly do him any favors with women either.
So, yeah, if economic inequality is your only problem, I’m sure you think Sanders is awesome…but if you have literally any OTHER issue you’re facing, you probably find him lacking.
Except Bro is absolutely a gendered term, and one that makes me really fucking uncomfortable given my status as a transgender person that doesn’t identify as male.
Your shitty refusal to not misgender me aside, I don’t even qualify as a fucking Bernie bro, seeing as I’ve always been a member of the “I’ll vote for whatever democrat has been nominated” club, and have repeatedly defended the accusations of misogyny towards some Bernie supporters.
Here in Illinois, you tell the election officials what ballot you want for the primary when you vote. You can only get one. Clinton won here in Illinois. Some states allow independents to vote in either primary.
I would prefer to not be implicitly fucking misgendered by virtue of the fact that I supported Sanders for much of this campaign, by the way. Can we maybe not do the “Sanders supporters are white dudebros”/randomly fucking accusing me of being a Bernie Bro thing?
Or are we so fucking liberal that a transgender person’s feelings don’t fucking matter in the face of getting idiotic political snipes at people?
Whoops, missed the huge fucking scarequotes around “liberal” there (which you certainly fucking aren’t if you value political sniping over misgendering people)
@70 After spending literal hours one morning arguing with Sanders supporters about whether Bernie’s ever been properly vetted or not, I came to the conclusion that there was no way in hell any of the people I was arguing with where old enough to have any functional memory of the 2004 election. So, in general, I don’t recommend pointing even further back.
(If you’re wondering, it was a thread debunking the polls saying he would do better against Trump. Basically, people were pointing out some of the Sanders scandals the Republicans could go after him over in a hypothetical Sanders/Trump general. The Bernie supporters kept countering by claiming saying that the scandals weren’t real. Like, they thought Bernie could just go on TV and explain what was up with them and that would just be the end of it. And no amount of explaining “Swiftboating” or “the Dean Scream” would dissuade them from holding in to this delusion. It was cute in it’s own way, but also dangerous.)
Sort of like Benghazi, the non-scandal that still shambles on.
As for the Dean Scream, my grandfather, a Democrat until Carter and Republican thereafter, he couldn’t understand what the heck was going on there: there was just literally nothing for him to hang onto with that “scandal,” and he tried.
Since you’re not American, there’s no reason you’d have memorized the intricacies of American government, but despite the disproportionate attention the office receives, the Presidency has little real power. A president can veto bills, can negotiate with foreign countries to the extent allowed by Congress, can appoint Supreme Court judges but only with approval from the Senate, and is “in charge” of the military in an incredibly tenuous sense. The primary power a President has is incidental— sense they’re presumed important, people pay attention to them.
As Obama supporters have spent the last eight years saying, a President can’t really do anything without support from 51% of the House and 60% of the Senate. Trump won’t get it, so the idea of him “ruling with a free hand for two years” is absurd. Since neither party is likely to win the 51/60 needed to actually govern, we’re going to see two years of gridlock in which nothing will get done— and due to the quirks of American culture, the President will receive a disproportionate share of the blame for that.
What about disabled Americans? Or do we not count?
I do appreciate the irony of a privileged foreigner lecturing me about what I have riding on the outcome of this election. Gee, I dunno, it’s not like anyone considers me expendable since I can’t work. In fact, I’ve literally never heard any American ever suggest that it’s my fault that I’m poor, or that I deserve to starve as soon as my family can’t afford to keep supporting me. I can just rely on government support that no one running for President would oppose the existence of.
That’s there. This is here. America’s political system is very different.
In Europe, there are generally multiple parties in any one country, and nearly everybody will be able to vote for a candidate they can at least tolerate.
In America, there are two parties who have almost complete control of the country— the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. There are others (such as the Green Party), but the Republicans and Democrats have shaped the laws to give themselves a disproportionate advantage. The problem is that both the Republicans and Democrats are far right parties by American standards (and especially by European standards). Or perhaps more accurately— the Republican Party is a far right party, while the Democratic Party is still a “big tent” with far right, centrist, and moderate left candidates all under one umbrella, but its leadership is far right, and its candidates have become disproportionately far right under that leadership.
Because of the Republican/Democratic stranglehold on government, a strong showing by any third party is newsworthy— and a mere 10% of the vote would be a very strong showing. Democrats losing because most voters chose the Republican candidate is politics as usual; Democrats losing because they hemorrhaged votes to a liberal third party is major headlines. The Republican/Democratic hold over politics is so absolute that would-be Democratic voters trying to break it on behalf of a liberal candidate would be a message the Democratic establishment couldn’t ignore.
On a more practical level, who else is there for me to vote for? I’m not backing a far right candidate on the promise that she might throw me a crumb while she’s signing the government over to the rich and powerful.
Wait, Austrian Presidents can dismiss Parliament and you think they have less power? America’s President is little more than a figurehead.
Sure, it’s possible. However, it’s far more likely that a Clinton win would shift the Overton Window decisively to the right for a number of reasons:
(1) The President has little power and great responsibility— although Presidents have little authority to enact their agenda, they tend to get most of the blame/credit for the country’s state of affairs. Since Congress will be gridlocked for the next two years, it’s preferable that the blame for that fall on Trump.
(2) Every Presidential victor since 2000 has seen their party lose ground in the subsequent midterm election. A President Trump would be a boon for the Democrats in 2018.
(3) Although they’ve moved far to the right, the Democratic Party still has a (mostly undeserved) reputation for being left-wing. Accordingly, “what the Democrats do” basically defines the left edge of the Overton Window, while “what Republicans do” defines its right edge. While Clinton is slightly to the left of Trump, she could shift the Overton Window much farther to the right by establishing her Bush-like policies as the most liberal the Overton Window permits. Case in point: This thread, where liberals who raked Bush over the coals for torture, murder, and imperialistic wars will defend those same policies when perpetrated by Obama and Clinton.
(4) Trump winning a majority is very different from Trump “winning” with 30% of the popular vote thanks to a large number of people declaring: “Trump and Clinton are so unacceptably far to the right that I will defy their two-party control rather than support either.” Given the realities of America’s political system, “Stein gets 10% of the vote” would be bigger news than “Trump wins.”
Oh, no. History has made two points inescapably clear: (1) If Trump wins with a clear majority, then the Democrats will try running a carbon copy of him in 2020, and (2) all the people backing Clinton in this thread will make angry posts defending Democratic Trump on the grounds that he’s a Democrat and thus infinitely preferable to Republican Trump by definition. Of course, if Clinton wins we’ll only delay the inevitable— Trump will be back in 2020.
The only way to pull out of this vicious cycle is to make it clear to the Democratic establishment that we won’t support them without question and we will vote third party if their candidate is unacceptable.
Trump won’t be able to build that wall. Breaking his campaign promise will cost his and his party’s credibility; if he harps on it, that’d cost them more credibility.
Intent doesn’t matter. That Clinton is less open and unapologetic about her Islamophobia and racism doesn’t make her any better of a President.
Her “foreign affairs experience” consists primarily of starting imperialistic wars, murdering children with drones, and endorsing destructive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this regard, Trump is actually the preferable option; last I’d heard, he was pushing an isolationist policy that’s completely unworkable but less likely to get people killed.
Exactly what “stand” has Clinton made? I don’t care about rhetoric; I don’t care what empty promises she made on the campaign trail; from what I’ve heard, Clinton’s actual record is pretty tepid.
Another issue on which Trump is actually preferable. If we’re stuck with a far right President, I’d much rather it be a brash and obnoxious Republican who alienates people from himself and his party.
The President’s ability to actually muzzle the judicial system is effectively nil; what rhetoric they spew on the campaign trail is largely of no consequence.
Yet again, you make a point in favor of Trump. The President’s main power is an unofficial one; the ability to command attention and advocate for their preferred policies. Since Clinton and Trump intend to use that power to push more or less the same far right policies, I’d rather the office be given to the obnoxious clown who will taint them by association than the sober politician who will taint liberalism by associating it with them.
Somewhat lacking, actually. Here’s some you may have forgotten:
Clinton has a long history of supporting imperialistic wars. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Libya— name the pointless war, and she’s supported it. She even advocated going to war against Russia in a roundabout way, and there’s no way that could be a very costly mistake.
Clinton has a long history of supporting disastrous “trade” agreements. Her husband wrote NAFTA, and she’s been using her position to back the TPP.
Clinton has a long history of coddling Wall Street.
Clinton’s history on Constitutional rights is a fairly sorry one— name any bill that strips away yet more of our basic freedoms, and you’ll find she supported it.
Clinton has a history of supporting bills which, though not necessarily racist in intent were certainly racist in effect.
Clinton has been opposed to health care reform for decades, and will continue to oppose health care reform once in office.
Clinton has a long history of opposing LGBTQUIA+ rights, even going so far as to praise Reagan’s (mis)handling of the AIDS epidemic.
And while this one is a personal issue of little concern to anyone else— Clinton opposes the disability benefits that I may well need to live on before 2020.
Yes, and my response was clear.
People who vote “tactically” are the reason Stein can’t win. Accordingly, people who vote “tactically” are guaranteeing that a candidate who will protect basic rights (Stein) will lose to a candidate who will disparage them (Trump/Clinton).
That’s the same circular argument I hear from Democratic brand loyalists time and again. We’ll vote for Clinton! Why not Stein? Because Stein can’t win! Why can’t she win? Because we’ll vote for Clinton!
They’re a certainty under Clinton too. She’ll be less “open and unapologetic” about it, but the end result is the same. Kids who are murdered by drones don’t know or care who gave the order to kill them.
OK, first of all, what do you mean by “the Democrat(ic) vote?” If you mean “people who vote for any Democrat without question based on tribal loyalty,” then I don’t think you have to worry about them being split. If you mean “the liberal voters generally regarded as the Democratic base,” then it’s Clinton doing the splitting, not me.
You need to understand that I’m not voting for Stein to “spite” Clinton. I’m voting for Stein because I support Stein (at least relatively speaking) while I oppose Trump and Clinton in more or less equal measure. Telling me I should vote for Clinton to prevent Trump from building a wall on the Mexican border is about as effective as telling me I should vote for Trump to prevent Clinton from declaring war on Russia— not only is the fear implausible, but the argument is based on the false premise that I generally support Clinton in most respects.
I am not a Democratic Voter who owes permanent allegiance to the Democratic Party and all of its candidates. If a candidate – from any party – advocates torture and drone-murdering children, I will not support them.
Question: What’s the difference between being murdered by a President who targets you because of your nationality and refers to your death as “collateral damage” and being murdered by a President who targets you because of your nationality and refers to your death as “Woohoo, another [slur] just bit it!”
Answer: It doesn’t matter. Either way, you’re still dead. And your death was still the product of bigotry.
Risky? It’s a certainty. The odds of the Republicans winning 60% of the Senate are basically zero; without that, Trump will be powerless.
You knew damn well what I meant.
In case you need me to spell it out for you— Clinton is basically a carbon copy of Bush. Electing Clinton would get us basically the same government as a third Bush term. Accordingly, if (a) you considered it against your principles to vote for Bush in 2004, and (b) your principles have not changed since 2004, and (c) you are not a hypocrite, then you will not vote for Clinton in 2016.
Effectively nothing. January 20, 2017 is not a day on which any legislation will pass, and practical opinions are not changed in a day, let alone by an action that occurred in secret months earlier.
Come on, seriously, how hard is it for you to comprehend the idea that voting for a progressive candidate supports progressive policies and voting for a neocon supports neocon policies?
I’m more than a little dubious about that claim. Why would conservatives back a self-proclaimed socialist when every other candidate was a conservative?
I read the article; there was virtually no mention of how respondents’ political beliefs were ascertained. In particular, I noted this line:
Asking people whether they identify as liberal, moderate, or conservative means virtually nothing. Time and again, polls show that liberal policies are far more popular than liberal candidates who are far more popular than the idea of “liberalism.” I suspect a great many people who identify as moderate or conservative supported Sanders because his positions more closely matched their own.
And don’t forget the conclusion of that article:
That’s got to be bullshit. For the sake of my sanity, I refuse to accept that a candidate’s election performance is determined by their brand image rather than what actual policies they support.
Incidentally, the bit I quoted was followed by the claim that there aren’t many socialists in America. That may be a Republican talking point, but it’s not true— while few people would identify as socialists, many people would agree with socialist principles if you described them without political labels (eg, “do you support the right to health care?”) and most people would be agree with socialist principles if you described them in a manner that encompassed their actual effects (eg, “would you support a policy under which everybody received free health care from the government, causing you to save $X on insurance premiums and $Y on out-of-pocket health care costs while costing you $0.5(XY) in tax increases?”)
Yet more evidence-free prattling about nonexistent “Bernie Bros.”
Because that will make it harder for them to disguise their support for far right policies with concern trolling about “viability.”
WOW, I can’t believe I did that. I’d meant to but forgot to add this article into my previous post about Sander’s voter demographics and that was a huge oversight. I apologize fort that.
“Berned” by Bernie Sanders – A woman with disabilities speaks out about the appalling way she was treated by the Sanders campaign.
@Jake Harban
The judicial appointment filibuster is gone, and the way things are going the Democrats have a very strong chance of winning back the Senate this year (much lower chance of winning back the House, although who knows?). The Supreme Court justice appointments alone are why you should support Hillary over Trump – it’s going to swamp anything else any President might do as long as Congress is divided over the next four years.
No they won’t. The “firewall” against filibuster removal is already breached, as I mentioned above. Republicans will finish it off if they get control of Congress and the Presidency, just like they’ve threatened before. Counting on the filibuster is something only a fool would do now.
Ruby@75 You are right Sanders failed to understand that the deep racism in the US could not be solved simply by addressing the economic inequities in this country. Hillary understood the depth of racial injustice much better and so won the African American vote. And is on the way to winning the nomination. This does not wipe out the problem of economic inequities in this country, nor does it solve the problem of an entire generation starting their life with huge debts, nor does it address the increasing militarization of US policy. One would think that having secured the nomination Clinton would move to addressing these issues of importance to a significant chunk of the Democratic party. Her actions seem to indicate she has no real intention of doing so. Her six appointments to the platform committee include two lobbyists. She refuses to address concerns about her close ties to Wall Street. And I think she sees her war-hawk status as a feature rather than a bug. That her followers seem more interested in sneering at “BernieBros” rather than trying to engage with issues is really not helping her case.
kdmello@70:
People tend to forget that Gore lost Florida not because people voted for Nader but because people did not vote for Gore. Just like Sanders is losing to Hillary because enough people are not voting for him, Hillary will lose to Trump if she does not convince enough people to vote for her. Her vocal supporters simply make her task more difficult.
You might want to hold up with the celebrations. The Republican Party was shattered in 2008, but Obama carefully put them back together by endorsing their far right agenda.
The Republican Party is a lot less fragile now than they were in 2008, and Clinton is a lot more dedicated to supporting their right wing policies.
I have read quite a few of these threads and I can be quite certain there are no “Bernie Bros” on Pharyngula.
The idea that so-called “Bernie Bros” represent a non-negligible portion of Sanders supporters is basically an article of faith in Camp Clinton, but whenever I ask for evidence, the only responses I get are (1) silence, (2) some variation on the concept of: “Only a Bernie Bro would ask that question, and (3) some variation on the concept of: “Anyone who supports Sanders is a white man who is motivated exclusively by sexism and/or racism by definition, therefore all Sanders supporters are Bernie Bros.”
And in your case, this picture which shows someone celebrating, some protesters with pro-Sanders and/or anti-Clinton signs, and absolutely no indication that anyone is a “Bernie Bro.”
They were miffed that Gore won anyway? Probably doubly-miffed that Gore surrendered to the Republicans as soon as he was elected, only to suddenly jump to the left years later, long after it was too late to be meaningful. Yeah, that recognition of global warming as a major threat would have been pretty handy in 2000, when you were running on a platform of letting powerful corporations pollute to their hearts’ content, Gore.
Single issue how so?
Well, feel free to ask this Sanders supporter.
Free college and breaking up banks won’t help any of them— since they’re dead, absolutely nothing can.
However, free college and breaking up banks will help create a more fair political and economic system in which it’s easier to hold politicians accountable; where the sorts of far-right candidates (that inevitably bank on racism) are no longer considered the Default Option from which a left-wing deviation is rare, requires extensive work, and whose defeat is an indictment of liberalism itself.
It will also have at least some effect in softening racism indirectly. Racism was conceived to divide and conquer the 99% so they wouldn’t challenge the aristocrats. Showing (non-billionaire) white people their real enemy and giving them the tools to fight back would redirect their anger away from scapegoats, and creating a more fair and less regimented economic system can reduce people’s psychological need to know that there’s someone worse off than they are.
Of course, all those measures will have at most a very minor effect on racism itself, but those were the policies you asked about. If you want to address racism directly, you’d need policies that address racism directly and I have no idea which ones would be most effective. Put me on the spot, and I’d suggest reparations, taking active measures to integrate currently-segregated places, greater police accountability, ending the War On Drugs, reforming the justice system (including, if necessary, a temporary measure to require black juries for black defendants), and updating school curricula to teach American history properly. Put me in any position of importance, and I’d defer to people who know this field better than I do.
That Sanders himself is anemic on the subject of racism past and present is his own fault. That he views racism as an economic problem without a social connection is short-sighted (though I held that position myself when I was a teenager) following it would mean ignoring the bulk of the problem. That said, I don’t think Clinton is really much of an improvement.
Do you have a cite for that?
That’s sharp political acumen on her part, but I doubt it’ll translate into actual policies that back police accountability or gun control.
Just off the top of my head, I can name:
-Economic inequality
-Lack of social safety net
-Control of government by oligarchs
-Existence and toleration of a hereditary aristocracy
-Multiple imperialistic wars
-Torture of political prisoners
-Nonexistent right to privacy
-Racism, sexism, and various other forms of bigotry
-Existence of (and potential for more) disastrous “trade” deals
-Persecution of whistleblowers
All of those are “my issues” with varying levels of importance, yet there isn’t one of them on which Clinton is better than Sanders; on a couple of them, Clinton is barely better than Trump.
Did you come to that conclusion on the basis of any actual evidence, or on the basis that anyone who disagrees with you is young and immature by definition?
“Scandals” aren’t the deciding factor in any election. One of Trump’s biggest draws is that he’s not part of the Established Political Class; he recognizes that people are suffering and gives them answers as to why. Of course, his “answers” are the facile answers of a fascist but against Clinton, they’re the only answers on offer; Clinton responds to the country’s economic woes by denying them.
That Sanders can provide real answers to trump Trump’s bullshit ones was his major strength. That he could convince people to vote for him rather than merely voting against Trump could swing elections.
That is indeed appalling. It’s reaffirmed my belief that I voted “against Clinton” rather than “for Sanders” in the primary, and in a better system with preferential voting, I’d definitely name Stein as my first choice and Sanders as my second.
But at the end of the day, I’m disabled myself and I’d rather have a candidate who gives me benefits than a candidate who promises me the world from now until November and leaves me to starve thereafter.
If Obama’s appointment of Garland is anything to go by, this is yet another point in Trump’s favor. Clinton choosing Supreme Court judges would be a disaster; four more years of an understaffed court as Trump’s nominees are rejected by a Democratic Senate is not nearly as bad.
If getting rid of the filibuster was that easy, why didn’t the Dems do it in 2008?
@16: “This is a common view amongst Marxists as well, I’m told,”
It’s largely my view as well.
“or at least the ones who’ve never been at the pointy end of structural inequality.”
I have been there. In fact I still am as last few months I, like everybody in the country where I live, lost 30-40% of my salary.
“The assumption is that if you get rid of the structures, then you get rid of the inequality.”
No, it’s not. It’s based on the observation that several changes in the structure will decrease that inequality, as happened in many Western-European countries between 1945 and 1980. Coincidentally Saunders has taken over quite a few of suggestions in that direction. Unfortunately after 1980 in many of those countries the trend was reversed.
Sorry, sir, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. I do. From personal experience, from the experience of my parents and the experience of my grandparents.
Sorry, poor frasing. We didn’t lose 30-40% of our salary, but of our purchasing power. This country having an import economy the effect is the same.
Only to delusional fool. This same problem played out near the end of Reagan’s second term with Anthony Kennedy. The democrats decided to stop playing politics as the election was year away from the initial appointment.
Failure of rethugs to even consider Clinton’s appointment she would be inaugurated is simply unthinkable. They have no justification.
Trump and the rethugs are deadly. If you are disabled, you will be up shit creek without a paddle. Look at Ryan’s proposals….
@3 “I agree that the Democratic establishment stacks the deck against renegade outsiders with radical new ideas.”
Were they “radical new ideas”? Despite the rhetoric from the right, including Clinton’s, of Sanders’ socialism. Sanders voting record has been that of what might be called “New Deal Democrat” from some decades ago.
Sanders proposals can only be thought of as radical in light of the left’s steady march to the right in a misguided attempt at bipartisanship for decades. All the while the right retreats further right into wacky land shouting “Victory” while moving the goalposts further right for the left to follow.
There was no reason the (D) party couldn’t have embraced a candidate like Sanders who would have wiped the floor with a chump like Trump.
In it’s march to the right my relationship with the Democratic party is summed up HERE.
@Jake Harban
Two more years – in 2018 the Senate elections are favorable to Republicans again. And Garland is far, far to the left of where Scalia was in jurisprudence – replacing Scalia’s slot with Garland would be a triumph for progressives.
That was before the Republicans did an all-out obstructionist strategy in Congress – they still held out hope that Republicans would come to the table for years, and in any case key Democrats weren’t convinced that it was necessary to weaken the filibuster yet.
We’re past that now. The filibuster has been lifted on judicial nominees for the Supreme Court, and if it becomes a problem for a Democratic Senate and President after 2016 they’ll lift it even more. Same goes for the Republicans, who also almost killed it before 2006 under Frist as Majority Leader – it was only by essentially folding on Bush’s judicial nominees that the filibuster was saved.
Go ablesplain someone else, asshole.
Garland ruled that the fifth amendment doesn’t exist. There is no way he can ever be considered a “triumph for progressives.”
Or in other words, the filibuster only applies when Republicans do it.
Unless you want to argue that (a) the Republicans require 60% of the Senate to get anything done, or (b) the Democrats are no better than the Republicans, as evidenced by their failure to pass any liberal policies in 2009 despite the complete lack of Republican obstructionism.
There is absolutely a progressive rationale for voting for Clinton in November , but people shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that she’s “decent” or “competent” (Libya and Iraq were such huge successes right). She represents many of the things that are most wrong with Democratic and American politics. A vote for her should be cast with weary resignation, disappointment, and perhaps nausea.
Ruby @everywhere: holy crap, the smell of bullshit is strong.
No, that should be reserved for The Donald or his surrogate, Stein.
Boy, are you naive about politics. The first year of any new party administration is about filling the political appointment slots. Besides, you fail to comprehend after being taught by primary after primary, the democrats are not all necessarily progressive. There are Red Dog democrats. There was never a progressive majority during Obama’s term in office.
Yea, I think we all know that after yesterday.
Jake @ 87:
1. I am celebrating a WOMAN doing something unprecedented. I am not a woman, nor am I black, but that’s a great thing. Even if you do not like the individual.
2. Your framing of Obama simply bears no relation to the facts.
3. The Republicans are far more fragile now than they were in 2008, or 2012 when they really thought they’d win the Presidency. Their candidate is not even mentioned on their official website! Some of their elected are repudiating him. In California they will not even have a candidate on the ballot for Senate — can the rest of the country follow California? Heck, yes.
4. Your characterization of Clinton’s policy positions bears no relation to the facts.
Gotta go now and watch basketball. Toodle-oo!
But is unable to govern without her party even in Congress…Get real, as your thinking isn’t.
Nerd @97:
Alex, I’ll take “things that bray” for $800.
In case that went over your head, you’re an ass.
Ah, finally you agree that there’s no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Sure took you awhile.
I don’t know, I’m pretty nauseated by having to vote for someone that was championing homophobic legislation within the decade. I’m still going to vote for her, but I’m indeed kind of grossed out by it.
Nobody is voting for Stein because they think she’ll win. They are voting for her because she has decent moral principles, unlike Clinton and Trump, and want raise the profile of the issues she’s running on.
@Professor Myers
” decent middle-of-the-road president”
No. Do the lesser of two evil calculation. Make the point that Clinton is functionally better than Trump. But do not claim you are supporting a “decent” candidate. Clinton, like Obama, like Bush, like Clinton, are warmongers, mass murders and war criminals. They are not decent people. The world has gone to hell, it’s a force choice, a hard choice but do not white wash this. We are about to be saddled with the final nail. The republic is dead.
I have the luxury of living in a state where I can, in good conscience, not vote. I more than likely won’t be. Vote for Clinton if you are in a swing state. But do not be grateful, or do it happily. It’s a terrible act. A necessary act, yes but a not a good one.
And for the record, I was pro-Sanders in route to be anti-Clinton. He was far, far from an ideal candidate.
Why not vote Stein? It’s far more effective than not voting.
It’s not worth the time. Also, I don’t like Stein for the same reasons why I don’t like Sanders.
Actually, it’s more that I don’t want to legitimate the process in anyway as it is completely illegitimate.
I don’t 100% support Stein either, but given the choice between a bigot, a warmongering bigot, and Stein I’ll take Stein.
Besides, I have down party candidates to vote for. My Congressman has been pretty reliable so far, despite bragging about his endorsements from warmongering DINOs.
While I consider the process to be completely illegitimate, I don’t think it can be changed by simply refusing to take part in it.
Me agree with a politicial nitwit you? I’m not out in far left field. I know better. You don’t. Which is why you aren’t getting anywhere.
Then they are giving a vote to Trump. Anybody with a non-ideologically compromised brain knows that.
You have a better solution? If so, why aren’t you working for it?
Music break for partisans everywhere!
As the dust settles, see our dreams,
all coming true
it depends on you,
If our times, they are troubled times,
show us the way,
tell us what to do.
As our faith, maybe aimless blind,
hope our ideals
and our thoughts are yours
And believing the promises,
please make your claims
really so sincere.
Be our guide, our light and our way of life
and let the world see the way we lead our way.
Hopes, dreams, hopes dreaming that all our
sorrows gone.
In your hands, holding everyone’s
future and fate
It is all in you,
Make us strong build our unity,
all men as one
it is all in you.
Be our guide, our light and our way of life
and let the world see the way we lead our way.
Hopes, dreams, hopes dreaming that all our
sorrows gone. Forever.
@Nerd
“You have a better solution? If so, why aren’t you working for it?”
No, I’m not nearly clever enough. But I know this, I will no longer vote for what set of pool brown people get murder. I’m not having anymore blood on my hands.
How am I giving my vote to Trump if I vote for Stein here in Alabama ? Or anyone voting for her in the non-battleground states. Or how about the people who would sit at home instead but find Stein appealing.
I find it interesting how establishment hacks focus so much of their ire on third-party voters, when there’s a much larger pool of people who are politically disconnected and don’t vote because garbage human beings always get the major party nominations.
pool should read poor obviously.
Nah, that would require you to be coherent for once.
No, you’re so far to the right that you think anybody to the left of Trump is “far left field.”
In your little world, every vote is a vote for Trump. I think it’s pretty clear that you’re a Trump supporter who is desperately trying to convince the rest of us to stay home on election day.
Sanders is making noises that sound an *awful* lot like a concession:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/bernie-sanders/the-struggle-continues/1064490870272583
At least, his supporters that I know are reading it that way.
I’m considering voting for Jill Stein this November, as I did in 2012, because what’s my alternative? Supporting the Democrats in their march ever rightward? Voting for the lesser-evil that gets a little less evil every time?
People are angry enough this cycle that maybe, if people like me push hard enough, the Greens might get 1-2% of the vote. Enough to, just maybe, make people take notice. It’s a long shot, but at this point, I see no other possible way to shift the Overton Window left.
If Clinton wins, without it being close and without a statistically significant proportion of traditionally Democrat-leaning votes going to the Greens, the only message the Democratic Party will take from the election is “stay the (rightward) course!” Win or lose, however, a significant number of votes going to the Greens in a close election might wake them up.
Or maybe it won’t make a damn bit of difference, in which case this country is utterly fucked, and we just might take the world with us. True, the Democrats will destroy us much more slowly, and I can understand voting for that. I’m strongly considering voting for Clinton anyway, so that it will be a later generation who will burn for our sins, after I’m comfortably dead. But I won’t pretend it’s somehow a brave or noble or wise choice. It’s craven self-interest, pure and simple.
I’m well aware of how a Trump presidency could impact marginalized people, but a Clinton presidency will only delay the kind of misery Trump would bring. It will come, if we keep going right.
Says the man who claims that Hillary Clinton is “far right.” A claim that is equally as ludicrous. I started reading your comments until I saw this, and then I realized you have as little grip on reality as those on the right who claim that Hillary Clinton is “far left.”
Which makes debating politics with you utterly pointless, even if we would agree on many of your positions. You live in a black and white fantasy world that does not comport with a reality that is messy and often ugly, but at least reflects the true pressures, fears, and constraints that politicians and especially national leaders live with from day to day.
For one, the first thing a new president does is sit through a security briefing where the rest of the people in the room do their best to scare the shit out of him/her. Some of the threats will be exaggerated, some will not be. Either way, the worst nightmare of any president is for a major strike (terrorist or otherwise) that results in the deaths of thousands of Americans. Like it or not, government security policy is driven by that fear, stoked by the advise of military advisers and civil servants whose job it is to be in the know, and driven by the belief that the compromises of civil liberties are being done out of the best of intentions — i.e. to keep America safe. Even if Bernie somehow became president, at least 95% of this equation would be precisely the same, and it would not be long before you saw him, too, as a major disappointment.
No doubt, you will be thinking of telling me that none of this excuses what Obama did, or what Clinton will do, and you will have completely missed my point.
I am only a resident alien, so I cannot vote in November, but all the action at the top of the ticket is about this year is stemming the bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the Republicans over the last 40 years, with the appointment of the next Supreme Court justice by far the most critical component in that fight. Clearly, Hillary Clinton is the only option here. Turning the USA into a left-of-center nation (if it’s even possible) starts at the bottom, in local, state, and Congresssional elections, along with the thousands of propositions that will be voted on. Progress has been made (the Blue Dog Democrats are almost extinct as a species) but there is long way to go.
This is complete bullshit. There are tens of thousands of activists and ordinary citizens working tirelessly every day to improve the lives of American people and others. Their victories are hard won and are rarely make the national headlines, but they are making a real difference, and your defeatist bullshit just craps all over their hard work. Tell them to their face that it doesn’t matter.
I see this crap in cesspools like Infowars and FreeRepublic all the time, but I would have expected more from the reality-based community.
What a fucking liar you are. I am well to the left of Trump, and probably Clinton too. But I know exactly who you sound like with your bullshit. The Marxist radicals on campus during the ‘Nam war forty+ years ago. Same tone, same arrogance, same lies, same inability to comprehend gradations to the right of themselves. When I call you a far left leftist, I’ve been there, heard that. I dismissed them as idiotlogues, and will do the same with your blatherings.
@ tacitus, 121
I am simply stating my opinion that, if the Democrats and Republicans continue their rightward march, the most likely endgame is nuclear war. In what way does this crap all over the work of activists?
All politics are local… until the people at the top decide that if they can’t have everything, then no one gets anything, and kill us all.
OK, (1) I’m not a man, and (2) if you think Clinton isn’t far right, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to any of the warmongering, Wall Street coddling, homophobia, and such that she’s been spewing these past, oh, 20 years.
Ah, a standard “both sides!” argument.
Your fallacy is: Golden Mean.
Yes, and…?
That a president panics does not justify the mass spying, the six and counting imperialistic wars, or the torture of political prisoners.
If an extremist motivated by good intentions for “safety” is acceptable to you, why not just dispense with elections entirely and switch to totalitarianism?
If, in your opinion, any President would continue the march towards totalitarianism, why should we bother voting at all?
Or is that the point? You want Trump to win so you try to convince us that voting is pointless?
Your point seems fairly clear— any possible President will be a mass murderer, so don’t bother to vote.
Republicans and Democrats. Obama was just as bad as Bush.
And we’re not going to stem the bleeding from the wounds he inflicted by electing his stab-happier opponent from 2008.
Which is not exactly a point in Clinton’s favor. She was the conservative opponent to Obama, who appointed Garland to the Supreme Court.
Yes, but in the meantime I need to decide who to vote for in 2016. Based on the existing state of affairs, Stein is the only viable option.
AYFKM? The Blue Dogs that control the Democratic Party crowned a Blue Dog as nominee, but they’re “nearly extinct.” Right.
Honestly, the Clinton die-hard would probably be better off spending their time trying to win Trump voters. After all, most of Trump’s most die-hard supporters would probably prefer Clinton’s policies and only vote against her out of tribal loyalty. Seems like a better bet trying to convince people who support Clinton’s policies to vote for her than trying to convince people who oppose her policies and consider her a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course. You’re not far right— you just think anyone who supports health care reform is a “Marxist.”
Come on, you’re not even trying to hide it at this point. Screaming that anybody to the left of Trump is a “Marxist” is such a classic right-wing line I’d be surprised if Trump himself hasn’t used it.
Wow. That’s some pretty hi-def projection on your part.
OK, I’ll bite. Here are some policies I support:
-Single-payer health care.
-No torturing political prisoners.
-Raise the minimum wage.
-End the imperialistic wars.
-Expand Social Security and pay for it by levying Social Security taxes on capital gains.
-Ban inheritance of wealth above $250,000 (not counting first homes and farms).
-End NSA mass spying.
Which of them do you consider “Marxist blatherings?” Clinton opposes all seven; if you support Clinton, then presumably you oppose at least four.
Bernie has run a solid campaign. It has been the political eye-opener for everyone who has paid attention on the Left, Right, or other. He has his loud-mouthed detractors who love them some establishment politics and that’s really a good thing, I think. It is useful to us true progressives to be able to identify the so-called “progressives” that have been smearing him or lying about his supporters’ behavior this campaign season.
Listen up. Because of Bernie’s success harnessing the grass roots on the left, he has earned his right to TELL THE REST OF US what next move may be most appropriate for his campaign. Anyone who wants to chime in and tell him what he should do right now is free to do so, of course. However, he is free to ignore all of us, too. That said, come August I feel that Bernie will probably do well to accept the offer to lead the Green Party ticket. Maybe. We’ll wait and see. Of course. if he were to do that, he would be running in opposition to both Trump and Clinton. So once more, I get to tell you all and PZ, too… it is inappropriate to expect/demand Bernie to endorse Hillary at this stage. Period. These expectations should be expressed later on and not right now. Right now, this discussion is fruitless and fucking stupid, since he has repeatedly told everyone that he will be continuing his campaign until the convention in July.
Hillary’s progressive bonafides are questionable, at best. If her campaigning as a progressive has been sincere, and in my opinion her history and the evidence does not support that premise, then Hillary’s and the Democratic Party’s behavior in these upcoming weeks will be critically important to Bernie’s supporters. At the Democratic convention this summer, which is the appropriate time to conclude both of our remaining primary campaigns, Bernie can endorse Hillary or not. It is too early to tell for certain how the next six weeks and then convention week will go down, but I’d expect that he’ll not endorse her if she and the Party establishment continue to be overwhelmingly dismissive of the revolution that he has harnessed.
Feel the Bern, Green Party 2016
The above bumper sticker slogan is also premature at this point, but you people incessantly peck and peck and peck, insisting that these issues are discussed right here, right now, and way too early. Aren’t you pleased with yourselves?
Jill Stein is already the Green nominee ,for 2016 and I think she’s a better candidate than Sanders himself.
However, while Sanders can’t run for President as a Green or otherwise, he can back the Green Party. He’s got the money, he’s got the base, he’s got the organized campaign infrastructure, so he can break the third-party barrier— or, he can use the threat of backing the Greens to extract meaningful concessions from the Democrats (real concessions, not “as long as you get prior approval, we’ll let you appoint less than half of the committee members who write an ‘official party platform’ no one will read or follow”).
Mind you, given Clinton’s record of opposing progressive policies, I wouldn’t believe anything she says on the campaign trail without a costly signal to back it up.
@39 Nemo said:
I am reasonably certain you are correct. Nice assessment!
In any case, the idea that his campaign will be “working” the Superdelegates until enough of them switch has been implied to be undemocratic by PZ above. PZ’s is an inapplicable criticism, I think. And it is nonsense because it contorts what Bernie’s campaign has said all along. To paraphrase what he or his spokespeople have stated, and the entirety of what they have stated, concerning any “play” for the Superdelegates going forward, they’ve said that if any Superdelegate feels that Bernie is the best candidate to take on Trump in the general election, then that Superdelegate should seriously consider switching their support to himself.
@126 Jake Harban:
Not until August, she isn’t. In Houston, the Green Party will be nominating their top-ticket candidate and currently they have Stein as their favored front-runner for the nomination. Back in April, Stein penned an open letter that, if you read it between the lines, invited him to take the helm for the Greens in 2016. Interestingly, her offer to work with him has not yet been rescinded or officially responded to by the Sanders campaign.
If I may ask, who did people here vote for in 2012?
@ dianne, 129
Jill Stein. I will never forgive Obama for further entrenching health insurance companies in the U.S. healthcare system. And before anyone starts with the “but he had to do it!” I will say, maybe he would have had to, eventually. The world will never know, however, since he very explicitly took genuinely progressive options off the table right at the start.
@52 jack16 said:
Like you, I am sure that the heartbroken, yet disallowed voters that you describe are mostly BernieOrBusters, like I am. I personally can’t imagine that if my own vote for Bernie had been left uncounted this year or if I had been disallowed from voting altogether, that I could ever support an establishment Democrat again.
I am living literally on the wrong side of the street these days, but for a few years I lived within Keith Ellison’s district and he earned my enthusiastic support then. Going forward, only a candidate of his progressive caliber will be earning my vote, Democrat or no. And Hillary ain’t no Ellison. Hell, she isn’t even a Kennedy; she’s more a Quayle.
No? I must have misheard.
Stein in 2012. Obama in 2008. Kerry in 2004.
Or the torture. Or the mass spying. Or the pardoning of Wall Street criminals. Or the thousands dead in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
Even in a thread full of them, I fail to see how anybody can look at all that and say: “Well sure, that’s pretty evil, but I’d be willing to support it anyway.”
@130 and 132, good for you for being consistent.
Anyone who voted for Obama in 2012 and is now saying that they can’t vote for Clinton because of things the Obama administration did prior to 2012 should ask themselves why they suddenly found Libya or whatever a deal breaker in 2016 when it wasn’t in 2012. But that is per your statement not your situation.
Personally, I can “forgive” Obama for the ACA since I can point to several dozen instances of where the ACA saved someone’s life by providing them insurance which then allowed them to receive care. I’m not much for allowing people to suffer because it might lead to an ideal situation later on.
I guess Medicare and Medicaid were mistakes that should be repealed too?
I don’t see why Bernie needs to concede right now. If he waits until the Democratic convention he loses what, 5 weeks of time he could be supporting Clinton? He still said he will support whoever is nominated at the convention as the Democratic nominee. Should he roll over because nobody wants to count the ballots, just like Gore in 2000? Gore had every legal right to have those ballots recounted. Even with all the kerfuffle over that election, it was still decided well before many previous presidential elections were. If we’re going to say the Presidential election needs to be decided within a couple weeks, why do we have the election in November instead of on January 2nd? Why have so much time after the victor is decided to swear them into office? That time was provided because of how elections had to work in horse and buggy days.
@dianne:
ACA has increased health care costs for my family by a considerable factor. Medicare and medicaid expansion are both good things, but, living in Florida, it doesn’t affect me. Especially since I’m just creeping above the cap (well have been for the past few years) for what expanded Medicaid would have covered it if Scott had accepted it.
I’m sorry. How does that work anyway? I had private insurance before the ACA, still have private insurance, and haven’t seen a single change in it. I expect a number of private insurance companies are taking the ACA as an excuse to raise rates. Health insurance company executives should all be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Medicare hasn’t been expanded, as far as I know, only Medicaid. The states that took the Medicaid expansion are saving money by not having to cover uninsured emergency care and any true fiscal conservative would be all over the expansion. The very fact that so many Republicans are not demonstrates that they have definitively abandoned sound fiscal policy. Is it saving lives? Too soon to tell. The epidemiologic data will probably not be really solid for another couple of years. Anecdotally, yes, it is, but the population level data are just not there yet.
And this whole discussion is exactly why we need to replace first-past-the-post voting with a superior system, such as single-transferable-vote. If we didn’t have to worry about the spoiler effect, we’d be free to vote for our true first choice. Until the time that this is changed, however, the spoiler effect remains, and a protest vote could end up doing harm to the country to make a point about what your political beliefs are.
So how about this: Campaign to change the voting system so that this won’t be an issue, and in the meantime vote for the lesser of two evils to keep things from getting too horrible (it might not affect you, but many people will be significantly worse off under a Trump presidency than a Clinton one – do it for them). Only once the voting system is changed will third parties have a chance of actually winning, and once that is the case, you can vote for them without fear of handing the country over to the greater-evil candidate in the process.
@dianne:
I assume it works that way because of just what you said: it’s an excuse to raise rates. Couple that with the fact that I live in Florida, where even reputable companies become scam artists, and there you have it.
@Infophile:
I whole-heartedly agree with this. I’ve been meaning to try and figure out how to help with something like this, but I have no idea where to start. Do you have the name of any organizations that are working on this so I could see about volunteering or something? I know I could look it up, but it doesn’t seem easy to find.
No not stop fighting if by that it is meant give up everything because it is not the man it has never been the man the candidate it has been the platform and the issues he raised that brought the people out in unexpectedly loud crowds. the candidacy has been foreclosed but the issues are still important.
I do not know why we are still listening to the analysts not one of them for saw how this primary would go it is getting impossible to tell spin from observation.
The California results seem to ignore that there are 2 Californias in one state the more liberal north and the more conservative south last I looked it was not a black and white thing (or brown and white)
I listened to the Sannders campaign and I have listened to the talk about it the criticism has always been he is white guy and does not talk about race issues because he is appealing to white guys I guess that is why he had Dr. Cornell West do warm up for him and selected him as his representative on the platform committee because he is not one of those in your face black intellectuals and all.
I am not sure how it can be a white guy “dude bro” campaign when one of the most striking thing about it was numbers young people who were reported attracted to it.
I think in part the results came out the way they did because he was unwilling to play the game in the accepted way he stuck to the issues that he felt were the important ones while everyone else was following the antics of the huckster buffoon calling everyone names and following the well organized campaign of HRC press releases and all
Conventional wisdom missed the action.
I have no doubt that HRC will do a good conventional job and do some good things. It will not be clear sailing who ever get the job there are many troubles ahead some of them will be momentous the next economic crisis is not that far away, the income disparity will see to that the rest of the world is not going to stay still while we decide who will be the boss. many are growing tired of our attitude and are very capable of deciding with out us what they intend to do
By all means he should go the last mile and take himself to the convention and be part of what is to be decided he has earned on the behalf of all who struggled with him and for him to be a part of the party. He is a part of the party now! The fight for the issues and democracy is not finished it is never finished that is not how it works.
It is not “you lost! you and your people go home and shut up! and vote when you are told to!” that is not what democracy is.
uncle frogy
If he decides to withhold his endorsement, decides not to campaign amongst his supporters on behalf of Clinton, decides to ally himself with the Greens, Sanders as a presidential candidate will have failed his mission statement, the one policy he was actually capable of enacting, which was to increase progressive representation in the DNC. If Trump benefits from these mistakes, the DNC will resent Sanders, likely float someone as opposition to him from within the party to capitalize on that resentment thereby losing a decent senator, and be wary of his small handful of downvote nominees to the day they die and the public will be more resistant to third parties than ever before, will become further entrenched in party loyalties and identification. Moderate Republicans will flee their party under the joint leadership of a shamelessly amoral ignoramus and a man who labels the slow, systematic destruction of public welfare programs an exciting new “anti-poverty” plan. Far from being marginalized from the GOP, Trump will be controlled and influenced by its fringe members–loud, shiny things appeal to him, and scare-mongering is nothing if not loud and shiny and simplistic and childish–will rubber-stamp the things even Boehner thought were excessive, will so cravenly cater to and court the right-wing public that ambitious GOPers will have no choice but to capitulate to their prejudices. The results will not only be a more reactionary, angry GOP but also a more right-wing DNC, not because they collectively decide to start courting conservatives but because actual progressive Democrats will seek to conceal, for their own protection, the values and ideals that make them progressive, while incoming Republicans, silenced and undermined for too long and itching to create policy, will rejuvenate the blue dogs.
The hilarious thing about this “heightening the contradictions” strategy is that a Clinton presidency could, conceivably, do just that without risking the health and safety of Americans and the world at large. If she’s really more “technically” dangerous than Trump, if voting strategically for the worst candidate is the miraculous reserve-psychology long game that will definitely bring about the revolution, the logical choice is clear.
You don’t push the overton window to the left by pissing away your vote on a third party that has no chance of winning anything, and has a very high probability of acting as a spoiler in close races.
You push left by winning, and demonstrating the better way.
Right now, our electoral system can only reasonably handle two parties. Until we have instant runoff, instead of giving the electoral college vote to whomever wins the largest plurality in each state, there will not be any viable third party. Period.
In this election we have a choice between two parties. One that isn’t perfect, but at least acknowledges reality, and attempts to address problems. The other one literally opposes what the first party wants today, updated daily.
The choice is between a potential governing party, and nihilistic anarchists.
So what we need right now is not a bunch of whiny-ass-titty-babies crying that their precious idol, He, Sanders lost to Hitlery, and fleeing to the open arms of Stein, but instead to focus their ire on the real problem: the republicans.
Once the republicans are marginalized, we can talk about accommodating third parties. Until then, liberals and progressives are going to have to accept that change moves slowly, and that we’re not going to get everything we want in one election cycle.
Once the vast majority in government actually believe in governing, we can start to make the necessary changes so that voting third party has more impact than a fly against a windshield.
Marxist all the way. Your own words belie you.
The Rethugs took the public option off the table at the start. Obama needed to pass the bill, and a public option (cheaper of course) would be a poison pill for rethug backing that was required. I wish people would understand congress writes the laws, not the president.
How does that follow? From what I’ve seen, it’s pretty common to describe our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan that way.
Voting is done by the states, not the federal government. If you want another system rather than the present first past the post, many states have the ability to put referendums on the ballot. Alas, here in IL only the legislature can put a referendum on the ballot. I personally favor instant run-off system until a candidate gets the majority of the votes.
The word imperialist. Classical Marxist jargon.
It’s a word used in textbooks as early as middle school for me, so I guess I’m not seeing how it signifies that, unless my schooling consistently involved marxist textbooks.
TIL I’m a Marxist. And here I thought I was a capitalist pig!
You push left by winning with progressive candidates. Voting for a neocon and “winning” doesn’t move the Overton Window left.
Why wouldn’t they? They have an oligopoly and the government just passed a law requiring people to buy their products at any price.
Clinton and Trump are equally evil, so who exactly do you think the “lesser” is and why? Is it the mass murdering war criminal or the unknown quantity who has been telegraphing fascism?
Mind you, I’d be equally screwed under either of their agendas, so are you telling me I should just submit to that for the benefit of someone more privileged than I?
Incidentally, Trump has implied he’s pursue an unworkable isolationist foreign policy which means there are a lot of people in Pakistan who’d be better off under him. Maybe I should vote for the “lesser evil” Trump on their behalf?
Calling Republicans the “real problem” is short-sighted tribalistic bullshit.
If the Democrats had remained fairly close to the center when the Republicans started marching to the right, the Democrats would have won elections en masse while the Republicans were marginalized until they moved back to the center or went extinct. Instead, the Democrats marched to the right after them. It was the Democrats’ decision to move to the right that created the current situation in which a fascist Republican runs against a neocon Democrat.
The Democrats are just as much the problem as Republicans.
Wait, you support Bush’s war in Iraq??! The war so disastrous that even most Republicans are running away from it and denying they ever supported it?!
Wow. I was right. You are a far right extremist. Every time you post, you prove it further.
You mean the Democrats took it off the table at the start. They had complete control of government.
OK, I think it’s clear what’s going on. You’re a Bush/Establishment Republican who opposes Trump as a usurper.
After all, you think raising the minimum wage, closing Guantanamo, and ending the war in Iraq are “Marxist.” You apparently think that duly elected Democratic governments are illegitimate, as evidenced by the fact that you treat the Republicans as having control even when voted out of office. You swear up and down that progressives are a tiny minority of no consequence.
The one thing that threw me was your support for Clinton and hatred of Trump, despite the fact that you’re pretty clearly a Republican in every other way. Of course, then it occurred to me— I’ve often pointed out that Clinton would be essentially identical to Bush, and you know that. You consider that a feature. You want Bush back in office. Combine that with the fact that you hate Trump personally but don’t object to any of his policies and the picture becomes completely clear.
We are a split household and have been for the past three election cycles. My wife has been for Hillary since 2008; I was for Obama and then for Sanders. This has made for some heat and friction in our home every four years.
I saw in Sanders a kindred spirit — an old 60s radical. One who had finally made it to the national stage. I agree with everything he says and stands for, though, seeing how the GOP has stiff-armed Obama all these years, I feared that they would do the same to him, assuming they maintained control of Congress. But I felt it was a risk worth taking. I’m sorry to see him go.
My wife’s logic has always been consistent regarding Hillary. Back in the 90s she said that Hillary was the smarter of the Clintons, perhaps even the power behind the throne. I can’t say that I agree with her on that, but I am impressed with Hillary’s obvious intelligence, resilience and force of character. My wife feels that she’s far more progressive than she lets on. I think she may be right. But Hillary is a difficult person to warm up to. I think she’s developed a hard outer shell after all of the crazed, right wing attacks on her during the last two decades.
Regardless of her shortcomings there really is no other choice, we can’t allow a man like Trump who is obviously emotionally unstable to get anywhere near the White House. And shame on the GOP for even giving us this man as a possible POTUS. I disagree with the Republicans on almost everything, but I always felt that I knew the nature of the enemy. I knew what they stood for and how they operated. But now? I don’t know what the GOP is anymore. I believe they’re gone collectively mad.
Yes, your ignorance shows up again and again. Assertions like that are not facts. I know better. What I don’t do is listen to ignorant fuckwits.
If you want the democratic party to change, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO CHANGE IT, STARTING AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL? The religious right changed the rethugs by a long term project that involved organizing, get friendly candidates to run, getting out the vote. They changed the republican party from what it was when I grew up.
What are you doing for a long term change to pull the democrats left? I bet nothing but whining on blogs like this.
By the way liar and bullshitter, I haven’t voted for a republican for president, senate, or congress for at least twenty years (35 in the case of the president). Don’t call me a republican, as your hyperebole is seen for what it is. BULLSHIT.
Jake, I didn’t call you a Marxist. I said you sounded like them from the old days, with your arrogance, use of jargon, overwhelming desire to call both parties the same, and by your lack of understanding of the nuances for those of us in the middle. You think yourself to be an expert on politics, but like the Marxists, you get it wrong and continue with your tirades anyway.
If you want to vote for the Greens, be my guest. I can’t and won’t stop you. But if I see voting for Clinton to be the best choice for the country at this point in time, why won’t you allow me and other people here that expressed that to do so without your interference? That is my problem with you. It’s my decision, not yours.
It is possible Sanders being the vice president?
It is possible some nasty surprise to Clinton, regarding the e-mails scandal?
It is really possible a victory of Trump?
It is possible that your Congress and Senate (Republicans and Democrats) can stop almost every move of “president Trump”, making the government of the USA a complete chaos?
Sanders quitting the race before the finish line is reached would betray his supporters who haven’t voted yet.
Of course he should graciously admit defeat, get behind his opponent and all those other things etc. – but only after all the votes are cast and counted.
In fact I believe these primary elections are wrong the way they are being held. Voting results should not even be published before all the votes are cast. Or do all of them on one single “Super Tuesday”.
@Olav, it’s determined at the state level how and when its primaries or caucuses are run and many states actually compete for who can be the first etc. Good luck getting 50 states to agree even though I have seen many say the same as you in the past.
Why would they? If Trump wins, the Congress will almost certainly be strongly Republican dominated. What motive would they have for not cooperating with Trump’s destruction of human rights and the economy in the US? An obstructionist Congress would be business as usual–see the last 8 years. In fact, the opposition party has gained in Congress in all but 3 midterm elections since the US was founded. It’s not “complete chaos” to have Congress opposing the president. No, the problem will come if Congress lets Trump get away with his plans.
Oh dear, oh dear. [fingers crossed the formatting works!] Jake @124:
I agree. In principle, so does HRC, but her campaign only says she will expand the ACA.
I agree. HRC changed her position to support a ban on torture at least two years ago:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-pass-laws-forbidding-torture-113631
We all agree on this. HRC is only committed to $12/hr but publicly supports those campaigning for $15, at least at state level.
I agree.
HRC is committed to expanding social security and raising taxes on the rich to pay for it; I agree with that. I also agree with taxing capital gains, as does HRC, but I would not tie the two together,
I’m not sure about the number, but I like the concept. HRC is more incremental: she would lower the exemption (from $5.45 to 3.5 million) and rate the tax rate (from 40% to 45%).
I like the concept but it’s unrealistic. HRC undoubtedly disagrees with both of us.
Well, you presume wrong. I work with what I can get, in an imperfect world. But thanks for the list, I have been meaning to check this stuff out. If you need more links, the positions attributed to HRC were all from the first page of a Google search for her name + a short description of the issue; most are on her extensive website.
Jake Harban @ #149
Exactly.
If anything, the past 30 years shows that voting for and “winning” with neoliberal candidates tends to move the Overton Window to the right. Medical care provided via a social insurance program available to the population as a whole was standard Democratic fare from the 1940s to the 1990s; the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party says single payer will “never, ever” happen. A half-century ago public higher education throughout California was tuition-free—that was something Californians were proud of; the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party campaigns against “making college free for Donald Trump’s kids.”
Voting for the “lesser of two evils” in any given election says “As long as the other candidate is more evil than you, you get my vote.” That does not result in the candidates in the next election being less evil—which, again, is shown by 30 years of neocon/neoliberal policies pushed by the Democratic Party.
Some details from President Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton:
You can watch the video of the endorsement here, on NBC News.
Hillary Clinton also posted the endorsement video to her official website, https://www.hillaryclinton.com. It looks like the video may have been taped as early as Tuesday, but they held off on releasing it until after the President had met with Sanders.
Read more: https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2016/05/08/discuss-moments-of-political-madness-4/#ixzz4B6kf4Cgc
Here is the Daily Kos coverage of Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The Daily Kos also posted the endorsement video.
It’s too soon for Obama to endorse Hillary considering the race isn’t over yet.
starfleetdude, apparently Obama thinks it is. Though he did also have some nice things to say about Bernie.
Maybe it’s just because I wasn’t alive in the 60s, but when I look at Sanders, I end up seeing my grandfather— a bit tone-deaf and a little lost when facing novel problems but pretty damn progressive for an old white guy. I wouldn’t say I agree with everything he stands for by a fair margin; just for starters, we’ve learned since the 60s that racism is a profound social problem that can’t be ended by colorblind legal equality and economic reforms. However, he’s definitely far preferable to Trump/Clinton.
This seems to be a very common failing on the left. Even to this day, after nearly eight years of Obama governing as a neocon, there are people claiming he’s secretly a progressive playing eleven-dimensional chess to secretly achieve some progressive goal.
I suppose in your little world, you’re not allowed to notice a problem unless you’re working full time to fix it. Not campaigning every day to fight racism? Then stop complaining about white supremacy. Not inventing a cheap source of clean energy? You can’t object to global warming.
I’m disabled, so right now I really can’t do much of anything. Does that mean I have lost the right to object to evil people doing evil things?
Then stop acting like one.
I know you Republicans lie compulsively, but you may want to refrain from doing it in a single thread where I can just copy/paste the proof.
(1) I don’t consider myself an “expert,” just someone who, you know, has a long-term memory and can personally remember what people did in the past and what happened as a result. (2) I haven’t “gotten it wrong” yet. You’ve repeatedly asserted as much, but assertions like that are not facts. I know better.
Wow. You start by desperately backpedaling on your “Marxist” bullshit and now you’re reduced to crying: “Freeze peach!”
Why I think you’ve been beaten.
Clinton has spend 20 years advocating against single payer. Today, she won’t even make an empty promise of it like Obama did in 2008. In what possible sense does Clinton support it “in principle?” Clinton is an opponent of single payer and she will not push for it if elected.
OK, torture is one of those things so fundamental that you can’t really change your position on it. If you haven’t opposed it under all circumstances for your entire life, you have no business being President.
Moreover, your claim is more than a little disingenuous. Torture doesn’t need to be “banned,” it’s already illegal and has been since the country was founded. What we need is to enforce that ban.
Given Clinton’s compulsive lying, I often say I won’t believe her without a costly signal to back up her words. This is one area in which a costly signal would be fairly easy to provide. Clinton is Secretary of State. She’s a high-ranking member of Obama’s cabinet and works with Obama regularly. If she genuinely did oppose torture, she could pressure Obama to start making arrests— from the people who gave the order to the people who set up the program to the low-ranked soldiers who physically performed the torture. Actually convicting any of them before November would probably be impossible, but once a massive investigation has been started it’s tricky to pull the plug on it, so I would accept that as a costly signal.
$12/hr is insufficient. $15/hr is probably insufficient. I’ve heard that the minimum wage from the 1950s, adjusted both for inflation and increases in productivity, would be closer to $25/hr.
Just off the cuff, I’d advocate raising the minimum wage to $10/hr retroactive to 2007, raising it to $12/hr retroactive to 2008, raising it to $15/hr retroactive to 2009, and then raising it $1/hr every year past and future until 2018.
Of course, I’d also consider alternatives to a fixed-dollar minimum wage; for example, minimum wage is $20/hr OR 4% of what the company’s CEO makes, whichever is greater. Perhaps it should also be tied to cost of living; it’s $15/hr in Jackson, MS but $30/hr in Manhattan.
Mind you, I don’t believe for a second that Clinton supports even a $12/hr minimum wage.
Got a cite handy for Clinton’s positions on taxes? Given her history, she doesn’t seem the sort for progressive taxation.
The numbers were off the cuff; I support the idea but I don’t have hard positions on the specifics. That said, I believe allowing an aristocracy of inherited wealth is one of the most disgusting injustices we can allow. I don’t support an “incremental” approach where, like the ACA, the first increment is the only one that anyone intended. Ideally, I’d like to see inheritance banned retroactively. How anybody can look at the Kochs or the Waltons and say: “The instant they were born, they contributed thousands of times more value to the world than I ever will” is beyond me.
The right to privacy is fundamental. Anyone who opposes it is unfit for political office. Anyone who would sacrifice it should seriously rethink their priorities.
You know, I’m sure I could probably find some remote administration software and configure it to give me control of whichever PC it’s installed on. If you’re willing to compromise on the right to privacy, I’d invite you to install that on your machine. I’ll even give you the same empty promise as the NSA that I won’t misuse any of the information I find.
That part was directed at Nerd of Redhead, who explicitly called me a Marxist because I oppose Clinton. I posted the list to demonstrate how far to the right he was; since they support Clinton and considers my positions “Marxist” I presumed that they disagreed with at least four of those positions since Clinton disagrees with all seven.
OK, this is just one more example of a problem I’ve seen time and again.
Clinton is a politician. Like most career politicians, she panders. She makes empty promises on the campaign trail and then completely disregards them in office. In 2008, Obama promised an end to the war in Iraq, financial reform, health care reform, and the closure of Guantanamo; the instant he won the election he began backtracking on all of them, and by the time he took office he was actively opposing many of them.
Clinton is no different. Anything on her website is meaningless. Anything she says in a speech is meaningless. If you want to claim she supports a particular position, you need to cite actions on her part; she voted for the Iraq war, so she supports it. She voted for the Patriot Act and similar, therefore she opposes the right to privacy.
Campaign Clinton is almost as good as Campaign Obama who is much better than IRL Sanders. Unfortunately, Campaign Obama was more or less the mirror image of IRL Obama, and IRL Clinton has, thus far, been the mirror image of Campaign Clinton.
@ dianne, 133-134
…and only a googling away are thousands of stories of people murdered by their health insurance companies. Most people wouldn’t put it that way, but the way insurance companies delay and deny and restrict care is pretty much the textbook definition of depraved indifference. The people who make the policies that outline the delay/deny/restrict strategy know that people will die because of it. In fact, they count on it. The ACA pretty much set that model in stone.
I won’t deny that there have been some benefits to the ACA, however. It’s true, a lot of people have been able to get care that they wouldn’t have been able to get before, and that’s a good thing. But the insurance rates keep rising, and will continue to do so. The ACA guarantees insurance companies 20% profits, and medical costs are continuing to rise. There is absolutely no incentive to bring the costs down, so everybody wins. Except for the people who need medical care.
I know people who have insurance now, who didn’t before. They can’t really afford to use it, but they have to pay for it anyway. So they have less money than they did before, and while they do have coverage in case of emergency, they’ll be lose everything they have if they ever need to use it. This may be a slight improvement, but it is in no way acceptable. If they end up on the street, they’ll lose their insurance eventually anyway, and likely die just a bit later than they would have before, what with being unable to pay for follow-up care.
As far as Medicare and Medicaid go, no, they weren’t mistakes, and they aren’t comparable to the ACA either. I would like to see Medicare for all, with some improvements to fill in the gaps. The ACA is not a step in that direction; if anything, it’s a step towards privatizing Medicare/Medicaid. Medicare is essentially a single payer system, and the government isn’t out for profit. That is the key difference.
And to build on Jake Harban’s point @ 132, I also don’t find Obama’s support for torture, mass spying, Wall-street robber barons, drone warfare, etc. acceptable. He didn’t start any of that, however, while the ACA is his signature piece of legislation. Clinton promises to uphold all of that.
I suspect we will see some sort of education bill in the style of the ACA under Clinton, one which will further entrench for-profit entities in the higher education system, to the detriment of the citizenry. That’s my take-away from the education portion of her platform, via her website, and from her speeches.
I’m not saying I won’t vote for her. If I’m voting for the person who I think would do the best job running the country, out of all the candidates on the ticket, I would be voting for Jill Stein. If I’m voting for who I think would actually improve the country, instead of merely maintaining the status quo, then I’m voting for Jill Stein. If I’m voting in hopes of, just maybe, moving the Democrats a little to the left, then I’m voting for Jill Stein. If I’m voting to stop Trump, then I’m voting for Clinton.
Clinton is orders of magnitude better than Trump, about that there is no question. She’s an accomplished diplomat, a skilled politician, and a capable leader. She’ll keep the nation afloat, she won’t blow up the world, and she won’t round up “undesirables” (unless they’re whistleblowers). However, she’ll also be 4-8 more years of intolerable human rights abuses, corporate rule, and little-to-no action on climate change. Business as usual, with emphasis on “business,” as always. She didn’t create these problems, but I sure would like it if she would try to do something about them.
I fear that they won’t realize this until both options have become so evil that the distinction no longer matters to them personally.
Given my situation, I’d be equally screwed under Trump and Clinton. Most of the people who support Clinton as the “lesser evil” are relatively privileged and the distinction won’t really matter to them directly but boy do they love mansplaining at me about how people less well off than they are will suffer more under Trump.
8 more years. Clinton winning in 2016 would guarantee that no progressive Democrat would be able to run in 2020. Either she’d win a second term or get replaced by a Republican; either way it’d be 8 years of disaster.
And most of the scientists agree that if we want to prevent global warming, we need to start a decade ago. We cannot afford 8 more years of apathy.
Voting for Jill Stein and getting Trump will do what for global warming? Apathy turning into horror and misery will do what for global warming? 4 years of a disaster under a nominal Republican, actual asshole, will somehow make a depressed populace less likely to turn to the Democrats? That’s your answer?
Trump believes global warming is a communist plot. Literally. He is on record as saying that the Chinese made it up because…um…actually, I have no idea why the Chinese would want to fake global warming, but apparently that’s what Trump believes.
Donald Trump believes Donald Trump is great, and will make Donald Trump great again because Donald Trump is great. That’s what Donald Trump believes, that Donald Trump is great. Really, believe it, Donald Trump is so great that he’s great.
Rachel Maddow looks back at some past American female presidential candidacies and notes that while many other countries broke that barrier long ago, Hillary Clinton’s nomination will be the closest any American woman has made it so far.
Voting for Jill Stein gives us a (slim) chance of getting Stein and some real action on global warming.
Getting Trump will mean four years of inaction and then another chance in 2020. Under Clinton, we’d be guaranteed eight years of inaction.
8 years of disaster under a Republican actual asshole made a depressed populace rise up en masse and hand a landslide victory to a Democrat running on a very progressive platform, so yeah, I think it’s a fair bet.
Maybe this time, the Democrat running on a progressive platform will actually, you know, fulfill some of those promises rather than abandoning them as soon as the polls closed.
He’s also on record taking action to defend his own property from global warming.
Elizabeth Warren jumps on board the Clinton bandwagon:
Report: Elizabeth Warren To Endorse Clinton Thursday Night On MSNBC
No, there is no conceivable chance for that, and it contradicts what you’ve said earlier, which is that your primary concern is ensuring that your hands, anyway, are clean. Purity. Principles. That’s what you’re advocating for. There is no possible way Stein would be president, it is not credible to suggest otherwise, nor would it be desirable for her to be so. Stop waffling and explain in substantive terms how global warming will be reduced by a throw-away vote for a vapid protest candidate.
Fixed that for you. The greens are not a viable party yet. They have twenty years or more to prove themselves and get people elected at all levels before the populace will actually vote for one for president. That is reality. It is a delusion that voting green this year is anything other than a feel-good throw-away vote.
I haven’t even known the greens were running candidates for congress or the senate in 2012 and 2014 until I received the ballot in the mail. They are totally unknown by the general populace, which that observation demonstrates. That has to change first. Requires money and shoe leather. Your money and shoe leather….
I am worried though. What if the Crown Princess loses the general election to Trump? Will all the lesser-evil-adepts not regret their choice then? Mr. Sanders did seem to be a better match to the Republican candidate.
Then Sanders would have probably lost too. He typically had only a 5% boost, due to misogynists. Who really love Trump, as he is one too.
What other VIABLE choice is there other than Clinton at this stage? Sometimes you lose the election.
@ snuffcurry, 173
Obviously it’s desirable to some of us that Jill Stein become president. It won’t happen, at least not this time around, but I certainly wouldn’t consider voting for her if I didn’t think she would be a good president. I would much prefer her over Clinton. Over Sanders as well, for that matter.
@ Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls, 174
The point I have been trying to make is that an election with such high dissatisfaction in both major party candidates is a good time to push for an alternative. Jill Stein and Green Party have a better chance than they’ve had in years to gain a decent chunk of the vote, and thus gain some national recognition, so that perhaps one day they will be viable.
Is red-baiting a common thing in the comments of political threads here, or is it just one obnoxious poster in particular ?
That’s fine. That’s not how she’s been floated here, as a token gesture to wash away impurities of commenters’s earlier voting history and a means of punishing the DNC for insufficiently courting a minority of voters. I don’t pretend to understand why anyone would consider Stein or Sanders more competent than Clinton, but as I say, that’s fine. All I personally want in this election, frankly, is an adult who knows what the position requires and has the chops and will to do it properly. For me, there is only one choice. I’ve never had a dream candidate. They do not exist and they never will, except for single-issue voters lacking empathy for and interest in the rest of humanity. Those voters will never define or influence mainstream American politics. A third-party will only ever be viable if they can offer something other than not-GOP/DNC. To do so, they need experience. That will happen from the bottom-up. Stein has done little to accomplish this in the last eight years, has fostered and promoted no talent on a local level, and Sanders has been similarly parochial and absent from any position of leadership or influence amongst ambitious young progressives. Both have launched shallow, last-minute campaigns. 2016 will not yield them any significant triumphs, but there is the possibility of harming their causes immensely by advocating for Heightened Contradictions. We’ll see what they choose.
You’ve been boring us for six months with same old song and dance. The greens a twenty years at least from being viable, and a Trump presidency is to be avoided at all costs. That would set back your agenda twenty years, but don’t seem to care.
You are simply being ideologically stupid. Time to shut up.
Jake Harban @165
I’m glad to hear your situation doesn’t include an unwanted pregnancy.
I’m surprised how many people are willing to let Trump fill vacancies on your Supreme Court.
I’m seriously boggled by those who insist Trump and Clinton are somehow equivalent. No matter how hawkish Clinton is, Trump has suggested using nukes in the fight against ISIS, suggested murdering the families of suspected terrorists and wants to fully legalize torture.
Ignore his damn wall. It’s obvious that it’s not going to happen even with a full Republican Congress, but it’s not the only policy he’s actually suggested. Plenty of his other ideas could get a lot of traction with a Republican house and senate, and if he wins the presidency, there is a decent chance the Republicans could take congress, too. Rounding up those who are suspected of being undocumented immigrants and dumping them in Mexico has happened in the past, and enjoys a fair bit of support by congressional Republicans. Rolling back LGBT and women’s rights shouldn’t be hard to pass in that situation. Reducing or eliminating the minimum wage and other worker’s rights is well liked by Republicans, so that could be on the table, too.
Or take Trump’s followers. David fucking Duke loves the man. Plenty of white nationalists think he’s one of them. If he gets put in the White House, do you think these white supremacists are going to continue to believe they’re hated by society, or will they see that as a validation of their own ideals? Add to this the fact that Trump has directly encouraged his supporters to be violent to those who protest the man, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a powder keg waiting to blow.
I may not be thrilled about Clinton’s hawkishness or neoliberal tendencies, but anyone who says they’re indistinguishable is deluding themselves, especially if they think Trump is likely to suddenly transmogrify into some kind of moderate once elected.
Google. That’s cute.
I don’t need to resort to google for my insurance horror stories. I could tell you the one about the patient whose insurance acknowledged that the care ordered was standard of care but said that they were nonetheless not going to pay for it. No further explanation. Just “we’re not paying”. Or the one about the patient whose insurance paid for hip but not knee replacements. Yeah, of course she needed a new knee. Or…actually, never mind. That one’s gross. Um, that one too. The one who worked for the insurance company and had paid for her insurance since forever and was dropped from coverage and fired the minute she got sick, that one’s enraging, but not as viscerally gross.
Nonetheless, patients with insurance live longer than those without. And I’m not willing to refuse to implement a system that will increase the number of people with imperfect insurance on the grounds that not doing so might somehow, at some time in the indefinite future, lead to a better system. Clinton tried for a better (still not as good as I’d like, but better) system in the 1990s and it got torpedoed. Obama took the tiniest, most cautious possible step towards increasing coverage and look how difficult it’s been to implement. Do you really think that repealing the ACA would lead to everyone accepting the need for universal Medicare?
Incidentally, some Medicare and Medicaid programs are administered by private health insurance companies and they are behaving just as you would expect. Random piece of advice to anyone who is starting Medicare or on Medicare and considering which plan to use: DO NOT take the Medicare HMO. Just don’t. They’re scuzzballs who will only accept you if you’re healthy and drop you if you’re ill. That aside, if Sanders were elected and somehow managed to ram Medicare for all through Congress, it would end up…helping insurance companies. My feeling–and I’m no expert in this area, so I could be wrong–is that the best method at this point is to wait until they come for a bailout and nationalize them.
Part of the problem is that people just aren’t accepting the reality of medical care in the 21st century. You can’t insure against a certainty and it is a virtual certainty that every person alive will need medical care at some point. Heck, if you drop dead suddenly tomorrow with no warning, someone’s still got to pay for your autopsy. We need to stop pretending we can insure medical care and just set aside a certain amount of the world’s resources to pay for it. Maybe more along the lines of the way every country spends money on defense: Some pay more, some pay less, but no one demands that citizens buy defense insurance to pay for the military. Heck, go ahead and use a military metaphor about defending the country against the enemies of arterial vascular disease and oncogenic mutations if that makes everyone feel better.
Sorry. This is WAY off topic and far beyond anything Clinton, Trump, Sanders, or even Stein would ever consider.
I am fairly unsympathetic to criticism of the ACA, even if it didnt go as far as I’d like. If it hadn’t gotten passed when it had, my parents would have either gone bankrupt buying Multiple Sclerosis medication or my mom would have to get used to daily seizures and losing the ability to walk.
“Come back here and take what’s coming to you! I’ll bite yer legs off!” – Sir Bernie the Sanders.
@138 methuseus: Unfortunately I don’t know of any organizations in the US; it’s now been over ten years since I lived there, so I haven’t gotten in tune with the beneath-the-surface politics. There was a push for voting reform in Canada while I lived there, but it sadly failed. I think the biggest barrier is that people who adamantly support one of the top two parties don’t want to see reform, as the current system helps prop up the two-party system.
Your fallacy is: Argument from incredulity.
I suggest you work on your reading comprehension skills. At no point have I ever said that my “primary concern” is keeping my hands clean. That is, however, the primary straw man of people trying to rationalize their support for mass murder.
And you think that’s a bad thing? Next you’ll accuse me of being a social justice warrior.
Last time I checked, politics was about politics, not “winning.”
As the Sanders campaign demonstrated, it’s certainly possible for an unknown candidate to win a considerable chunk of the vote without any big money backers and in spite of a political establishment fighting them every step of the way.
Ergo, your conclusion is erroneous.
If you could choose freely, why would you pick Clinton over Stein?
Explain in substantive terms how global warming will be reduced by voting for a neocon who intends to do absolutely nothing about it.
Seriously, which would you prefer?
(a) No action on global warming for 8 years, then reroll.
(b) No action on global warming for 4 years, then reroll.
(c) 0.5% chance of substantial action on global warming; otherwise (a) or (b).
As was Bernie Sanders at the beginning of his campaign. That explains why he dropped out of the race after losing Iowa and New Hampshire by 50 points each…
Of course not. If Clinton alienates the left and loses, it’ll be our fault for not supporting her anyway!
Surely the progressive superman that is Obama has successfully defended the right to terminate that unwanted pregnancy?
Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to think about that when I’m busy dying.
I don’t think a single person here has posted in support of Trump. Is zero a number you find surprising?
Since you define “viable” as “supported by Nerd of Redhead,” the answer is no one. However, that’s not really a meaningful criterion on which anyone else will base their decision.
Nah, I think that’s just Nerd of Redhead. They’s our token Republican; screaming that anyone more liberal than Trump is a “Marxist” is what they does.
OK, maybe this will help you unboggle.
Suppose a genie teleported you into a room with a random child from Pakistan. The genie handed you a gun and offered you a choice. If you shoot the child in the head, you will be returned home (physically) unharmed and Clinton will be guaranteed to win the election. If you put the gun down, you and the child will both be returned to your respective homes unharmed, and no change will occur in the state of the campaigns.
Which would you do? Would you be willing to kill the child to guarantee Trump’s loss?
Sanders is a senior senator who was running for the Democratic nomination within the context of the party and with their backing. Nor was he entirely without “big money” or even PAC backers, if it comes to that. Stein has never held national level office. I’d vote for her for representative, maybe even straight into the senate, but president? That doesn’t seem like a job one should take without experience.
As a side issue, does anyone else notice the similarity between the desire to have a politician who is an “outsider” and “untainted by the establishment” with a desire to have a sexual partner who is a virgin? In both cases, lack of experience at doing the thing that you are asking them to do is considered a virtue. And in neither case is it likely to come out in reality the way it does in the person’s fantasy.
It would be vastly amusing, if the potential consequences were not so serious, to see people who no doubt (quite rightly) denounce climate change denialists’ failure to accept reality, so blatantly fail to accept reality. Saying Stein has any chance of winning the 2016 Presidential election exposes you as either a fool – if you really believe it, or a liar – if you don’t.
I’m an active member of the Scottish Green Party, contributing money to and campaigning in the recent Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) elections, in which we increased our representation from 2 to 6. But there are certainly circumstances in which I’d vote for a non-SGP candidate in order to keep a fascist or bigot or malignant narcissist out – and particularly one who would have the power to launch a nuclear war. If you’re in a state which could go either way in a tight race, voting for Clinton and campaigning against Trump is the only moral and rational course of action (you don’t need to do the latter as part of the Clinton campaign if you can’t stomach that – and I well understand why). If you’re in a state which is obviously going to be won by either Trump or Clinton – fine, vote for Stein – but if that’s all you do for the Green Party, it’s a futile gesture, whose only point is that it makes you feel smug. Do you raise money for the party, campaign for its candidates in local races, contribute to shaping policy? You and your chums certainly aren’t winning any votes for Stein, or local Green candidates, with your self-righteous posturing here.
The US green party got less than 0.5% in the national election. That is to say, so few votes that they would not be eligible for funding under the German system. The Grün/Bundis90 in contrast is probably about to become part of the ruling coalition. Part of the difference is the system: It’s easier for a new party to break into the German system than the US. But it’s also partly because the German party built support up from the local level rather than ignoring local politics and going straight, if impossibly, for the highest national post. The US party needs to do the basic work of establishing itself.
Jake Harban@187,
Suppose a genie teleported you into a room with a random child from Pakistan. The genie handed you a gun and offered you a choice. If you shoot the child in the head, you will be returned home (physically) unharmed and
ClintonStein will be guaranteed to win the election. If you put the gun down, you and the child will both be returned to your respective homes unharmed, and no change will occur in the state of the campaigns.Which would you do? Would you be willing to kill the child to guarantee
Trump’s lossStein’s win?See how clearly this sort of crap exposes you for the self-righteous arsehole you are?
The chance may be slim, but if you want to claim it’s zero then you’ll need to demonstrate that she’s not on the ballot or that votes for her won’t be counted.
The problem is that Stein is the only candidate on the ballot who isn’t any of those things.
Nope. I’m disabled. I don’t have the money or the spoons to do much of anything. Does that mean I’m not allowed to vote? Does it mean my vote is “smug self-righteous posturing?” I’ve done as much as I could— even if that was just write a few letters.
There is no perfect candidate. There likely never will be. We’re reduced to picking the best candidate of the undesirable ones on offer. So who would you vote for? The warmongering bigot, the other warmongering bigot, or the decent person with no experience who will try to do a good job nonetheless?
I’ve never understood the desire for either one.
If there were a progressive candidate with political experience (or even a centrist candidate with political experience) I’d vote for them. I will be voting for them down ballot. However, when it comes to the Presidency I will be choosing the progressive newbie over the experienced neocon.
Why should they? Most of them (including PZ) supported Sanders as long as he had a non-negligible chance of winning the nomination. Once it was clear that – barring events they could do nothing to encourage or prevent, such as Clinton or Trump dying or being indicted for a criminal offence – either Trump or Clinton was going to win the election, they made the rational decision that Clinton is the lesser evil. Wishing Sanders had won the nomination, or fantasising about Stein winning the Presidency, isn’t going to change that reality.
Jake Harban@192,
No, I don’t. I just have to look at the evidence from thousands of elections all over the USA and the world, and assess it rationally. Just like a climate change denialist just has to look at the evidence and assess it rationally.
But you do somehow “have the spoons” to comment repeatedly on this blog, parading your supposed moral superiority, and sneering self-righteously at those who are able to recognise reality when it stares them in the face.
Sorry, the logic doesn’t work for Stein.
See, the point is that Clinton intends to continue the wars that will inevitably result in Pakistani children being murdered. If you’re happy to see those murders committed in your name, but you’d balk at committing one of them yourself, then you’re a hypocrite. Stein does not intend to continue those wars, so no children will die at her hands in the same way.
Perhaps I should spell this out further, since some people here have trouble following analogies:
Suppose a genie predicted, with perfect accuracy, the number of children who would be directly killed by drones or soldiers as a direct result of the wars Clinton plans to conduct if she wins. The genie teleports you into a room with ten percent of them, hands you a gun, and offers you this choice: Kill all of them and Clinton will win; put the gun down and you all go home with no changes. The genie reminds you that if Clinton wins without your help, all of these children will die anyway. Would you kill the kids?
The evidence is quite clear: Jill Stein has never won an election. Neither has Donald Trump. Looks like Clinton might as well pack up and move to the White House now.
Suppose for a moment that Jill Stein manages to build up a grassroots campaign similar to Sanders (and quite possibly using Sanders and his support base). Are you claiming that Stein couldn’t possibly win even with a populist campaign? Or are you claiming that Sanders supporters would never back Stein in spite of many of them already voicing support for her?
Yes. Yes I do. You wanna ablesplain about that?
You really think that if Stein were somehow elected she would really never get involved in foreign wars? That she would never feel the need, whether due to pressure or not, to pursue al Qaeda or try to sort out Syria or anything else? That she won’t think the drones are handy toys for getting rid of “bad guys”? Seems unlikely.
Okay. Why would that be likely to happen now when it didn’t happen in any of Stein’s prior campaigns? Has Sanders endorsed her? Is he likely to?
“Never” is impossible to say, but I’ll take the risk of it over the certainty of it any day.
This year, she’s running against a fascist Republican and a neocon Democrat who just defeated a progressive Democrat. As a result, there are far more progressives refusing to submit to the “lesser” evil than there were in previous elections. Additionally, the aforementioned defeated progressive Democrat is still a wildcard. As a result of his recently-failed campaign, the progressives who refuse to submit to the “lesser” evil are not only more numerous, they are more organized and they are more energized due to that recently-ended campaign which, though failed, was substantially more successful than was predicted by the same sort of people who inevitably predict that Stein can’t possibly win.
Just as a reminder, I’m well aware a Stein victory is an absurd long shot. Unless you want to defend the idea that it’s impossible, we really have nothing to argue about.
@Jake Harbin, seeing you are well aware of it being an absurd long shot, in which case likely so is everyone else, do you seriously think that Sanders would consider political suicide on such an attempt.
Sanders is not his supporters. Even if he doesn’t back Stein personally, he’ll probably want to maintain his support base to pull the Democrats (and Clinton) to the left.
That some of us will inevitably end up backing Stein is beyond his control. It’s not like I’m voting for her on his say-so.
So, again, voting for an absurd long shot will begin to reduce global warming how? Voting for an absurd long shot will accomplish what else besides? What are you willing to sacrifice, what pain are you willing to burden others with, for your absurd long shot?
What are its substantial successes thus far? How are they being measured? Where does Sanders logically go from here if not working with Democrats? If he is working with Democrats, as he has now promised to, why not vote for the one over whom he currently holds the most influence, thus proving his experiment correct (that the Dems can be saved if pushed leftwards)? Please be specific. Please find a way to explain away the inherent contradiction in this argument of yours, that Sanders was successful but that pissing on that success with a protest vote for the opponent is not only the right, pure, and noble path but the one that will reap the most rewards. Either Sanders accomplished something or he didn’t. You can try have it both ways, but nobody’s obliged to see you as anything other than disingenuous when you do.
Nope. The general election results will determine if that’s true or not.
And nope again. You made the assertion, it’s up to you to prove it*, and your speculation (.5%) means nothing without evidence.
*this should be easy if Stein is a serious candidate. Cite her proposals and her number-crunching, and not the Greens’s bogstandard, pat platform slogans. Explain her plan to get progressive environmental legislature through Congress.
So I assume you were just daydreaming out loud, so to speak, about what you would like to see and not actually being serious about Sanders turning round to support Stein. What was the point again?
Goalposts are wobbling to an absurd degree here. How does Sanders garnering votes from Democrats and independents mean the Green party is now viable? How does that work? Why would Sanders voters abandon him and the party he has now endorsed? Why are the Greens even being discussed here as though there is significant data to suggest they’ve benefited or that disenchanted Sanders supporters would automatically turn to them?
Jake Harben, Proven Liar and Bullshitter, and Green Party Fanatic Asshole
Your purposeful hyperbole makes you a liar and bullshitter, and somebody whose words are to be dismissed on sight. You will say anything to advance your inane agenda.
To repeat a previous post, I haven”t voted republican for president for 35 years, and for any other postilion the last twenty. I’m more liberal than Trump, and I’m not a Marxist. I voted for Sanders in the primary, and will vote for Clinton in the general election, and democratic down ballot.
Harban and his fanatical arguments simply remind me of the Marxists I met back in college during the ‘Nam War. He is just as impervious to evidence as they are. Lies on top of lies, answered with jargon and irrational bullshit, and this person wants you to listen to them like they understand politics. They don’t. He hates me because I call out his fuckwitted assholery
Okay, so let’s assume, for the moment, that all she has to do is say, “Hi, I’m running and I’m not Trump or Clinton” to win. She still has to be able to say that to 330 million or so people. That’s going to cost. Does she have a campaign budget in the hundreds of millions? Bernie did (including nearly $80 million raised from “large individual contributors”. So much for not beholden to the 1%.)
There is no “logic” to such absurd and impossible scenarios – and I notice you didn’t actually answer the question, because you’re a moral coward, willing to pose them to others but not answer them. After all, according to your own claims about Stein, you could, in that fake scenario, save thousands of lives at the expense of killing one child. So, would you do it or not, you dishonest coward?
Clearly it is not a logical impossibility. Nor is it a logical impossiblity that the sun is about to reduce its output so drastically that without the greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere over the past couple of centuries – and as much more as can be managed – a new and far more drastic ice age will begin. It is also a logical possibility – and far less unlikely than a Stein victory – that Clinton* will undergo a sudden conversion to ecosocialism once elected – and save us all. Only a fool bases their decisions on an “absurd long shot”.
*Or even, I suppose, Trump – but if Trump is elected, it’s almost certain the Republicans, most of whom are climate change denialists, will strengthen their hold on Congress.
Even assuming your claim about “far more progressives refusing to submit to the ‘lesser’ evil than there were in previous elections” were true, and you have no evidence for it, I don’t see how this makes sense. The progressive Democrat with the grassroots campaign couldn’t win the Democratic primary – why would that indicate a better possibility of Stein winning the general election?
SC (Salty Current) @ #210
I’m not sure a better possibility is indicated but the possibility is not disallowed.
The two pools of voters—in the primary and the general—are different. Even if 100% of the voters in the Democratic primary prefer Candidate A, if they are less than half of the electorate in the general election (as they are), the majority of the electorate overall might prefer someone other than Candidate A. So as an example, it is entirely plausible that, in this rock-paper-scissors election, Clinton beats Sanders in the primary, Sanders beats Trump (according to the polls) in the general, and, (possibly) Trump beats Clinton in the general.
@ Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls, 180
I… what? I’ve posted here maybe a dozen times in the past couple of days, and maybe half that many times over the last year. I’m not sure that I ever posted anything here about the election before Monday or Tuesday. I’ve tried to share my thoughts on this election in reasonable and respectful manner. And I never said I absolutely would vote for Jill Stein, I just wanted to discuss the possibility that this election might be a time when the Green Party could pull some disaffected voters from the major parties, and perhaps gain some recognition and someday be a viable party.
I was going to argue further, but you’re right, I am stupid. I should shut up and listen to my betters. It’s too bad, though. I think this is closest I’ve come to an actual conversation in at least two years. I don’t really go out, anymore. I’ve come close in a couple of other places, but I just think and type too slowly to really engage. I’ve sort of forgotten what conversation looks/sounds like anyway. I hadn’t realized that I was also exceptionally boring, but now I know.
It’s pathetic that this mattered to me, I know. I’m just so tired of pain, tired of isolation, tired of nightmares, tired of being sick. It was nice to dream that things might be better, someday, but you’re right, it’s not realistic. I just wanted to talk about it for a while. It was stupid though, and not even really about the election.
I keep thinking that maybe one day I’ll be able to afford a bunch of medical tests, though. Well, wishing is more like it. I’d give anything to know why it hurts so much, why it feels like every inch of my skin is on fire sometimes, why it feels like someone is stabbing me with an icepick other times. I mean, even if it wasn’t something treatable, just having a name would be nice. Therapy too, that’d be nice. Maybe I could go out and interact with people, someday. I used to like that.
That isn’t going to happen. You’re right, all of you, it does no good to pretend. I can wish all I want, but every day is a little worse than the one before it. I sleep a little less, food is little more tasteless, and it gets a little bit harder to distract myself from thinking about what I am. I never knew that I could be so damn tired. It really is mindboggling.
What I really wish for, the only wish that might actually one day come true, is for the courage to finally, really, truly shut up. God, but I’m sick of my voice. Today, I’m still too much of a coward to embrace silence. But I can, and will, stop talking about the election.
Jeff W, I notice no mention of Stein/greens (Stein is not the official candidate at the moment, August convention) in your analysis.
Discuss away, but do so with historical perspective and not fanciful thinking.
The Green presidential candidate polled 0.36% in the 2012 election. I didn’t even know there were green congreessional/senate/gubernatorial candidates in 2012 and/or 2014 until I received my ballot.
What makes you think that without a cult of personality (Trump, Nader, Perot), that this number will increase any further than a few single digits 2016, if that?
Jake Harban writes fantasy in his mind of how to make the greens noticeable. He ignores the basic work required to set up phone trees, send out brochures, take in donations, knock on doors, etc., required to run a proper campaign, to make people even know you exist and have a message.
The message won’t go out the populace through this blog.
That is what I have been telling him ever since he appeared.
Jeff W:
Actually, I should have looked more closely at the specific exchange to which I was responding, which concerned Stein’s potential to build a large grassroots movement and not her chances in the general election. Apologies to all.*
Sure, but the idea that the general pool of voters would elect Stein after a majority of Democratic primary voters didn’t vote for Sanders is silly.
* I will say that one source of wariness for me concerning the Sanders candidacy was the channeling of leftwing energies and actions toward representative politics with no long-term strategy if that candidacy didn’t succeed (or if it did, for that matter). I have more of an openness to engaging with representative democracy than many other anarchists, but I worry when it appears people are becoming too invested in candidates or electoral politics generally. Jake Harban, it seems to me that’s the road you’ve gone down. And I’m concerned that it’s leading you to underestimate or dismiss the danger of Trump and Trumpism.
Personally, I think that writing online is an important contribution to leftwing movements, but at this moment the best thing you can do is to direct your posts and whatever else you do directly to the concrete causes you so strongly believe in. Getting people elected who seem to share many of your values isn’t inconsequential, though they’ll pretty much inevitably disappoint, but working for the causes themselves – and stopping fascistic candidates – is the key.
vucodlak, I think your comments have been very thoughtful. I hope you can get a diagnosis and treatment for your problems.
For the record, I’m one of those people. I’ve finally had appointments (with really superb professionals), tests, and a diagnosis. It turns out my attempts at self-diagnosis were ludicrous failures. I have a surgery scheduled soon, and it will change my life. Thanks, Obama (and Hillary)! I haven’t had to pay anything, and don’t have anything (thanks, capitalism and the casualization of academic labor!). Without the ACA, I would see no end in sight, and now I’m optimistic for the first time in as long as I can remember. I want that for everyone.
I’m getting choked up, but as I’ve gone through the process always in the back of my mind has been the thought that I had to be treated before Republicans could possibly win. And I’m a privileged white person. I wouldn’t know where to start with my criticisms of the healthcare system in the US, but keeping the Republicans from destroying the progress that has been won is vitally important.