"Watch Bernie Sanders React When Stephen Colbert Compares Him to Donald Trump"

[berniepdx420]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-celebrates-primary-win-on-colbert

It was one of the best exchanges from last night's "Late Show" appearance.
—By Grace Wilson | Thu Feb. 11, 2016 10:39 AM EST

In one of the best exchanges, Colbert asked Sanders about the perception that he was simply riding a wave of angry populism among voters, a kind of Donald Trump with different hair. "Yes, people have a right to be angry," Sanders admitted. "But what we need to be is rational in figuring out how we address the problems, and not simply scapegoating minorities," he said, referring to Trump's controversial call to ban all Muslim immigration.

"I think what people are saying is enough is enough," Sanders said. "We need fundamental changes in our political system and our economic system."

[Tortmaster]

1. When we have ...

... Trump bellowing across a debate stage about the "communist atheist guy who wants government-imposed death panels," and Senator Sanders shouting back his slogan involving the "establishment oligarchy," then our descent into a country of two screaming, slogan-gushing, unreasoning tea parties, one side pushing greed, while the other epitomizes envy, will be complete.

Thankfully, we can choose Secretary Clinton.

[berniepdx420]

2. lmfao... it's as if you've forgotten the 90's and the "vast right-wing conspiracy"...

Nice try though..

[Tortmaster]

4. I don't see how what you ...

... have written responds to my, or Stephen Colbert's point: What difference is there between Trump and Senator Sanders in terms of emotional, populist, demagogic tactics?

[berniepdx420]

7. Well your equating the outright lie trump is bellowing.."communist atheist guy who wants government

imposed death panels" and Bernie's slogan of "establishment oligarchy".. would lead me to believe that you are disingenuous or at best very uninformed. Let me spell it out... one of these things exists and the other does not...

Expand your Understanding...

We Must Replace Our Corrupt System of Legalized Bribery
Bernie Sanders

[Tortmaster]

16. If you don't ...

... think that the phrase "communist atheist guy who wants to impose government-sponsored death panels" won't exist in one form or another if Senator Sanders should somehow win the Party's nomination, then I fear that you have sadly underestimated the abilities of Rove, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of the Right Wing noise machine.

[cali]

39. Any reasonable person knows that both candidates will be

savagely attacked. Hill already has horrible favorables.

Btw, I think you are a perfect ambassador for Hill.

[cali]

36. A great deal of difference. Bernie isn't calibrating his message

to appeal to the worst in us. Trump is. Speaking of which, that certainly seems to be what you do over at kos. Back to Bernie. He is who he has always been. And yeah, tort, I know. He's represented me for over 25 years.

[Wig Master]

3. Agree that HRC will put poor people in their place

[Tortmaster]

10. And Trump will be braying ...

... across the debate stage about "tax increases, the federal deficit, and how them foreigners took our jobs," until Senator Sanders responds with something, something Vampire Squid, while everyone in America knows that both of these grand visions, based in greed and envy respectively, have no chance.at implementation, although we all enjoyed a good cathartic national scream.

Instead, I will vote for the adult in the room.

[Wig Master]

11. Do what you want

[Ron Green]

14. Your definition of "adult"

needs examination.

[Tortmaster]

23. My definition of ...

... "adult" in this context would be somebody who offered detailed and implementable plans, who has the experience and resume to win election, and one who isn't campaigning on a single issue. The adult world is much too complex for that.

[dchill]

28. No, we can't!

[Tortmaster]

35. There's the slogan ...

... on cue. Well done, friend, you hit your mark. Now, we can play Christie-Rubio like this all night, or you can provide a non-talking point, non-slogan response.

[Uncle Joe]

5. If it were envy, Bernie would've sold out the people decades ago and be riding the

Wall Street/Oligarch circuit for mega-bucks.

This isn't about "envy" it's about justice and fair play.

[Tortmaster]

13. If it were about justice ...

... and fair play, Senator Sanders wouldn't be facing constant comparisons to Donald Trump, and the Vermont Senator's rhetoric would be more about helping the poor and working poor, instead of being about attacking others and fighting the "Establishment."

[Ron Green]

15. You misunderstand the nature and the source of

the comparisons. It's part of the narrative maintained by the very system Sanders is calling out.

[Tortmaster]

20. Rather, I think I understand ...

... it all too well.

With an edit, let me note that in your words, Senator Sanders is "calling out" something. If his movement was less envy-based, he'd be doing more "offering of help."

I can see that even you may be trapped in his rhetoric of emotionalism.

[micraphone]

29. envy-based? FFS

Envious of WHAT?

You are eluded...

If anyone is envious, it's HRC watching the money pouring in to Bern... she's feeling it!

When will shills like you see this?

[Tortmaster]

37. Name-calling. You've sunk to it.

I think it may have something to do with Senator Sanders' emotional plea based on envy. It seems to have angried up your blood.

That money, by the way, won't buy Senator Sanders Nevada or South Carolina or Super Tuesday. Some things can't be bought with money.

[Uncle Joe]

21. Do you mean like here? He has only been doing this for over a quarter of a century

Virtually every campaign speech Bernie gives, he brings up the U.S. topping all other developed nations in the highest rates of child hood poverty and how the poorest people are making desperate choices between food and medicine.

[TheBlackAdder]

22. He survived the attacks and abuse when he was against the war in Iraq. He'll be OK. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. You're saying that because *you* compare Sanders to Trump, it must be valid?

That's circular reasoning. And there you were, accusing Sanders and his supported of being 'unreasoning'. LOL. You really haven't thought about how to argue, have you?

[Kall]

6. No.

[TTUBatfan2008]

9. No thanks

I'd rather not choose a candidate with an open FBI investigation.

[Tortmaster]

12. Nice Karl Rove ...

... talking point.

Which reminds everyone that Secretary Clinton is 1-1 so far while playing on Senator Sanders' home court and having to beat him and all the Republicans like Rove and Gowdy and Issa and Limbaugh and Hannity at the same time.

That changes beginning with Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

[geologic]

17. Sounds super...

[Peace Patriot]

24. "we can choose Secretary Clinton" and get what?

You think SHE is going to fight the health care profiteers that give her so much money NOT to fight them?

And I'm just talking about Obamacare--and the "incremental" fixes she promises. Those fixes have to do with PROFITS to big, corrupt, monopolistic corporations. She's going to wrestle them to the ground like Teddy Roosevelt and his trust-busting, or Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal, and actually lower or eliminate the prohibitive deductibles and premiums, and actually muscle giant drug manufacturers to charge people reasonable prices?

She just isn't, you know. She's is NOT going to do this. She might put up a "liberal show," and then stop doing even that.

Have we not learned this lesson with the Clintons?

As for expanding Social Security, so that the people who paid all their lives into the fund, to have a decent life when they retire, actually receive what is owed to them, or ending the vicious practice of deducting a Medicare premium from Social Security checks, or any of the other rightwing bullshit that's been done to elderly workers, she just isn't going to do these things. They are not in the interest of her donors.

The problem is NOT what the Pukes do. The problem is the character of the President doing the battle, and the boldness and firmness with which the President proposes and fights for our right to health care, like the people in every other civilized country already have.

Though I give Obama much credit for the enormity of the problems that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld created (which were not helped, on the economic front, by certain terrible decisions of Bill Clinton before them), Obama did, indeed, make a big mistake in taking a public option off the table to START WITH.

That is bad negotiation. Now we have to correct what he wasn't able to do (for whatever reasons). And you don't START WITH a public option. You start with universal health care in a single payer system and as a RIGHT!

Only a president who can rally the American people, as Bernie is clearly capable of, can, a) "take it to the country" when the Pukes are obstructive; and b) inspire people to stay involved and support him in electing a better Congress. (It shouldn't be that difficult with a Congress that has an 8% approval rating!)

Is Hillary going to rally the American people with "incremental" fixes? No! Are the Pukes going to spit on her "incremental" fixes? Yes! Then what? THEN WHAT?

[Tortmaster]

27. I give you credit for ...

... being candid about your slanders, unlike the passive-aggressive Senator from Vermont. Why aren't you as upset about Senator Sanders doing the NRA's business after the NRA helped to elect him in 1990 over his Republican incumbent opponent Pete Smith?

You see, Senator Sanders went on to vote against a version of the Brady Bill five times! Then, he voted to give the gun industry immunity twice. As if that weren't enough, he also voted to allow guns in National Parks and the baggage compartments of Amtrak trains.

There's still more. He voted to make it harder for the ATF to prosecute law-breaking gun dealers. He voted to repeal the assault weapons ban in the District of Columbia. There's still more, but you get the point.

In all fairness, let me say that I don't think this was a true quid pro quo situation with the NRA; I think the Senator was scared of them.

Whatever the explanation, there was a lot of work done for those fine fellows in the gun lobby.

As for Senator Sanders desire to rally the American people, he told a national TV audience that his plan for education reform was to have a "million" or so "young people" march on Washington. I shit you not! That was his "plan."

[Fumesucker]

30. Your positions seem a bit unusual by American political standards

For instance discussing "envy based" politics is usually a meme you would find on the right in America but your anti-gun rant would lead me to think you are on the left.

It is strange but we all contain multitudes, do we not?

[Tortmaster]

38. We do. I personally detest ...

... money and make do with as little of it as possible. Basing an entire campaign on It, whether from the left or from the right, sickens my soul.

Oh, and I'm a gun-grabber, so that explains that.

I appreciate the Zen in your comment.

[Peace Patriot]

42. Sanders has a D- rating from the NRA.

Also, I think he would be a far better negotiator for gun control, coming as he does from a hunting state, than Clinton, whom nobody trusts. I live in a hunting county in California and I understand both sides. There are a whole lot of decent, honorable, likable people who hunt. I also was born in and have lived in big urban areas. Really incompatible problems and cultures that need to be reconciled over issues like assault weapons, rapid fire clips, background checks and gun shows. To me, this has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment which was referring to state militias. It is an entirely modern problem and must be worked out. WHO can work this out and get some sane gun laws passed?

I just shake my head when I think of Clinton trying to do this (trying to do it one day and not trying to do it the next). Sanders has been so consistent on so many issues, and has such incredible experience in the nitty-gritty of Congressional negotiation, that I strongly believe that HE can get sane gun laws, and almost nobody else is in any position to do this, and certainly not Clinton.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Yeah, we can choose Secretary Clinton because "it's her turn",

and "she's a woman" and "she has experience (listening to Henry Kissinger and collecting big bucks from banks)"

[Cassiopeia]

34. I think you need to go back and look

at the metrics of every candidate. It appears you have zero knowledge of who they are.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

40. So we don't live in an oligarchy?

According to academic studies, we do.

[Matariki]

18. Stephen Colbert is playing his old character!

[berniepdx420]

19. I agree... he was sticking it to the corporates both his bosses and his ad buyers

[Betty Karlson]

26. That is how leaders speak.

(And he didn't need a poll or focus group to weigh his words.)

[merrily]

31. I can't always tell when a host is doing a Tim Russert.

Russert liked to pretend he asked everyone "tough questions." He'd even show lots of brief clips that supposedly proved he treated everyone alike.

What he did with Republicans though, is bring up stuff that was already all over the zeitgeist anyway, so they could explain and rationalize it away. And as they explained, he would often nod his head, knowingly, as though he knew the crap they were spewing to be true. When they finished reply, he went to the next question. IOW, he did them a huge favor.

With Democrats, he would ask the question, interrupt them while they were answering, ask follow up question after follow up question, trying to poke holes in their answers, etc.

He was smart enough that most people never caught on.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

41. + One googool! n/t

[Cassiopeia]

32. It is NOT expensive to do the things Bernie wants us to do.

Healthcare, SS, education, infrastructure rebuilding.... none of that is expensive. It has a cost, but there is a return on every one of those investments.

War, political engineering abroad, welfare for corporations, tax breaks, and job exporting trade agreements.... These ideas are extremely expensive and suck money out of the system at a substantial loss for those investments.

It's time for change. Bernie is the only one promising to work towards a goal that delivers profitable change and the only one asking us to help him deliver it. Every other politician running this Presidential election is running for their own personal ambitions and desires. They only want us to vote for them and then for us to shut up and be grateful for their exploitation. They will not change a damn thing for the better if elected.

Bernie or bust. That's our choice. We may still bust under Bernie, but we have a fucking chance if we elect him.

[berniepdx420]

33. +420