Would anyone like to see a Clinton/Sanders Dialog group on DU?

[Ken Burch]

This wouldn't be about getting anyone to stop campaigning for their candidate, but towards taking the first steps towards creating unity, and about working for a less-toxic form of debate and discussion between the two camps in the time remaining between now and Philadelphia(which is crucial, since neither Democratic candidate can win in the fall without the passionate support of the other candidate's loyalists).

There has to be some better way of communicating with each other in the remaining portion of this campaign.

Just wanted to float the idea and see of there was interest.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. It sounds good on paper, but I don't think it will work right now.

[highprincipleswork]

2. I like it, but would profit by some group-sponsored guidelines, for sure.

[Ken Burch]

3. You're right. Feel free to suggest some, just to get things started. n/t.

[highprincipleswork]

4. Well, might be good to look for some common ground, some things we can agree on.

As a first step.

Would polls be helpful?

What kind of jury system? Possibly different?

[Ken Burch]

6. A thread on what was agreed on might be good.

Another might be on the questions od what positions the other candidate takes that you think your candidate should adopt, and what positive lessons should your candidate's campaign learn from the other campaign.

"no gloating, no baiting, no talking down, no insults" would need to be part of the ground rules.

[highprincipleswork]

7. Could start with only positive. The question would be "What do you like about the other candidate?"

[Ken Burch]

8. Good point. n/t.

[JSup]

50. I can answer that one!

About Bernie:

1) I like how he has shown you don't need Wall Street to run a campaign.

2) I like that he has brought some previously unmentionable American problems (that many of us thought about already) into the light and made it okay for us to discuss them openly (OWS started this, but Bernie really got it going).

That was easy; there aren't any 'back-handed compliments in there, are there? I was trying to avoid them.

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Yes. I was blocked for asking for more info on the HCG months ago.

[KoKo]

9. From my years of experience on DU....

Last edited Fri May 20, 2016, 08:27 PM - Edit history (1)

You'd have to heavily Moderate It! Because, it would turn out like the MIRT Team.

I always hope for "Discussion" here on DU...but, in all my years..I've seen little of it because it always ends in "Flame Wars" or like the META Experiment that was a Failure so bad that the bitterness from it still lingers.

But, Good Luck to You...and would love to see it...just cautioning from "past experience here."



Edited for META Experiment when DU-3 was instituted and cause total Disaster. I mistakenly typed MIRT for META in the second paragraph.

[Fumesucker]

10. Through the magic of the intertubes I have found video of the first meeting..

[scscholar]

11. The primary is over

What would be the point?

[Bluenorthwest]

19. And yet it's not over. When it is and there is a nominee that nominee still has to win the actual

prize in November. It's not over until Obama hands his desk to another Democrat. If you feel your candidate has won, then you only objective should be her next and only actually meaningful win. If that's not motivating your every action, you are no kind of supporter at all.

[anigbrowl]

37. Translation: please don't point out facts to me

Apparently you'd prefer that HRC supporters limit themselves to attacking Donald Trump so SBS supporters can concentrate their fire on Hillary.

[Baobab]

12. I would and I have a lot of concrete suggestions as to small changes she could make which would make

a big difference.

[Ken Burch]

13. I'd like to see your suggestions. n/t.

[Baobab]

35. We need carve outs for essential public services so they wont be privatized-that could be disastrous

I would like to get a dialogue going about the currently pending trade deals potential chilling effects on future policy space and the need for us here in the US to push for "carve outs" for essential public services and regulatory flexibilities. (As is being done in the EU, it appears)

If we don't do this key - irreplaceable elements of our future policy space may become unchangeable, perhaps even before the election..I think this is something which all Democrats should push for- regardless of which candidate we support,

For example, I suspect that few if any of us would support the waging of a virtual war in our names on public services like public higher education or public health care. Currently only 'a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' is protected from mandated privatization but that only means means "any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers." so here in the US, none of what we normally consider to be public services could escape privatization. the same applies in other countries too. I think this should e changed so that public services of all kinds are protected from piecemeal dismantlement and privatization/monetization.

[JSup]

46. This...

...is very important to me and something I think most of us can agree on.

I've been reading up on this since OWS and it's some awful and sneaky stuff.

[Baobab]

52. Carve Outs- there are some recommendations as to what they should contain in the following links

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-567.814+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN

http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/Nick%20Skala%20GAT%20and%20Health%20Reform.pdf

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/putting_health_first.pdf

[JSup]

56. Good start...

Healthcare
Environment
Rehabilitation (criminal, drug and mental/emotional)
DMV
Roads and highways (toll roads should give tolls to State for road improvement/maintenance)
Our national resources: (lots of folks won't agree with me on this one)
Education
Child support collection (happened in Kansas)
Parking meters (poor Chicago)
Utilities (a little late but man it's awful now)

And I also think food produced here should be sold here before the exports jack the price. This is only part of what colonization feels like; local resources depended on for generations are now in demand far away and makes them no longer affordable locally.

[xynthee]

15. We have almost no common ground.

I just can't imagine coming together at this point anymore. Too much bad blood, too little in common.

[tandem5]

18. We could start with the Democratic platform as common ground.

[xynthee]

28. Do you think they'll adopt any of Bernie's platform?

I'm not sure if they'll even pretend they're for campaign finance reform, healthcare as a fundamental human right, etc., or against fracking, the private prison industry, the MIC, the death penalty, the payday loan industry, et al. Sorry to be such a downer.

[tandem5]

30. what's MIC?

[pokerfan]

45. MIC

The military-industrial complex in a country typically attempts to marshal political support for continued or increased military spending by the national government. The term military-industrial complex was first used by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961.

[tandem5]

54. Thanks for the pie. My question pertained to the ambiguity of the acronym.

Made in China could have been shorthand for global trade, but rest assured I and TLG are against the Military Industrial Complex.

[Baobab]

53. Hillary can't violate her husbands agreement

see my post on carve outs - As far as amending old 90s deals- sure- if everyone agreed it could happen. We would be the biggest obstacle (the US)

[MadBadger]

32. I agree with nearly all of Bernie Sanders' positions, yet I'm supporting Hillary

So looks like you and I have a lot of common ground.

[sheshe2]

16. No thanks.

We have more than enough Hill bashing sites. Even the safe groups are alert stalked.

Gotta say, Ken, ( my dads name, he passed a year and a half ago) in another time and place it might work. Not here and not now.

I see the posts saying Hill supports have nothing because we don't respond. We don 't respond because we have been alert stalked off this board. I know I am setting myself up for a hide, cause that is a fact here. You asked for an answer and I replied politely. I await the hide. Being polite doesn't matter anymore.

Silly me, I want a Democrat in office. If Bernie is the candidate, I will support him. We will never survive a Trump. We will not survive!

[Flighty McFlight]

17. What's the point?

It's going to get shit itself into toxic waste anyway.

Let the process go through, then President-soon-to-be-elected Bernie can proceed to unify the country.

[asuhornets]

20. no

[msongs]

21. many of his mostly borrowed ideas are fine. IMO he does not have the temperament for prez

too angry. a loner. 25 yrs in congress and has few professional friends to show for it. not a team player. wants his own way all the time

[nc4bo]

22. And Hillary Sanders seems to have a huge commonsense deficit. YUUUUGE! nt

[NV Whino]

23. Given the fact that everybody has everybody else on ignore

It might be a pretty quiet group.

[JSup]

48. I have no one on ignore...

...but my eyes seem to autofilter out posts by people with names I remember as being trolly.

I think such a group, if moderated, could work.

[snowy owl]

24. Too soon. After California maybe. . . that will tell a lot. We have to have standing.

Then we'll have either more equality in discussion or less actually. California is key as was New York. We have to have standing. Also, it would have to stick to issues on both sides and trust. As a Sanders supporter, I don't trust Clinton and I don't accept easy answers that she is who she says she is but if her supporters agree on certain points I'd be more inclined to think the talks authentic and trustworthy.

[nc4bo]

25. No. nt

[Turin_C3PO]

26. Yes

[cherokeeprogressive]

27. Not really. I don't want Hillary in the catbird seat, nor do I want her a heartbeat away.

No matter how much I'd love to see a female President, that's where it is.

[Demsrule86]

31. NO

Hillary won...there is nothing to discuss and I am sick of hearing about how people are hint hint voting for a different candidate...which must be Trump of course. No thanks. I have had my fill of this nonsense.

[timmymoff]

44. Show me 5 posts in the last 5 days in which someone has stated they are voting

for a different candidate. I know you said "hinted" but how do you gather this? Just 5 posts where someone has stated not hinted. Bet you can't find them.

[MadBadger]

33. I'd support it, but there are way too many immature babies on GD:P to ever make any progress here.

On both sides

[Rosa Luxemburg]

34. just let it run its course

Hillary will revert back to the center right if she is the nominee so I'm not sure if there will be common ground. If Bernie is the nominee there will be many establishment Democrats who won't be comfortable.

[AgerolanAmerican]

36. Nice but futile sentiment

It's pretty clear that there's little common ground between the two camps.

It's not like civil discourse hasn't been attempted, either. I tried it over and over and over and over again until it became plain and clear that the other side had no intention of seeking that common ground.

A lot of Clinton supporters even outright refused to answer the simple inquiry as to why they were supporting her, saying things like "we don't owe you an explanation" - as if we were trying to extract one at gunpoint, rather than trying to understand where they were coming from.

Where we did get explanations, they were either fluff ("because she's a woman" - BFD so is 51% of the country), or outright insults to the intelligence ("she is a progressive/liberal&quot .

There was no quarter given, ever. We faced a posture that was very much one of people conducting a war against us - they treated us as an enemy. For example, I can't think of a single Clinton supporter who conceded that releasing the speech transcripts would be a good way to dispel suspicions. I can't think of a single Clinton supporter who shares our outrage at the way the primary process was rigged. I can't think of a single Clinton supporter who acknowledged that her myriad conflicts of interest were even a slight concern.

For these questions, we were called sexist, racist, right-wing, and many other nasty things. We have been treated with contempt and derision, our intelligence insulted - we could not even extract from them a concession that any of our concerns had any validity at all.

How now to bridge that gap, with the bridge so wantonly burned? They must think they can win without us, or maybe they don't actually care if they win as long as we lose.

[FSogol]

38. We have one. It is called General Discussion: Primaries

Here's everyone chance to take the "first steps towards creating unity, and about working for a less-toxic form of debate and discussion between the two camps in the time remaining between now and Philadelphia"

[Chan790]

39. There can be no unity...

the only thing I want from Clintonites is the brutal death of Hillary's electoral ambitions.

They're not going to put that on the table and I want nothing else from them, save the possibility that they will agree en-mass to leave the Democratic party.

[ucrdem]

40. Sure, but only if equal numbers of hosts are written into the SOP.

Meaning 1 Sanders for every Clinton and vice versa. Why not give it a shot?

[anigbrowl]

41. I can't help noticing that most of the refusals are coming from Sanders supporters

So I suggest that this is something you might want to work on at your end for a while, Ken.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

42. I'm always for discussion.

More unites Sanders and Clinton supporters than divides them.

[demwing]

43. Sorry, no interest.

I'm convinced Trump will be a disaster, and I'm equally convinced that Clinton will be a disaster as well - albeit, a disaster of a different stripe.

Black cats, white cats, red dogs and blue dogs.... isn't it time we go all in and elected some mice?

What's to discuss?

[Barack_America]

47. Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not interested in discussing unity.

[liberal_at_heart]

49. no thank you. You are welcome to but I won't be participating.

VPs don't really do anything unless there is an emergency. Bernie can do more good right where he is than the VP slot. Same goes for Elizabeth Warren, and I don't give a shit about party unity.

[barrow-wight]

51. I think what you're asking is great.

However, to be really fair here, there are like two Hillary supporters in Wichita somewhere who won't vote for Bernie if he's the nominee and hundreds of people on this site determined to be Bernie or Bust. Hillary fans keep getting beaten with the idea that we're the non-unity people but we're not. I have had every intention of voting for Bernie if he became the nominee but he's just not going to be.

I've seen so many religious iconography, comparisons to Jesus, and other deifying descriptors applied to Bernie over the past several months but the reality is, unless Jesus comes back and ordains it, Bernie is not going to get 67% of the remaining states. He's just not.

Now, if Jesus comes back, Satan takes a holiday, and all the Gods of Olympus come down with thunderbolts to grant the ascent of the Bern, I will be the first person in line to support him, but at this point he's just making it that much harder to beat Trump in November. At the very least, he should keep his ire targeted towards Trump so he's not so scorched earth about it.

[still_one]

55. It might work if the statement of purpose of the group would be what you stated, with the

stipulation that no one wouldn't disparage either candidate, but work with the goal of finding common ground that each side could agree with.

Might not realistically happen until the primaries are over.

I think it is a great idea though

[Binkie The Clown]

57. It'll never happen. And if it does,

the two camps will yell at each other for a couple days and then retreat to their own private echo chambers. No minds will be changed, and the unspeakable disservice that the Dem machine has inflicted on Bernie will not be forgotten or forgiven.

[Recursion]

58. I wanted a "we really dislike both the remaining candidates" group, personally

Though I get that that doesn't really fit with the spirit of DU. I still think this cycle has been the biggest self-inflicted clusterfuck other than the Trump nomination I've seen in my political life.

[ibegurpard]

59. nope

[djean111]

60. There is no common ground.

Not between the candidates.

[mmonk]

61. Good idea but many have smoke coming out of their ears at the present.

[MyNameGoesHere]

62. I would rather start a support

group for the grief of Sanders supporters. They need to heal.

[baldguy]

63. Stage 3: Bargaining

[Betty Karlson]

64. I seek no unity with that lot.

Sorry, but that ship has sailed and sunk.

[Feathery Scout]

65. Yes!

I am a total newbie....but anything that unites us against Trump I completely support!

[DookDook]

66. Nope.

What unity will they find? People keep saying that Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton are alike or that they agree on more than they disagree, but I don't see it.

Free public college for all? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Opposed to money in politics? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Break up the banks? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Carbon Tax? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Wall Street bailout? Bernie's against it, Hillary not so much.
Oppose the death penalty? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Legalize Marijuana? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Revive Glass-Stegall? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Opposed to bombing our way across the Middle East? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Opposed to spying? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.
Opposed to the TPP? Bernie says yes, Hillary said it was the gold standard, but now she's against it.
Ban fracking? Bernie says yes, Hillary says no.

I would say let the primary process play out.