2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumVattel
(9,289 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)the baggage the nominee shows the Democratic Establishment aren't concerned if Trump sits in the oval office.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)grossproffit
(5,591 posts)Armstead
(47,803 posts)Seems to be the story of American Politics these days.
Actual change and positive reform not allowed.
haikugal
(6,476 posts)grossproffit
(5,591 posts)YouDig
(2,280 posts)If it was Bernie, then Hillary people would be. At least with Hillary, who has more supporters, there will be less people who feel like they are settling than there would be if Bernie were nominated. But there's no way to give everyone their top pick.
grossproffit
(5,591 posts)Armstead
(47,803 posts)settling for a non-preferred candidate and accepting more fundamental differences.
If the race had been between Biden and Clinton, for example, the supporters of the losing candidate would be disappointed, but they would not feel like their basic principles and beliefs were involved.
Sanders represents much more than Bernie as a candidate on a personal level. It is a very different approach to how politics should work, and what the goals should be in terms of issues of Wealth and Power.
YouDig
(2,280 posts)as you put it. Some people will be disappointed. At least with Clinton as nominee, it's fewer than with Bernie.
I'm kind of sick of reading how nominating Hillary means losing our soul or betraying the true cause or whatever else. Are Hillary voters chopped liver? Do we not have souls too? Is our cause not "true"? Would it not be an even greater betrayal for all of us, more of us, who want Hillary to be the nominee, if we got Bernie instead?
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Although the actual nominating process is an either/or choice, the larger debate is not a zero-sum game, in which the winner and his/her supporters get nothing and the winner gets everything.
It's also a debate about the future of the country and the Democratic Party. And that is not either/or.
I believe among those who are "supporting" Clinton there are a lot of mixed feelings. That is based on my own experience among people I know or encounter, plus following the national picture.
People have been sold the idea of Clinton as the defacto nominee for so long that they are somewhat fatalistic, and see her as the only "pragmatic" choice. And some may be put off by Bernie's "outsider" status and afraid of his stridency.
However, they also prefer Bernie's integrity, and his message and goals and the values he represents.
I think if someone that was more of an alternative to Clinton who had more mainstream persona than Bernie -- such as a Sherrod Brown or Elizabeth Warren -- this race would have been a lot different.
YouDig
(2,280 posts)They like Bernie more, but still like Hillary a lot and would be very happy with either one. Actually, in real life, all the Bernie supporters I know are like that. And Hillary supporters I know would be happy with Bernie too.
Yeah, people like Bernie's integrity. But people also like Hillary's experience, that's not just some excuse for supporting a neo-con, a lot of people really think that she has an amazing resume, and they are right, and they think that's a great asset, and they are right about that too.
And if you don't think that there are passionate Hillary supporters that would turn into angry Hillary supporters if the nomination were taken away from her (which is an accurate way of describing what would happen if the superdelegates overturned the voters), look no further than 2008. They were pissed. And in 2008 she didn't even have more pledged delegates. They were still pissed. Seriously pissed.
But how pissed off they were in 2008 wouldn't even begin to compare as to how pissed off they would be if it were taken away now.
You're getting at like a "Bernie supporters care and Hillary supporters are like meh" narrative, but that's not real. Hillary supporters can afford to be like meh these days because they are winning. Take the victory away, and you'll see, there will be a Hillary or Bust movement in no time. Also, rightly or wrongly, it will be perceived by huge numbers of people as a man taking away the nomination from a woman who is more qualified, for a second time. Also rightly or wrongly, minority voters who went big for Hillary will feel that their votes are being ignored and white votes counted more than theirs, and the fact that Bernie even made comments about Southern voters will make that worse.
Fury would be unleashed, don't kid yourself. Hillary has deep support, it's not just a "de facto status quo" thing.
And that fact that in 2008 she took her medicine and became a great team player for Obama after she lost will make the fury so much stronger. When she lost, she did the right thing and brought the party together. Now she wins, gets the nomination taken away. A lot of unhappy people.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)I don't expect him to be the nominee. I don't think he honestly believes he has more than a 30 percent chance of winning it either.
But that's not really the point.
Shje will - barring the unforeseen -- be the nominee. But that DOES NOT mean that she owns the Democratic Party, or that the nearly half of those who have supported Sanders, are suddenly irrelevant. This goes on beyond the primary and beyond the election.
YouDig
(2,280 posts)So Hillary doesn't own it. But she does become the leader of the party. Same as happened in 2008 and 2004 and every other year.
Another thing. The policy differences between Hillary and Bernie aren't really as big as they're made out to be. Single payer, yes. Isreal, sure. But on other things, not very much. Hillary supports getting rid of Citizens United as much as Bernie. Bernie made her SuperPAC money a campaign issue, but they are the same on policy. On Wall Street regulation even, very close. Bernie made a campaign issue out of her speech money and ties to banks, but that was just to create the impression of corruption and win votes. If you look at what they stand for, it's the same stuff.
Fracking. She's barely pro-fracking, as she's said, the way she wants to regulate it would mean very little of it. And on climate as a whole, both think it's a huge threat and are in favor of large investments in clean energy and cuts in emissions. Hillary and Obama are slightly pro-fracking because of replacing coal with natural gas, something you can disagree with, but this narrative that she's in the pocket of big oil is fiction.
Minimum wage. $12 nationally with higher in some states versus $15 national. Both are for huge increases over what we have now. Bernie went after for her saying that $12 is some kind of sell-out, but that's ridiculous.
So if it's really about policy, unity won't be very hard at all. There's a big difference between Bernie and the caricature of Hillary that some people have, including Bernie at times, but the actual Hillary Clinton is for the same things as Bernie.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)big sweeping change based on "just telling it like it is" is something that happens in movies, not real life.
Sanders was offering a lovely fantasy, but it was always a fantasy. Just like Obama's 'new kind of politics' turned out to be a fantasy when it ran into Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
Difference was Obama had other things going for him besides utopian promises and idealism.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)You are correct about the system being set up to stifle change.
But that indicates all the more reason to have a string and consistent ideology and fight for it.
Wanna see how it can work? Look at Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Revolution. We CAN have the Liberal/Progressive equivalent of the Reagan Revolution. But it requires the WILL to do it.
What Reagan and the GOP accomplished was (with a lot of obvious differences) the equivalent of what Sanders represents. Like Sanders, Reagan was considered a fringe character that was too extreme to be President. But his message resonated with the times.
Once in office, Reagan ran up against the bottlenecks, obstacles and chokeholds. He and the GOP were not able to ram through their agenda overnight. They had to negotiate, compromise, sell out at times. But they were also relentless, and they had a clear agenda of advancing their brand of conservatism.
And they pushed and pushed forward -- and succeeded in moving the country in a totally different direction. They made fundamental changes that are still dominant.
That is what the Democrats had an opportunity to do this year. They also had an opportunity to do that with the election of Obama, but the Big Money side and the lack of Liberal Willpower surpressed it just as much as the GOP did. (I love Obama and appreciate his achievements but he was too aligned with the powers of Democratic Resistance to change to do the Liberal equivalent of what Reagan did.)
But as long as the Democrats go back to the same old same old, nothing will be achieved on a fundamental level. That to me is the real struggle that the Sanders v. Clinton fight represents.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)The single litmus test to determine whether Sanders's campaign is part of a larger movement, or is rather an episodic event in one politician's career is this:
how do they handle defeat?
Do they give up, shrug their shoulders, say "Bernie or Bust" and feel sorry for themselves while talking about the system being rigged?
Or do they learn from this experience, and reflect on the serious, possibly fatal flaws in the campaign Sanders ran and how to avoid such shortcomings for future campaigns?
Do they complain "we wuz robbed and people are too dumb to get it" or do they ask "what can we do better?"
That's the difference between dilettantes and activists.
I concluded Sanders campaign was based on dilettantes, which is why I bailed.
Come back with an orientation towards organizing, a will to grind out the less glamorous stuff, and develop organic roots in communities of color, and a lot more people such as myself will be on board.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)It's a convenient meme that is always made against "the left" when any challenges are made to the Democratic Status Quo, whether it is candidates or issues. "You people complain but don''t do anything about it. You're just whiny dilettantes (or keyboard warriors, whatever)"
That's bunkum. Many people who support Sanders have been long-time activists, in party politics or otherwise work hard to advance their beliefs and positions.
Yes there are a lot of casual supporters too. But that's true of every candidate or movement on issues. Most people are more concerned with their own day to day lives and issues than full time engagement in party politics.
I would venture that most Clinton supporters are uninvolved otherwise too. Most say nice things about her, put bumper stickers on their cars, maybe give a little money. But collectively as a group they are no more engaged than Sanders supporters or "the left."
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Clinton is results-oriented, pragmatic, play the game. Her goal is to win and thereby make progress, on a small ball and incremental basis if necessary.
Sanders is supposedly about a larger ideological, transformative movement. Well, movements need to transcend campaign cycles. And they need to be able to engage in self-criticism and evolve through learning.
They also need leadership and discipline.
Who's going to provide that for the Sanders 'movement' after he goes back to the Senate?
Hard to ask people to join a 'revolution' that meet such basic requirements.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Hope is for fools...
Gothmog
(145,288 posts)progressoid
(49,991 posts)Except no damaged furniture or walls. Yet.