If Democrats nominate someone as extreme as Sanders, I'm afraid we could see

[highplainsdem]

a viable centrist party start to take shape as an alternative.

I don't want to see that.

I've identified as a Democrat for as long as I can recall being aware of politics, starting with the 1960 campaign.

I've loved the Democratic Party as a big-tent party that provided a strong contrast to the Republicans without being so extreme it drove out moderates.

But now it looks possible that we might nominate someone from the left of the party, who's run as a Democrat only for short periods, for personal convenience and ambition, and then left the party again.

We might nominate someone with a top surrogate who's complained that the Democratic Party is too big a tent.

We might nominate someone who's too extreme for the majority of the party but ekes out a primary victory because there are too many Democrats in the race who aren't so extreme, dividing up the vote of the majority of the party.

And while attempts to form a centrist party to appeal to both moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, as well as independents, have failed in the past, they've failed at times when the Democrats hadn't gambled on a self-described socialist who's rarely a member of the Democratic Party, and is often a critic of it.

I do not want to see this country end up like countries that have several splintered parties with narrow platforms and ideologies.

I believe nominating Sanders will push us in that direction.

So for the sake of the Democratic Party and American politics in general, I hope he will not be our nominee.

[uponit7771]

1. K&R, Sanders has no historical swing state appeal outside of MOE, Biden has the most

[highplainsdem]

7. True.

[yaesu]

2. You're wrong but I must say that someone like biden, who helped strip bankruptcy protection from

millions just before the last recession when he pushed for & voted for the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill is much more concerning to me. I'm just not sure he has any chance at beating tRump or bringing enough voters to the polls.

[democratisphere]

3. Ain't going to be a part of THAT alternative insanity.

We damaged ourselves in 2016. Are we going to do the exact same thing in 2020? Insanity.

[PatSeg]

4. Sanders and his campaign

are calling long time liberal Democrats "moderates" and now the media is using that word as well. Most of them are only moderate or centrist when compared to the more extreme positions of Bernie Sanders.

I'm afraid that we might see the end of the Democratic party if this divisiveness continues. Maybe that is what some want. Putin surely would like that.

[beastie boy]

6. That would be the best of outcomes..

The worst would be two opposite extremes fighting each other into authoritarianism and destroying centrism, both physically and figuratively, out of existence. History is full of examples of it happening before, both on the left and on the right.

[highplainsdem]

8. I don't want to see just two extremist parties, either. I agree that having three parties, one of

them centrist, would be better than that.

But it would still be the end of the Democratic Party as we've known it.

[beastie boy]

12. When the two extremes get into a fight, there is no room for centrism.

This is the lesson of Europe and Latin America in the 20th century. Centrism is the easiest target for extremism to defeat. In fact, this is the first target they go for, no matter which extreme wins eventually.

I am scared to death about what is going to happen to this country in the next four years.

[earthside]

9. Fighting the last war.

When Democrats do this they usually lose.

Bernie would have defeated Trump 2016, but Democrats made another mistake in nominating a legacy candidate instead ... that never works for Democrats either.

I don't think Sanders is too far left, but at 78 years old he is last week's dinner.

And, though it pains me to bring it up, this time Sanders' Sandinista, Castro, and USSR statements are going to absolutely savage him in the general election if he is the nominee.

I have concluded that the Democrats best hope is either of the two women candidates.

[highplainsdem]

10. I would definitely vote for either Klobuchar or Warren over Sanders. But I do NOT agree

that Sanders could have defeated Trump in 2016. The Russians were helping Sanders then because they knew he'd be a weaker candidate against Trump.

Once Sanders was eliminated, they helped Jill Stein instead, as well as Trump.

[David__77]

11. It's a big tent and will likely continue to be one.

...