Trump and Bernie are part of the "Burn It Down" coalition

[Renew Deal]

Americans fail to realize what kind of threats we're facing. There are two global governing factions. There is a Liberal Democratic Freedom faction and the Authoritarian faction which lumps in dictators, theocrats, and various oppressors. The freedom faction mostly won the period from the '40s till 2000. Since 2000, and notably 9/11, the anti-freedom authoritarian faction has been winning. It's suddenly 2020, and Russian influence is dominating. Trump 2016 is a sign of that. So is Brexit, anti-freedom leadership in Europe, and the massive foreign influence in the 2020 US election. Americans think it can't happen to them, but it happened, and it's happening again.

Freedom is threatened in the US, but the more significant threat is to the global leadership position of the US. Putin and friends (China, NK, Iran) are doing everything they can to chip away at US stature as a leader. They don't want us interfering with their aims to expand their borders, their economic system, and their attempts at regional domination. And there are people inside the US that want more or less the same thing. There are Americans that believe the US is too powerful, has too much influence, and in some cases, are unwittingly sympathetic to America's enemies. Edward Snowden falls into this camp. Snowden had noble ideas about surveillance and freedom, but he failed to realize that America's enemies are doing the same and worse. If the 2000 election was the beginning of the fight-back of the anti-freedom coalition, 9/11 was the kickoff, and 2013 Snowden was the sneak attack. You don't have to be for every surveillance measure that was in place to realize that on-balance, as an American, the NSA screwed up, but they screwed up to our national benefit.

In the end, it all ties back to the "Burn It Down" coalition. There is a significant portion of the US population that wants to burn it down. These are the people that rooted for a complete meltdown in the 2008 financial crisis, opposed the various bailouts, voted for Jill Stein, criticized Obama for any number of things, and currently support Trump or Sanders. It doesn't matter if they want to burn it down from the right like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, or from the left. They essentially want the same outcome. Sanders voted against the 2008 bailout. Why? Because he wants to see it all burn. The Burn It Down coalition desires a weaker US with less global influence and some internal suffering to purge the toxins.

If Americans want to fight back, they need to choose leaders that put the country and its citizens first. This is not an argument for the mushy middle. This is an argument for leadership that sees government as a means to improve lives and safeguard freedom (to choose, who to marry, from healthcare burdens, etc.). The entire republican party should be thrown in the trash as part of this process, but there are some on our side that need to be dealt with as well.

[Laelth]

1. Hear! Hear! k&r n/t

-Laelth

[LakeArenal]

2. Yep.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. You repeat Bernie word for word

None of it will happen. M4A is DOA because 150 million like their health care as it is. Student loan forgiveness wasn't done for old folks, and we don't see why youngsters should have it. It prevents me from having a McMansion and vacations is pure greed in itself.

Taxes you got me. Progressive taxes are fair.

If we're all in this together, Bernie should embrace all, and stop the class warfare. He's dividing the country and making Trump's reelection easy. Message is everything, words matter.

[Turin_C3PO]

44. There's nothing wrong with Bernie's ideas.

M4A is a good goal as is student loan forgiveness. Even if “old folks” didn’t get it. The problem is his personality and some of his followers.

[PatSeg]

92. Bingo!

It is Bernie, his staff, and some of his supporters that are the problem.

People are willing to work toward a possible Medicare for All, but want to start with a public option. Mostly people want a person who has the skills and ability to make positive change happen. Many don't see that in Bernie. When we elect a president, we are electing a person first and foremost.

[Hortensis]

9. Our grandparents did right, Marg. The system we inherited

should have been built on, instead over the past 40+ years it was neglected, discarded, and even stomped in the mud by voters and nonvoters who didn't do their homework. But before that it did a marvelous job of getting us what we needed in a radically changing world. We just needed to protect and tend it and still do.

Your first job is to find out who the people who want to lead you are and what they would do. I'll tell you right now, FDR had to fight Bernie Sanders' counterparts of that day to create the New Deal. They felt the New Deal was a giant betrayal and tried to destroy the New Dealers and run FDR out of office, but mercifully they lost. Big time.

Oh, and another big lie: That the capitalism-based democracies of Europe that have some socialized services are examples of socialism. They're not. They're specifically not the democratic socialism Sanders identifies most strongly with (but with lots of unacceptable vagueness). You should know what that is, though. Before he stopping talking about it (VERY unpopular), he had a long list of industries he feels should be seized for communal ownership.

[Hortensis]

31. No, we do not. M4A is NOT socialized medicine.

It's just like the ACA wtih one big difference -- one's in place and the other isn't much more than a slogan. And so on.

What is the difference between two people who believe whatever their two different leaders tell them, even though it's anywhere from wildly midleading to blatantly lying? Anyone who doesn't discover the truth for themselves is setting himself up to be a tool of a bad leader. And IMO, any leader who can't tell the truth to get our support is a potentially very bad leader.

ALL those things you said you want are achievable, and should have been achieved, under the proven systems we inherited from our parents. There is no need to put blind faith in a charismatic leader who leads you to believe "only he can do it" by destroying what we were born to as our right.

Btw, two major traits of majorities of those drawn to populist movements? Antagonism and disagreeableness. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that most of Sanders followers are at least somewhat socially conservative or that that type dominates the well meaning but clueless people who don't realize destruction is not necessary to advance.

[Hortensis]

62. If the end goal is the same, isn't the one that's most

likely to be achieved the one to go for?

The ACA is in place, needing only Democratic majorities to pass the many expansions already written up as bills.

The MfA is currently little more than a slogan. Do you realize MfA would take most of a decade to be written, passed and implemented? Remember, that "just" passing the ACA was a battle that took congressional Democrats YEARS to win in the form that was accomplished. Many put their careers on the line for it.

Marg, that battle continues. We have elections every 2 years, and even if MfA was passed in reasonably complete form (EXTREMELY unlikely!) a new Republican majority in either house or as president might stop implementation at any point.

And then what would they do with it?

Right now, you should consider that you've put yourself in the position of opposing the party who DID create a national healthcare system and instead are supporting an individual who's being used by both the Republicans and Russia to make sure we never have one.

Are you sure gambling our nation's future with dice you KNOW are loaded is wise?

[ehrnst]

64. ACA is UHC as well. It's been set back.

I think you are confusing the term Universal Health Care with Single Payer...

Might be good to study up on those terms.

[ehrnst]

71. It intention was to get complete, universal health care coverage.

It has not been fully implemented. It is the closest to UHC we have ever come.

Is that clearer?

Have you looked up the definitions of UHC and Single Payer yet?

[ehrnst]

53. No they don't. They call them "public." And FDR said the New Deal was NOT socialism

You're welcome.

[ehrnst]

58. Policies that Democrats have tried and failed to implement since 1971...

You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again, hoping to get a different result?

What you say to your folks is your business. It has nothing to do with what Americans call public programs.

[ehrnst]

72. Going to try for a redirect of the topic again.

What I said must have been disconcerting to you.

And yes there are Republican Americans, why do you ask?

You and the Republican Americans you refer to are smooshing together terms that are not interchangeable.

Did you look up those definitions like I asked you to?

[ehrnst]

54. Bernie was once a marxist socialist. You should really read about him...

A Marxist exploration: Bernie Sanders, political revolution, and socialism

And this was much, much more recently than his much mentioned participation in the MLK March on Washington.

You're welcome!

[ehrnst]

60. It's not up to you if the word Socialism gets used, because it will be.

Specific policies have been attempted by Democrats since 1971, and failed.

You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?

Why do you think Ted Kennedy wasn't on board with M4A?



BTW - you were the one who brought up Marxism, and how it's not Democratic Socialism like Bernie espouses. If you're going to get unhappy that someone responds to your topic, don't bring it up.

[KPN]

28. Who were Bernie Sanders counterparts at the time?

I am aware of Norman Thomas and Huey Long. The vast majority of New Deal opponents (Rs and Ds) we’re conservatives we’re they not?

Personally, I think we are at a time in history that is rather remarkably like the early 30s. We need the same bold vision and goals today that FDR put into practice politically then. I see only Elizabeth Warren and Sanders among the remaining candidates as having such bold vision. I prefer Warren over Sanders. Despite that, if Sanders is the more viable of the two down the road, I am interested in his proposals today, not what he may have proposed at some earlier point in his life. His proposals are generally sound.

[Hortensis]

56. FDR was the epitomy of "establishment Democrat."

Elite to the max also. Warren always makes me think of Frances Perkins, FDR's establishment iconoclaust who was behind so many labor advances, including unemployment insurance and Social Security.

Someone described Warren as radical in defense of tradition. I think that describes her as well as anything. She values what we inherited, as FDR and Frances Perkins did in their day. They used huge problems that required huge solutions to make great advances WITHIN our existing liberal democratic ideology. She wants to do the same and believes in working with congress.

Sanders is SO different. He's outside the high-achieving liberal progressive establishment of Warren and FDR, both of whom waged an existential battle AGAINST the very dangerous socialist and fascist movements that voters in many nations so foolishly put their faith in and suffered dreadfully from as a result.

Regular liberal progressives won. And the New Dealers' ideology is proven by the fact that NONE of the New Deal programs are even slightly socialist. Our only socialized system, the VA, goes back 150 years, and it came about as an outgrowth of the "socialized" military structure.

When Sanders says he opposes the establishment he's telling the truth; dissidence is his lifelong pattern. When he conflates the establishment achievements of FDR with the socialist extremists who opposed them then and those of today, he's lying. When he claims destroying the New Deal legacy and replacing it with socialism is a continuation of New Deal ideals and goals, he's lying.

When he claims that the representatives WE all send from around the nation to congress to represent US are establishment enemies he'll have to smash through in order to achieve the great things Marg wants, he's lying. They are an obstacle to his really stupid lifelong dream of socialist revolution in the midst of plenty, and that's his problem with the people we choose to represent our interests.

That none of the people who want to put their lives in Sanders' hands care that he's lying and that few have any idea what he intends should make your hair stand on end. This nation can still fall, and Putin is doing his best to see that we do by throwing us into chaos. I believe both Trump and Sanders would serve his purpose as president.

Against, what we inherited is overall an excellent structure within which our nation has achieved great advances, and when they stall it's because people do foolish things like, knowing that Putin's backing both, vote Republican or Sanders against Democrats and thus against a strong, wealthy, liberal progressive nation and containment of Russian imperialism.

[Hortensis]

87. Extremist, Repub, AND Russian propaganda. Please

search out factual sources, instead of anti-Democratic propaganda and disinformation.

Here's a simple fact: The vast majority of Democratic voters approve and LIKE their Democratic representatives. We all hear a lot of the poison you apparently have been soaking in, but study after study show typical Democrats with liberal representatives assume it's OTHER people who have bad representatives. Not them.

That's true of Democrats in office because, even though they like the bennies of office as much as anyone, liberal Democrats run for office believing in using government to advance the wellbeing of the people.

Today's Repubs are chosen for corruptibility and belief that government is the problem and needs to be dismantled.

When Sanders tells you Democrats are really much the same as the massively corrupt Republicans, SANDERS IS LYING TO YOU.

And so is Russia and so are the Republicans. Why on earth would anyone choose to believe them and their easily disproven lies against all intellect, reason, and reality and against all our fine representatives?

[KPN]

90. Thanks for that very complete and detailed response.

Last edited Sat Feb 22, 2020, 08:03 PM - Edit history (1)

I do prefer and hope that Warren gets a sufficient bump from her debate performance to challenge Sanders for sure. Having said that, my sense is the legacy you value is one that is now 45 years in the past regarding economic issues. There is such a thing as “establishment” and I agree that FDR was establishment. He also recognized, as you say, and used huge problems to advance huge solutions within the existing system. Warren is the only candidate I have seen doing that effectively among our candidates — aside from Sanders. In my view, the legacy has been extinguished. It’s of the past. If we ever hope to return to that legacy, we need huge change. I’m not convinced that our other candidates would work sufficiently toward achieving that.

At any rate, I appreciate your response and well informed views.

[Hortensis]

91. The GOP dominated national government most of

those 45 years. What's not to understand looking back that when in power Republicans use it to destroy government and are massively unfit to run a nation? ALL we need, it's a lot but remarkably simple, is a return to the degree of control we Democrats had during the 50 years of the New Deal era preceding that. Voting for Democrats is how that's accomplished.

But we really need to worry about much BIGGER things than are being talked about. HOW huge, huge change is accomplished, WHO's going to be doing it, and WHAT it'll be. Russia's at war with us and intends that huge change to result from huge disruption.

THAT's what we need to face.

A little dose of reality: We're used to 3 meals a day, not 3 "normal" meals spread out over a week if we're lucky. 100 years ago life was more sustainable, and far fewer people had to be able to do it. Wildlife was more plentiful and 80% of all households grew a fair portion of their own food, a hedge against quick starvation. Most lived within walking distance of work and family and hauling distance of a water source. And virtually all could sustain without electricity, or didn't have it at all. Now almost no one grows their own food, and hundreds of millions live far from supporting family and where their lives would quickly become unsustainable without electricity.

If Putin, Kim, the Ayatollah, whomever, chose to use their cyber capabilities to bring us to our knees, within 2 days whole populations would begin to suspect they might not live another month. Got water? Those without fragile children would be the fortunate ones.

Ever wonder how Sanders couldn't break out of the second tier for a year and then within a couple weeks became the leading candidate? Warfare. Putin isn't supporting Warren because she's too principled, trustworthy and competent to be used as a weapon.

[True Blue American]

48. Thank you, Hortensis

For laying out the facts. This should have been started 80 years ago. Now, it needs to be step by step, the way the ACA was phased in.

You are not going to kill Insurance companies with one big swoop. Is not going to happen.

[beastie boy]

20. You don't have to take down the foundation you are standing on in order to build good stuff.

In fact, if you want to build good stuff, a good foundation is a prerequisite!

[ancianita]

23. If you mean the U.S. Constitution, I'll remind you it's got a mile wide Enforcement crack in it.

" A Republic, if you can keep it," is flying right out through that crack.

[beastie boy]

32. Yes, that's exactly what I mean, and the institutions that are built on it.

If you think the crack in the Constitution is bad (and I don't necessarily agree with you on the size of it), try enforcement without the Constitution. That's where tyranny comes in.

[ancianita]

35. It's being tried, even with the Constitution. BECAUSE of that enforcement crack.

There is no immediate way to enforce laws and corrupt scofflaws that doesn't go through the DOJ now -- itself the obstacle to protecting and defending rule of law.

Unenforced law is no law at all.

The courts can't do it.


All weaponized law enforcement is blocked by the DOJ.

All weaponized military is blocked by the CiC.

The elections alone are no guarantee of new enforcing leadership.

Like Rachel implied last night, we must ACT now that we know this is true.

We must come up with actions that enforce against collapsing branches of this government.

[beastie boy]

36. There is a difference between unenforced law and unenforceable law.

You can change the rules of enforcement far easier than the rule of law. Without the latter, all law becomes unenforced. All of it.

[ancianita]

40. So where is the change of enforced law? I don't see it. Waiting 8 months doesn't work.

Unenforced law for 8 months = no guarantee of a free and fair national election.

Then what change of rules of enforcement apply. None.

Unenforced law, right now, is unenforceable law.

You make a theoretical distinction without a reality difference.

[beastie boy]

41. Vote in the judges who will enforce it. Vote for candidates who will appoint judges to enfioce it.

Don't vote for the people who will ignore the rule of law, no matter how noble their cause might sound.

[ancianita]

42. Again. Eight months away. Not guaranteed. Deteriorated enforcement for that long deteriorates

law that much longer.

Law will not exist without regular, as in not delayed, human enforcement action.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

[beastie boy]

43. Eight months is nothing compared to forever.

You take your pick, but as far as I am concerned, rule of law ignored is justice you will never see again as long as you live.

[ancianita]

46. Eight months of ignored, followed by no guarantee of a free/fair election will likely lead to never.

[beastie boy]

50. Ok, if you feel abolishing rule of law will get you anywhere, prepare to be bitterly disappointed,

[ancianita]

61. IF is the key word. "Abolishing rule of law" is the key issue. "Should" is your interpretation

about what I've said.

You know very well that I don't feel that rule of law should be abolished.

Yet its slow roll abolishment is happening. So try to put me aside and consider any differences in what we see.

Have you seen enforced rule of law anywhere in government? The executive,? its cabinet? its DOJ? Even Sotomayor calls out SCOTUS for its biased, pro-Trump enforcement of law. Even at the lower federal court level, criminals found guilty are still walking around -- Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Donald Trump -- through "deals" and "settlements."

Are you afraid to consider that unenforced law is as good as abolished? I am. But I can't deny what I see.

Had WE come up with enforcement mechanisms for true RULE of law, we ourselves wouldn't even be here. What the Law provided us for defending it has failed. The November last protection isn't guaranteed, either.

What I "feel" is that rule of law only exists by enforcement. So I can NOT feel that it SHOULD be abolished, and I see its slow roll abolishment.

Judges are alarmed all over the constitutional level of the judiciary. It's not because law isn't on the books and they can't apply them; they do. It's because their ability to enforce those laws is now revealed.

Rule of law won't live in a nation that fails in enforcement.

[True Blue American]

49. First you repair

The crack in the foundation.

[beastie boy]

52. My point exactly. You don't destroy the foundation, you repair it.

Especially at the point where you still have all the tools to do the job. This s not guaranteed to last forever by any means.

[True Blue American]

82. Anyone who owns a house

Knows a firm foundation is important.

The ACA formed the foundation. Problems that come with big programs could have been fixed if the voters had not been scared into voting for Republicans who have been tearing down.

We can only hope they learned a lesson. We need to ask them where that perfect health care Trump promised is.

A massive tax cut for the wealthy is all we have seen. We need to finish cleaning house of the dead wood.

[HarlanPepper]

84. Get a super majority in the senate and all those things are possible

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Dictatorship vs. Democracy just like WWII

Except now we have a home grown variety.

Dictators hate democracy because it's bad for their job security.

The fringes of the political spectrum are trying to hollow out the (formerly) strong American middle, which is where the population, strength, common sense, and durability reside.

Dictators around the world are in lockstep, at home and abroad. Power hunger and greed, much like the 1930s.

Democracy is on the line in this 2020 election. A world realignment takes place about every 70-75 years or thereabouts. 1940-45 was the last one, post Civil War before that. So we're due, and we must control it and make good choices.

[David__77]

5. A fine statement of American exceptionalism and power politics.

Geopolitics need not be a zero sum game.

[Thomas Hurt]

7. Bernie is a reaction and escalation of the American left.

The GOP anted with a "populist" fascist, we seem to be in the process of raising with a populist something or other type socialist. Though it over yet.

IMO Bernie is meant as a tit for tat response. The majority of Americans are still fed up with politics in this country, but the left in this country are turned off by Trump, it they don't outright hate or fear him.

What better way to rub the right's face in it than to elect a socialist......I mean besides electing an African American or a woman.

Trump turned out to be a conservatives' wet dream ideologue, and a selective populist. We will see if he is a one term loser.

[Hortensis]

8. Yup. Both need the current system of majority sovereignty gone.

Because of the "after" for both of them. They're both heading populist movements -- to establish direct control by themselves empowered by their followers -- because voting majorities in free and fair elections would never give them the power to destroy.

Once congress and the judiciary, and the electorate are mostly depowered, the Repubs want to replace with a RW hierarchical, authoritarian nativist society.

Sanders wants to replace with a LW universalist, anti-individualist system of his design -- NOT the European capitalist models with socialized services he's using for a bait-and-switch, but by his own descriptions and by his own closest label, "democratic" socialism. (

BOTH are building burn-it-down populist followings with promises that the only way to accomplish their goals is to smash the ability of democratic majorities to block them through free and fair elections and with that smash the current systems. As Sanders' Twitter blabbers like to brag, they have an agenda and we can't stop them.

(And for those who've been listening to too much Trump, Sanders, and Russia disinformation, the Democrats are the ones fighting to protect government of, by and for the people and to protect our INDIVIDUAL rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.)

[BlueIdaho]

10. They are both Populists

That’s how they roll.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/07/the-populists

[flying_wahini]

11. Then why are you still listed as undecided?

Pick a Democrat.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. I think the "burn it down" idea comes from the GOP war against government.

Two generations have grown up under government deliberately deadlocked and crippled by the all-out assault on it from Republicans. Even as Republicans obstructed, the propaganda machine begun by the likes of Ailes, Murdoch, Atwater and Stone has continuously blamed Democrats for Republican damages.

[NurseJackie]

24. It's also a philosophy shared by "Our Revolution" and "Justice Democrats"

[Hermit-The-Prog]

27. No argument from me. It's both ends against the middle.

[ancianita]

45. It does.

[William769]

13. Is that what was meant by "feel the bern"?

[nycbos]

14. Exactly

Also, remember Bernie owes his career to the NRA.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-nra-helped-put-bernie-sanders-in-congress/2015/07/19/ed1be26c-2bfe-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

[empedocles]

15. The extremes of the right & left seem to have much in common.

Aggressive anger, recklessness, blinders, hate, . . .

[ismnotwasm]

38. Ummmmm The Onion?

What is your point linking to the onion?

[ismnotwasm]

80. Hmm.

[empedocles]

39. Nice touch with the Onion. Welcome. [I like Eleanor also].

[ehrnst]

65. "Extremists at the Center" Did you find that talking point in The Onion too?

[HarlanPepper]

85. Yes they do and as I've matured I find I like extremes of any kind less and less

I’ve always viewed extreme RWNJs as morons while not feeling that way about those on the left who espouse extreme beliefs. That’s sort of over now.

[Aviation Pro]

16. Alfred was right

[krakfiend]

17. no

i think you are misguided, trump wants to burn everything down so he can be king. the republicans are letting him. bernie wants big corporations to pay their share of taxes and install social programs to help the middle and lower classes, so that they can rise. he has a history of fighting for social justice, for women rights, minority rights, gays/ lesbians. i think you may have the wrong idea of him. as a progressive, i didn't like the bailout. just because bernie is a socialist does not mean he wants to burn the world down.

[ancianita]

47. A more objective framing of what Bernie has himself said.

[IronLionZion]

18. Trump has been burning down the wrong things

and a lot of innocent normal people are being burned in the process.

Bernie is for burning down villains like Trump.

[c-rational]

19. Good post.. i agree we need to choose leaders who will build and correct what we have. The burn it

downers are those who will get by and not the masses who will be destroyed. They are akin to the troubled family member who gets far too much attention and energy to the detriment of all others.

[ancianita]

22. Does realization matter?

Americans fail to realize what kind of threats we're facing. There are two global governing factions. There is a Liberal Democratic Freedom faction and the Authoritarian faction which lumps in dictators, theocrats, and various oppressors.

Maybe half of the Americans who don't "realize" think nothing can be done about these threats, anyway.

Maybe the other half of Americans who do "realize" have tried to do everything outside of military force, to stop it, and still nothing can be done about these threats, anyway.

Just REALIZING has done nothing to stop what is happening. Realizing AND Doing have done nothing to stop what is happening.

We can't magically think our way out of this through Wokeness or Realization.

We have to ACT through force. Defensive force. The freedom war is gearing up. Lawyers are embattled, the House is embattled, and when politics hits the General Election, Main Street will be embattled.

The REAL freedom war begins after November 3 2020.
There will be no winning.
Just containment of degenerate global mafia rule.

[Roy Rolling]

25. The Struggle is real

Military dictators
Capitalists
Communists
Anarchists

These four segments battle for power over all groups—that’s part of the problem.

Now, the anarchists are battling the capitalists because capitalists made mistakes, and constructed a society favoring the rich at the expense of everybody else.

So the anarchists want to tear everything down because, well, that’s what anarchists do. But they don’t govern very well, because of the old failure: Anarchists Unite. They can’t govern cooperatively, only for their own selfish interest (Trump).

[johnthewoodworker]

29. Your equating Bernie with the cat grabber is kind of far fetched.

I've voted for the democratic candidate since my first election in 1980. I voted for Clinton in 2016. Other than Obama, every candidate that I favored in the primaries has been defeated. It seems as though Warren is going to add to my total.

There are a lot of people, and I am one of them, who have concluded that this system we have developed is going to fail in a big way. Money is a finite resource and it has been flowing to the wealthy to the detriment of everyone else. I have no problem with the economic message that Bernie is bringing. But to say that he and the cat grabber are part of a coalition is b.s.

Many are arguing that a moderate candidate has a better chance with independents. Maybe this is true. But these are democratic primaries and if the majority of the voters feel Bernie is the guy, well than Bernie is the guy. It seems like Clinton was a pretty moderate candidate in 2016 and that didn't work out so well.

[Farmer-Rick]

30. I do not want a leader I want a representative. Trump is a leader

He is a bad leader but he is a leader doing what all leaders do....their own thing...what they think is right...NOT what the people think...not what the people need and want. Leaders need passive people to follow them and do as the leader instructs.

The US will be a million times better with Bernie than with some of the other more timid in policy democratic candidates.

I always opposed taking baby steps because it gives power to conservative to allow more poverty, more stolen loot in the filthy rich's hands. Incremental implementation of liberal policy provides more agonizing waiting for the majority of Americans to get some relief from a broken healthcare system as they die in abject poverty, a college education's broken system as more kids fall into debt that will hound them the rest of their lives, and a failed economic system that sees full-time worker's pay falling into poverty levels.

I do NOT want a Leader. I want someone to Represent Me. Not someone who will put banks, and the filthy rich interests' over the will of the people because that's what he's been convinced to do by a handful of greedy men. It is my will I want that president to display not his own.

Trump is a leader. He is a bad leader but an accurate representation of what leaders do. They do their own thing, ignore popular standards and values. They make judgments based on what they want and what they are use to, not on what the people put them there to do. Give me a representative over a leader any time.

[bitterross]

34. Hell Yes! Both of them suck.

I don't give Trump credit for TRYING to be a burn it down personally. He's not that bright, he's just a useful tool. Used by other, more evil people.

Bernie, on the other hand, is smart. He has taken steps to burn down the DNC for years. He is not our friend.

[Captain Zero]

37. Oh please, Bernie is not 'Burn it down', Bernie is

Make It Better. All the Democrats are.
Anybody But Trump. #ABT !

[Vinca]

51. As much as I've liked Bernie over the years, I wish he hadn't run.

One way or another, he's the spoiler. If he's the nominee, some Democrats won't bother to vote. If he's not the nominee, some Bernie supporters won't bother to vote. Either way we get Trump. I'm really ill at the thought.

[bdamomma]

66. I think

everyone should not sit this one out, we have to much at stake.

[Vinca]

88. I totally agree. If Bernie's the nominee I'll walk over hot coals to vote for him.

[Vinca]

89. I'm confused. You seemed to make the case for Bernie and then the case against him.

The right claims MFA will cause hospitals to close, not the left.

[wellst0nev0ter]

67. It's Okay to Compare Bernie to Trump

But not other Democrats (*cough*Bloomberg*cough*) to Trump?

Duly noted.

[LonePirate]

77. 45's voters blame minorities for their problems. Bernie's voters blame the 1% and corporations.

Anger over present day life in America takes many forms.

[gollygee]

83. The only people who want to burn it down are those who know they'll survive the fire

There are a lot of people who won't survive the fire. There are a lot of people who will suffer. There are people suffering now from the damage done so far by burning it down. We have children in cages. I'm tired of people who are so selfish.