No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
There was also the a-historical fluke of the FBI director dropping an unwarranted bombshell barely a week shy of the election. (After having already done so a few months prior.)
I think that context matters more than anything else. I find it hard to see a world in which Clinton doesn't win without Comey's interference. There are other major factors (the media treating Trump with kid's gloves, which to an extent, continues to this day- "he gave a speech and didn't sound like, a lunatic, so presidential!"
Dunno man, I get that people are still upset with Bernie, but Corbyn is actually that much worse.
The people that are about to get creamed by Brexit would kill for the chance of having Sanders instead of Corbyn.
+1
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
And hell, if anything, the fact the election was so close despite everything from Comey, to the media, Clinton's own missteps, etc, says to me that this fight in eminently winnable if not tilted toward our advantage. Doubly so as Trump's elderly base continues to dwindle.
Dunno man, I get that people are still upset with Bernie, but Corbyn is actually that much worse.
The people that are about to get creamed by Brexit would kill for the chance of having Sanders instead of Corbyn.
Corbyn's only worse since he won, if he didn't we wouldn't be talking about him that much. Bernie, I'm not so sure him being the leader would end up being good for the Democrats either. He is not a team player and holds grudges.
And hell, if anything, the fact the election was so close despite everything from Comey, to the media, Clinton's own missteps, etc, says to me that this fight in eminently winnable if not tilted toward our advantage. Doubly so as Trump's elderly base continues to dwindle.
Mr. Trump had a lot of things going against him during the election as well. If a single vague note from the FBI director at the last minute was enough to topple years and billions of dollars of preparation, then the campaign was built on a matchstick foundation. The public morass of voters is not guided by individual logic but by coarse primitive trends.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And hell, if anything, the fact the election was so close despite everything from Comey, to the media, Clinton's own missteps, etc, says to me that this fight in eminently winnable if not tilted toward our advantage. Doubly so as Trump's elderly base continues to dwindle.
Mr. Trump had a lot of things going against him during the election as well. If a single vague note from the FBI director at the last minute was enough to topple years and billions of dollars of preparation, then the campaign was built on a matchstick foundation. The public morass of voters is not guided by individual logic but by coarse primitive trends.
Most of which was his own making, and he managed to do well because he had many influential allies and his unconventional methods weren't as troublesome for him that they'd be for regular politicians. And it wasn't a simple vague note from the FBI the media, the GOP and Trump's campaign amplified and distorted that to the hilt as well the advent of the internet bubbles with fake news. Hillary's campaign was strong, but no campaign is bulletproof. I don't think that was the only weakness Hillary had, this was a culmination of decades of work from the GOP and media and other unforeseen forces and mistakes. It was a death of a thousand cuts.
Trump has proven one rule is true with him: those who underestimate him lose. He won't be easy to defeat, despite that we know what he does now. If he was that weak he wouldn't have survived the GOP primary.
0
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
And hell, if anything, the fact the election was so close despite everything from Comey, to the media, Clinton's own missteps, etc, says to me that this fight in eminently winnable if not tilted toward our advantage. Doubly so as Trump's elderly base continues to dwindle.
Mr. Trump had a lot of things going against him during the election as well. If a single vague note from the FBI director at the last minute was enough to topple years and billions of dollars of preparation, then the campaign was built on a matchstick foundation.
Single vague note? Seriously?
The public morass of voters is not guided by individual logic but by coarse primitive trends.
I agree with this, and two of those coarse primitive trends would be misogyny and a dearth of critical thinking skills. That's on the electorate (and the media for not doing their jobs to counteract them), not on Clinton.
Do you think if Sanders had been the nominee that he wouldn't have been constantly assailed by chants of "socialist socialist socialist" whargarble, and that the electorate would have been too smart to fall for it, or that the media would have adequately educated them about what that term even means if electorate did fall for it?
I guess Truman getting re-elected in his own right for the fifth straight Democratic win doesn't count anymore.
No transfer by VP successorship.
I'll admit there's a lot of conditions there, but he was an incumbent and had the incumbency advantage, despite how screwed he seemed in the summer of '48.
The only times a non-incumbent of the same party pulled across the Presidency (at least after the Civil War), it was Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Taft in 1908, Hoover in 1928, and Bush in 1988. A Democrat's never managed to do it despite coming super-close twice.
Mr Khan on
0
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
It's true, we really didn't have a chance this election with either candidate
"Didn't have a chance" it was a razor thin margin in 3 states, it seems pretty clear in retrospect what went wrong and we can correct those mistakes next time
but that can't happen if we declare that nobody could of won and everything was always hopeless
Next time will be different, but pulling off the specific trick of electing a Democrat after a Democrat wasn't in the cards. Excluding re-election and during-term transition, only Republicans have done this in the past century. The next chance we'll get to prove the possibility of a democratic dynasty, for just the executive branch, is 2024 at the earliest.
they barely won, and in two of the three states we needed Clinton did all but not campaign at all
Even so, she was fighting two impressive historical barriers: no woman has ever become the US president, and no democrat has succeeded another democrat since Pat Buchanan in 1856. The fact that this was not nearly as close as the 2000 election shows that Democrats have a way to go before they can reproduce the history breaking combo of 1988, a time when everybody was republican.
James Buchanan. James Buchanan was the awful president. Pat Buchanan was the Hipster Nazi, because he was the Nazi 20 years before it was cool.
And hell, if anything, the fact the election was so close despite everything from Comey, to the media, Clinton's own missteps, etc, says to me that this fight in eminently winnable if not tilted toward our advantage. Doubly so as Trump's elderly base continues to dwindle.
Mr. Trump had a lot of things going against him during the election as well. If a single vague note from the FBI director at the last minute was enough to topple years and billions of dollars of preparation, then the campaign was built on a matchstick foundation.
Single vague note? Seriously?
The public morass of voters is not guided by individual logic but by coarse primitive trends.
I agree with this, and two of those coarse primitive trends would be misogyny and a dearth of critical thinking skills. That's on the electorate (and the media for not doing their jobs to counteract them), not on Clinton.
Do you think if Sanders had been the nominee that he wouldn't have been constantly assailed by chants of "socialist socialist socialist" whargarble, and that the electorate would have been too smart to fall for it, or that the media would have adequately educated them about what that term even means if electorate did fall for it?
You're better than this.
I don't know what you think I'm better than, or why you're framing this as an argument for Mr. Sanders. I'm saying that the incumbent party always loses the changing of the guard because America's basest instinct is to seek fresh blood. If you aren't already president and you run after even a popular president of your own party, you are a sacrificial lamb. Mr. Obama broke the race barrier, not the incumbency barrier. It's clearer to me now more than ever. The hate for the previous administration has the greatest effect on the upcoming election, even if that hate is horrible and wrong. That's why 2016 was so ugly.
I can well imagine Mrs. Clinton Carterizing a 4 year President Trump, because the public likes nothing more than punishing bad performance. I don't know why she made it harder on herself by running off Mr. Obama.
And yes, James Buchanan. Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I guess Truman getting re-elected in his own right for the fifth straight Democratic win doesn't count anymore.
No transfer by VP successorship.
I'll admit there's a lot of conditions there, but he was an incumbent and had the incumbency advantage, despite how screwed he seemed in the summer of '48.
The only times a non-incumbent of the same party pulled across the Presidency (at least after the Civil War), it was Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Taft in 1908, Hoover in 1928, and Bush in 1988. A Democrat's never managed to do it despite coming super-close twice.
It's a dumb and arbitrary condition is the real point. There have been three such opportunities by this definition. two of which the Dems won the popular vote.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I guess Truman getting re-elected in his own right for the fifth straight Democratic win doesn't count anymore.
No transfer by VP successorship.
I'll admit there's a lot of conditions there, but he was an incumbent and had the incumbency advantage, despite how screwed he seemed in the summer of '48.
The only times a non-incumbent of the same party pulled across the Presidency (at least after the Civil War), it was Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Taft in 1908, Hoover in 1928, and Bush in 1988. A Democrat's never managed to do it despite coming super-close twice.
It's a dumb and arbitrary condition is the real point. There have been three such opportunities by this definition. two of which the Dems won the popular vote.
Sitting presidents have a huge home team advantage and generally succeed unless they quit or something terrible happens. Even Truman faced an uphill battle for his second term as president - which was his first presidential election. VPs not already president do have an advantage historically, but only when the tide is turning.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Corbyn is like Sanders if Sanders had no charisma and wasn't really sure what he stood for aside from "things the establishment hates."
Sanders is so much more charismatic than Corbyn that Corbyn managed to successfully take over his party in two separate leadership votes and Sanders lost by 20%.
Corbyn won in the first place because his opponents were a clown-car of virtual empty suits who couldn't make any case beyond a tepid continuation of the status quo that resulted in significant losses for Labour in 2015. He was nominated as the token "diversity in perspective" candidate then lo-and-behold having some sort of vision different than the one that lost Labour Scotland and enough of England won out. Unfortunately it was a problematic vision that was not investigated or ruminated on nearly enough.
The second time around his first challenger for leadership, Angela Eagle, crashed and burned immediately after takeoff from the runway. The second challenger made numerous unforced errors that couldn't be swept aside with the privilege of incumbency that Corbyn has. Labour has some serious soul searching to do as a party, and may be at a point where it is too late to be salvaged, that is beyond a nefarious conspiracy of self-sabotaging leftist protesters ruining everything for the self proclaimed grown ups in the room.
The rest of your comparisons are again superficial (and hardly unique to Sanders in the context of even mainstream US politics on the left) in an attempt to assert a singular narrative about electoral politics.
The fact that Sanders lost by only 20% to the singularly most popular Democrat after Barack Obama is more a flashing neon sign about the struggles Clinton would face in the general, rather than indicative of Sanders lacking charisma in comparison to a man convinced electoral politics is not how real change is enacted yet somehow finding himself with the reins of an electoral party that is slowly imploding in the wake of Scottish Independence on the ascendancy and being unable to make a coherent position on the European Union.
The fact that Sanders lost by only 20% to the singularly most popular Democrat after Barack Obama is more a flashing neon sign about the struggles Clinton would face in the general, rather than indicative of Sanders lacking charisma in comparison to a man convinced electoral politics is not how real change is enacted yet somehow finding himself with the reins of an electoral party that is slowly imploding in the wake of Scottish Independence on the ascendancy and being unable to make a coherent position on the European Union.
Was it really? Is this from May or when he finally dropped out? He stayed in the race despite his campaign having lost way past what politicians usually do. Running up the scoreboard when you already lost is not impressive. It's unprofessional as a politician and it over his real number for his loss.
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
It's not like he couldn't do that peacefully, like regular protocol for issues like this. And this does not ignore him putting an asterix on his voting margins because it's convenient for him.
Doing this also has greater implications, if he's willing to ignore tradition like that in a primary race what other traditions and protocols is he going to ignore if he became the nominee or president?
If some vague and mythological "tradition" is what's gotten the party to its current state, maybe we shouldn't be putting much stock in it.
Candidates who have definitely lost and retiring from races isn't vague or mythological. It's better overall this way to stop continuous rifts like the current one Dems are experiencing and it shortens the race leaves the party room to breathe so when the general comes there is less bickering and they can focus on being united behind their nominee.
This train of thought is also what Trump (and Corbyn) does, look how his leadership is working out for the GOP and the country.
Contrariness for the sake of it is silly, especially when the person doing that is the POTUS. Bernie wouldn't be a rebel anymore.
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
Which answer makes hillary look like the best most flawless and magnificent 12th dimensional chess player of a campaigner
The whole argument is silly anyway. We need candidates who marry Bernie's appeal to the young and the whites we can get who are disaffected by elite bullshit with the party's traditional base of minorities and (educated) women. That's not Bernie, it's also not Hillary. Let's move on before we lose elections fighting a ridiculous personality battle.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I think it's interesting that you are making a claim that Bernie is contrarian for its own sake
Do you really think Bernie didn't believe the things he said?
Do you really think the people who voted for him were just trying to stick it to the man?
Claiming bad faith is pretty remarkable, and believing that Bernie had purely selfish motives for saying the things he said would be pretty goosey
But claiming that he is just going against the grain for no reason except to do it? That's ridiculous
Bernie is an outsider, and anti-establishment*. He'd made his career on being That Guy, and it's why he gained the following he did. I'm not saying he's only doing it for the sake of it, but he gets the same result. Ignoring the rules of how a primary tradition works to pad his numbers when he knows he lost is not a good sign for him following the rules.
Nor is it a secret that he holds petty grudges, or that he will cast anyone or any organization that doesn't agree with him as enemies when it's politically convenient. RE: Barney Frank, and Planned Parenthood.
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
You're getting Hillary's and Bernie's losses mixed up. Hillary's popular vote was important since they were in play during the election, they just weren't n the right regions so Trump won via EC. Bernie's campaign unofficially ended at a certain point, that's why those numbers don't count - this is why traditionally candidates end their runs for the reasons explained upthread. Hillary officially conceded the second she thought Trump had won, as well. The two situations are not identical.
And yes, Hillary did run the most progressive platform ever in a presidential race. You say that like it's a bad thing.
It's true, we really didn't have a chance this election with either candidate
"Didn't have a chance" it was a razor thin margin in 3 states, it seems pretty clear in retrospect what went wrong and we can correct those mistakes next time
but that can't happen if we declare that nobody could of won and everything was always hopeless
Next time will be different, but pulling off the specific trick of electing a Democrat after a Democrat wasn't in the cards. Excluding re-election and during-term transition, only Republicans have done this in the past century. The next chance we'll get to prove the possibility of a democratic dynasty, for just the executive branch, is 2024 at the earliest.
they barely won, and in two of the three states we needed Clinton did all but not campaign at all
Even so, she was fighting two impressive historical barriers: no woman has ever become the US president, and no democrat has succeeded another democrat since Pat Buchanan in 1856. The fact that this was not nearly as close as the 2000 election shows that Democrats have a way to go before they can reproduce the history breaking combo of 1988, a time when everybody was republican.
This always felt like the biggest piece of the pie the media was ignoring in making in Clinton's to lose. It was never Clinton's to lose, even if she had been a man it would have been a historic feat to win this election as a generic (D). Its unfortunate that generic (R) happened to be a fucking monster.
We definitely need to marry Sanders appeal to the party as a whole because
of that
Mainly it's not that millenials show up and swept trump into office, the nasty cadre of young alt rights is very small (and very, very loud)
it's that all the boomers in the world dying won't matter if an entire generation doesn't feel like voting (and younger black voters are the ones most able to escape the oppression of things like voter ID and registration purges - if they're motivated to actually vote)
Corbyn is like Sanders if Sanders had no charisma and wasn't really sure what he stood for aside from "things the establishment hates."
Sanders is so much more charismatic than Corbyn that Corbyn managed to successfully take over his party in two separate leadership votes and Sanders lost by 20%.
They are also both classic leftists who describe themselves as socialists who have run largely/primarily as outsider purists attacking the establishment both in the form of their own party and the economy at large. Both focused largely on attacking prior governments run by their party (the Clinton Administration and the Blair government), both were tepid on Brexit, both claim their parties ran rigged systems to determine leadership. Both vocally supported various Latin American left wing strongmen until it was inconvenient, both have historically been wishy washy on scientific issues like homeopathy and other quackery, both put forth policy proposals that sounds good as long as you don't actually crunch the numbers and dismiss those criticisms.
America is not immune to the currents of thought and ideology that are generating these movements. Two different back benchers, Corbyn and Sanders, self described socialists rising to prominence by railing against the man in the guise of their own liberal parties while far right ethnic nationalism rises to the mainstream isn't just a coincidence. Corbyn's utter failure might make that unflattering to Sanders, but the parallels are obvious.
I think you are confusing awareness with the tactics he's using. And Corbyn is terrible at working the system, that's basically his whole problem. He only understands how to be a voice in the wilderness.
There's elements in common but the comparison is vastly overblown.
Sanders doesn't know how to work the system either. He's been in Congress since 1990 and has never led on a single non-trivial piece of legislation. His supporters tried to paper that over with "Amendment King" nonsense, but if you follow those amendments to completion, they almost never make it to law. The biggest thing he's ever done is getting a few rural hospitals built as part of ACA, which he's subsequently attacked. He's also never shown any interest in getting any one else elected, even in his own state, because his disdain for both parties. There's a reason he had essentially no support among Democratic legislators.
Oh please, this shows a complete lack of awareness of how these races are vastly different. Corbyn's strength is based on the fact that leadership elections in parliamentary democracies are voted on by vastly fewer people because the rolls are restricted to party members which is a lot more exclusive then it is in the US. So when they loosened some rules for joining the party just to vote on the leadership race, he got his loyal followers to flood the rolls and put him in power.
Sanders attracted a lot of support from similar groups, but also other groups within the party base and there's just a lot more of them because there has to be to get those kind of numbers in a US primary.
Sanders did a bunch of shit I've been criticising him for on these boards for a long time now but he also understood at the end of the day that he needed to pivot to supporting Clinton (even if I disliked how he did that) and that an opposition party has to actually fucking do something.
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
The consequences of bernie's push were uselessly extreme.
In order to get a marginally more leftward platform he painted the entire democratic party as corrupt corporate whores. Essentially doing the Republican's work to impune the character of not just hillary, but all democrats, and subsequently anyone willing to defend them. In order to get a more leftward platform, he did just about everything he could to make sure that platform would never be enacted.
Again pyrrhic victory.
You can complain about the fact that I'm laying some blame at the feet of bernie sanders, but don't try to tell me he accomplished anything of worth because the only thing he can even try to spin as a positive result of his massive incompetence was only able to be spun as positive if we had won. Without us having got the W his "accomplishments" are completely worth less. Most especially because all he succeeded in doing is giving credence to the idea that such a progressive platform is, apparently, not a winning one.
Sanders did a bunch of shit I've been criticising him for on these boards for a long time now but he also understood at the end of the day that he needed to pivot to supporting Clinton (even if I disliked how he did that) and that an opposition party has to actually fucking do something.
This took a long time for him to actually budge on that via strong negotiation tactics, and after the election he went right back into the mindset.
Do you really think the people who voted for him were just trying to stick it to the man?
...yes? A considerable portion at least. That's the fundamental basis of his appeal. And that faction grew every day he stayed in the race.
Then you weren't paying attention. Yes, making the wealthy pay their fair share was a common refrain of his. However, he also had plans for what we should do for the poor and working class, he had a strong position against the War on Drugs, he wanted to make college tuition free, etc.
What was said was that Bernie was being contrarian for its own sake. Which is bullshit and a way to dismiss Bernie's very real, very honestly-held positions. Disagree with them; fine, but don't try to claim that Bernie was just getting up to the microphone and loudly denouncing everything Hillary said.
Do you really think the people who voted for him were just trying to stick it to the man?
...yes? A considerable portion at least. That's the fundamental basis of his appeal. And that faction grew every day he stayed in the race.
Then you weren't paying attention. Yes, making the wealthy pay their fair share was a common refrain of his. However, he also had plans for what we should do for the poor and working class, he had a strong position against the War on Drugs, he wanted to make college tuition free, etc.
What was said was that Bernie was being contrarian for its own sake. Which is bullshit and a way to dismiss Bernie's very real, very honestly-held positions. Disagree with them; fine, but don't try to claim that Bernie was just getting up to the microphone and loudly denouncing everything Hillary said.
I think it's probably a mix of both. Bernie did sincerely believe the things he ran on, but if you listen to the way many of his supporters spoke about Hillary there is a clear "stick it to the man" vibe.
The "coronation" argument is one example, calling her a neo-liberal is another, calling her and anyone who supported Hillary over Bernie "the establishment" is another. These, and many others were all used to frame Hillary in a negative light when contrasting Bernie and Hillary.
Do you really think the people who voted for him were just trying to stick it to the man?
...yes? A considerable portion at least. That's the fundamental basis of his appeal. And that faction grew every day he stayed in the race.
Then you weren't paying attention. Yes, making the wealthy pay their fair share was a common refrain of his. However, he also had plans for what we should do for the poor and working class, he had a strong position against the War on Drugs, he wanted to make college tuition free, etc.
What was said was that Bernie was being contrarian for its own sake. Which is bullshit and a way to dismiss Bernie's very real, very honestly-held positions. Disagree with them; fine, but don't try to claim that Bernie was just getting up to the microphone and loudly denouncing everything Hillary said.
Except that's exactly what he did and did the same for the Democratic party as a whole. He seemed to always miss the nuance and complexity of politics they're operating with, and it was always his way or the highway. He is not a big fan of compromise. This has been a huge recruitment tool for his followers, too. That's his niche in politics, to be the ever present underdog fighting those darned corrupt Democrats.
Your first paragraph does not discount what he was doing, those were his goals not how he went about doing it. Which was discrediting anything remotely "establishment" and making that a dirty word. Having noble goals isn't a license to act like your opponents aren't legitimate. That wasn't the benefit of a doubt he gave his opponents in the Democratic primary, especially Hillary. This didn't happen at first, but when it was clear he was going to lose everything was on the table to make sure he got what he wanted. And despite getting that he still isn't pleased with the party, instead he's still taking shots at Hillary rather than focusing all his energy into healing that rift so when the next elections come around the party won't be as shattered.
Harry Dresden on
+2
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Clinton is stating she's ready to come back into the spotlight-
She can certainly play a role in shaping policy, since she's probably a literal genius, but definitely stay out of the spotlight. She's tainted goods now; the one who blew an almost sure-thing and proved how out of touch the democratic party is with the populace. Everytime she steps in front of a camera, it'll be 'the one who lost to Trump.'
Javen on
+5
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
On the other hand, anytime she says anything the spotlight is going to be on her, so if she wants to comment, it's good to acknowledge the fact.
Stay in the memory hole forever as far as i'm concerned. She let us down, she let her country down. Her failure led to irreparable damage to the nation that we'll all feel the rest of our lives. Half the reason why i felt like Tim Kaine should've resigned immediately, too. Anyone with a sense of shame should have after that performance.
On a less feels-based side, her coming back just allows Trump to flog his election win in the popular discourse. If she's got advice or assistance to render, give it, but she should really stay out of the public eye until the happy day when Trump is out of the white house.
Posts
I think that context matters more than anything else. I find it hard to see a world in which Clinton doesn't win without Comey's interference. There are other major factors (the media treating Trump with kid's gloves, which to an extent, continues to this day- "he gave a speech and didn't sound like, a lunatic, so presidential!"
The people that are about to get creamed by Brexit would kill for the chance of having Sanders instead of Corbyn.
Corbyn's only worse since he won, if he didn't we wouldn't be talking about him that much. Bernie, I'm not so sure him being the leader would end up being good for the Democrats either. He is not a team player and holds grudges.
Mr. Trump had a lot of things going against him during the election as well. If a single vague note from the FBI director at the last minute was enough to topple years and billions of dollars of preparation, then the campaign was built on a matchstick foundation. The public morass of voters is not guided by individual logic but by coarse primitive trends.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Most of which was his own making, and he managed to do well because he had many influential allies and his unconventional methods weren't as troublesome for him that they'd be for regular politicians. And it wasn't a simple vague note from the FBI the media, the GOP and Trump's campaign amplified and distorted that to the hilt as well the advent of the internet bubbles with fake news. Hillary's campaign was strong, but no campaign is bulletproof. I don't think that was the only weakness Hillary had, this was a culmination of decades of work from the GOP and media and other unforeseen forces and mistakes. It was a death of a thousand cuts.
Trump has proven one rule is true with him: those who underestimate him lose. He won't be easy to defeat, despite that we know what he does now. If he was that weak he wouldn't have survived the GOP primary.
Single vague note? Seriously?
I agree with this, and two of those coarse primitive trends would be misogyny and a dearth of critical thinking skills. That's on the electorate (and the media for not doing their jobs to counteract them), not on Clinton.
Do you think if Sanders had been the nominee that he wouldn't have been constantly assailed by chants of "socialist socialist socialist" whargarble, and that the electorate would have been too smart to fall for it, or that the media would have adequately educated them about what that term even means if electorate did fall for it?
You're better than this.
No transfer by VP successorship.
I'll admit there's a lot of conditions there, but he was an incumbent and had the incumbency advantage, despite how screwed he seemed in the summer of '48.
The only times a non-incumbent of the same party pulled across the Presidency (at least after the Civil War), it was Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 1880, Taft in 1908, Hoover in 1928, and Bush in 1988. A Democrat's never managed to do it despite coming super-close twice.
James Buchanan. James Buchanan was the awful president. Pat Buchanan was the Hipster Nazi, because he was the Nazi 20 years before it was cool.
I don't know what you think I'm better than, or why you're framing this as an argument for Mr. Sanders. I'm saying that the incumbent party always loses the changing of the guard because America's basest instinct is to seek fresh blood. If you aren't already president and you run after even a popular president of your own party, you are a sacrificial lamb. Mr. Obama broke the race barrier, not the incumbency barrier. It's clearer to me now more than ever. The hate for the previous administration has the greatest effect on the upcoming election, even if that hate is horrible and wrong. That's why 2016 was so ugly.
I can well imagine Mrs. Clinton Carterizing a 4 year President Trump, because the public likes nothing more than punishing bad performance. I don't know why she made it harder on herself by running off Mr. Obama.
And yes, James Buchanan. Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's a dumb and arbitrary condition is the real point. There have been three such opportunities by this definition. two of which the Dems won the popular vote.
Sitting presidents have a huge home team advantage and generally succeed unless they quit or something terrible happens. Even Truman faced an uphill battle for his second term as president - which was his first presidential election. VPs not already president do have an advantage historically, but only when the tide is turning.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Corbyn won in the first place because his opponents were a clown-car of virtual empty suits who couldn't make any case beyond a tepid continuation of the status quo that resulted in significant losses for Labour in 2015. He was nominated as the token "diversity in perspective" candidate then lo-and-behold having some sort of vision different than the one that lost Labour Scotland and enough of England won out. Unfortunately it was a problematic vision that was not investigated or ruminated on nearly enough.
The second time around his first challenger for leadership, Angela Eagle, crashed and burned immediately after takeoff from the runway. The second challenger made numerous unforced errors that couldn't be swept aside with the privilege of incumbency that Corbyn has. Labour has some serious soul searching to do as a party, and may be at a point where it is too late to be salvaged, that is beyond a nefarious conspiracy of self-sabotaging leftist protesters ruining everything for the self proclaimed grown ups in the room.
The rest of your comparisons are again superficial (and hardly unique to Sanders in the context of even mainstream US politics on the left) in an attempt to assert a singular narrative about electoral politics.
The fact that Sanders lost by only 20% to the singularly most popular Democrat after Barack Obama is more a flashing neon sign about the struggles Clinton would face in the general, rather than indicative of Sanders lacking charisma in comparison to a man convinced electoral politics is not how real change is enacted yet somehow finding himself with the reins of an electoral party that is slowly imploding in the wake of Scottish Independence on the ascendancy and being unable to make a coherent position on the European Union.
Was it really? Is this from May or when he finally dropped out? He stayed in the race despite his campaign having lost way past what politicians usually do. Running up the scoreboard when you already lost is not impressive. It's unprofessional as a politician and it over his real number for his loss.
It's not like he couldn't do that peacefully, like regular protocol for issues like this. And this does not ignore him putting an asterix on his voting margins because it's convenient for him.
Doing this also has greater implications, if he's willing to ignore tradition like that in a primary race what other traditions and protocols is he going to ignore if he became the nominee or president?
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Candidates who have definitely lost and retiring from races isn't vague or mythological. It's better overall this way to stop continuous rifts like the current one Dems are experiencing and it shortens the race leaves the party room to breathe so when the general comes there is less bickering and they can focus on being united behind their nominee.
This train of thought is also what Trump (and Corbyn) does, look how his leadership is working out for the GOP and the country.
Contrariness for the sake of it is silly, especially when the person doing that is the POTUS. Bernie wouldn't be a rebel anymore.
Do you really think Bernie didn't believe the things he said?
Do you really think the people who voted for him were just trying to stick it to the man?
Claiming bad faith is pretty remarkable, and believing that Bernie had purely selfish motives for saying the things he said would be pretty goosey
But claiming that he is just going against the grain for no reason except to do it? That's ridiculous
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
Which answer makes hillary look like the best most flawless and magnificent 12th dimensional chess player of a campaigner
Bernie is an outsider, and anti-establishment*. He'd made his career on being That Guy, and it's why he gained the following he did. I'm not saying he's only doing it for the sake of it, but he gets the same result. Ignoring the rules of how a primary tradition works to pad his numbers when he knows he lost is not a good sign for him following the rules.
Nor is it a secret that he holds petty grudges, or that he will cast anyone or any organization that doesn't agree with him as enemies when it's politically convenient. RE: Barney Frank, and Planned Parenthood.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/20/10801412/bernie-sanders-planned-parenthood-human-rights-campaign-establishment
* though not as much as he sells himself as
You're getting Hillary's and Bernie's losses mixed up. Hillary's popular vote was important since they were in play during the election, they just weren't n the right regions so Trump won via EC. Bernie's campaign unofficially ended at a certain point, that's why those numbers don't count - this is why traditionally candidates end their runs for the reasons explained upthread. Hillary officially conceded the second she thought Trump had won, as well. The two situations are not identical.
And yes, Hillary did run the most progressive platform ever in a presidential race. You say that like it's a bad thing.
This always felt like the biggest piece of the pie the media was ignoring in making in Clinton's to lose. It was never Clinton's to lose, even if she had been a man it would have been a historic feat to win this election as a generic (D). Its unfortunate that generic (R) happened to be a fucking monster.
of that
Mainly it's not that millenials show up and swept trump into office, the nasty cadre of young alt rights is very small (and very, very loud)
it's that all the boomers in the world dying won't matter if an entire generation doesn't feel like voting (and younger black voters are the ones most able to escape the oppression of things like voter ID and registration purges - if they're motivated to actually vote)
Oh please, this shows a complete lack of awareness of how these races are vastly different. Corbyn's strength is based on the fact that leadership elections in parliamentary democracies are voted on by vastly fewer people because the rolls are restricted to party members which is a lot more exclusive then it is in the US. So when they loosened some rules for joining the party just to vote on the leadership race, he got his loyal followers to flood the rolls and put him in power.
Sanders attracted a lot of support from similar groups, but also other groups within the party base and there's just a lot more of them because there has to be to get those kind of numbers in a US primary.
Sanders did a bunch of shit I've been criticising him for on these boards for a long time now but he also understood at the end of the day that he needed to pivot to supporting Clinton (even if I disliked how he did that) and that an opposition party has to actually fucking do something.
The consequences of bernie's push were uselessly extreme.
In order to get a marginally more leftward platform he painted the entire democratic party as corrupt corporate whores. Essentially doing the Republican's work to impune the character of not just hillary, but all democrats, and subsequently anyone willing to defend them. In order to get a more leftward platform, he did just about everything he could to make sure that platform would never be enacted.
Again pyrrhic victory.
You can complain about the fact that I'm laying some blame at the feet of bernie sanders, but don't try to tell me he accomplished anything of worth because the only thing he can even try to spin as a positive result of his massive incompetence was only able to be spun as positive if we had won. Without us having got the W his "accomplishments" are completely worth less. Most especially because all he succeeded in doing is giving credence to the idea that such a progressive platform is, apparently, not a winning one.
This took a long time for him to actually budge on that via strong negotiation tactics, and after the election he went right back into the mindset.
...yes? A considerable portion at least. That's the fundamental basis of his appeal. And that faction grew every day he stayed in the race.
Steam: adamjnet
Then you weren't paying attention. Yes, making the wealthy pay their fair share was a common refrain of his. However, he also had plans for what we should do for the poor and working class, he had a strong position against the War on Drugs, he wanted to make college tuition free, etc.
What was said was that Bernie was being contrarian for its own sake. Which is bullshit and a way to dismiss Bernie's very real, very honestly-held positions. Disagree with them; fine, but don't try to claim that Bernie was just getting up to the microphone and loudly denouncing everything Hillary said.
I think it's probably a mix of both. Bernie did sincerely believe the things he ran on, but if you listen to the way many of his supporters spoke about Hillary there is a clear "stick it to the man" vibe.
The "coronation" argument is one example, calling her a neo-liberal is another, calling her and anyone who supported Hillary over Bernie "the establishment" is another. These, and many others were all used to frame Hillary in a negative light when contrasting Bernie and Hillary.
Except that's exactly what he did and did the same for the Democratic party as a whole. He seemed to always miss the nuance and complexity of politics they're operating with, and it was always his way or the highway. He is not a big fan of compromise. This has been a huge recruitment tool for his followers, too. That's his niche in politics, to be the ever present underdog fighting those darned corrupt Democrats.
Your first paragraph does not discount what he was doing, those were his goals not how he went about doing it. Which was discrediting anything remotely "establishment" and making that a dirty word. Having noble goals isn't a license to act like your opponents aren't legitimate. That wasn't the benefit of a doubt he gave his opponents in the Democratic primary, especially Hillary. This didn't happen at first, but when it was clear he was going to lose everything was on the table to make sure he got what he wanted. And despite getting that he still isn't pleased with the party, instead he's still taking shots at Hillary rather than focusing all his energy into healing that rift so when the next elections come around the party won't be as shattered.
https://nytimes.com/2017/03/18/us/politics/hillary-clinton-says-shes-ready-to-come-out-of-the-woods.html
I dunno about that.
On a less feels-based side, her coming back just allows Trump to flog his election win in the popular discourse. If she's got advice or assistance to render, give it, but she should really stay out of the public eye until the happy day when Trump is out of the white house.