Bernie Backers, When Are You Going To Admit Your Candidate Didn't Have A Chance?

The argument that he would have attracted enough support to beat Trump in 2016 or 2020 but for the efforts of the media and the DNC stopping him in the primary is just short of delusional.

First, the DNC and the media would have been just as against him in the general as they were in the primary.

Second, the RNC and the right-wing media would have also weighed in against him. (They were silent or actively rooting for him in the primaries)

Third, the general election electorate is way more conservative than the Democratic primary electorate.

Fourth, Bernie doesn't do so well with black people and old people, two of the backbones for Democratic party success.

Fifth, Bernie's primary opponents were generally respectful toward him because they wanted to avoid alienating his voters. Trump would have not had that issue and would have felt free to drop all sorts of claims on Bernie that Hillary and Joe didn't, and in more obnoxious and unfair ways than either of them would have.

Sixth, it is doubtful that Bernie would have won enough states tha Hillary failed to win to get him to 270 EC votes and it's likely that he would have lost some she did like Illinois and Virginia.

A whole thread to troll Amaris (who isn't here lately) and Jenee.
So, basically, Jenee.
Classy.

Not intended to troll anyone. The argument came up in the RBG thread and rather than continuing it there and derailing that thread, I figure it makes more sense to be its own thing.

Well, I’m not going write a thousand word essay in response. But, in response, I’ll just say.... if the DNC could get Hillary the votes she got, despite a 25 year campaign to ruin her by Republicans, imagine what they could have done for Bernie.

Whic just goes to show, the DNC isn’t working for, nor do they care about the American people.
Their refusal to back Bernie has nothing to do with black voters or older voters or anyone else.

Given how many detours the RBG thread has taken, I don't see this as trolling, just trying to declutter the RBG thread.

@Amaris isn't here. It's hard to troll someone who doesn't care.

As for @Jenee, I have a hunch she's just gonna whine until all the votes are counted; then whichever way it goes she can say "See? I was right."

What about @Tererun, though? At this point she's smearing everybody. Yanno, that asinine "both candidates are EXACTLY the same" bullshit. There has never been an election within my lifetime where that was more idiotic than it is this time. But you can't troll a troll any more than you can get two negative magnetic poles to touch, so it doesn't count.

I love Bernie. He's my landsman, and I'll always love him. His concept of what this country should be is the closest to mine since Gene McCarthy. But while Bernie was my candidate in '16, I wanted Warren this time, if only because I was concerned about Bernie's health. But he's bounced back from that remarkably, and he's done more good since he stepped off the campaign trail than he could have done if he was still campaigning.

As for the Bernie Bros, they're just spoiled children looking for attention. Bernie himself has put the smack-down on them several times, and they just. They've become the Proud Boys of the left.

I skip her TLDR novellas so much, my memory blocked her both-sides-ism.

I don’t even know what this means.
When do I whine?
What votes?
When do I gloat?
you’ve finally lost it.

There's an election this year. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Perhaps you need to be more clear. What the fuck are you talking about and what could it possibly have to do with my appreciation of Bernie’s political stances.

Perhaps you need to ask one question at a time. My impression of your scattershot approach to this election is that you'll go down to the wire defending Bernie - which is fine as a philosophical stance - but philosophy is a luxury in the trenches.

Fuck sakes...
Raoul? Garamet? I'm sorry.
Cross your energy beams right on her forehead, and blast away.

Patience - I got this.

@Jenee, who's Bernie supporting/campaigning for in this election?

@Raoul the Red Shirt had Bernie made the general, I'm willing to think the DNC would have held their nose and backed him, however grudgingly.

Bernie or Warren were my preference.

However, for me the entire thought exercise is moot

I think that the DNC is pretty much a toothless body and that whatever actual little it did to oppose Bernie didn't really amount to much. But if we're proceeding from the premise that the DNC (and its lackeys in the media) opposed Bernie because he was a threat to their corporate masters, the threat he represents doesn't magically disappear if he's the nominee. It increases.

It's possible that the 2020 DNC would do the sort of nose-holding you're talking about, because it's been clear that Trump's brand of nepotistic incompetent authoritarianism (or authoritarian nepotistic incompetence etc.) poses a unique threat. Whereas back in 2016, people could harbor the belief that Trump was going to be basically a president in the W mold who didn't seek to do anything crazy and left the details to Pence and other people who knew what they were doing.

And of course, even if the DNC did a heel-face turn and backed Bernie in the general, there are the other obstacles that I referred to, and probably more.

My scatterbrained approach to this election? I still don’t understand what you’re getting at. What could my “scatterbrained approach” possibly have anything to do with the election other than my single vote?

Then why did they let him run on the Democratic ticket?

He's not wrong, though. The guy lost electorial votes and all things considered, HRC is no less of a centralist than Biden. The boom in 2016 was a bigger reflection on Clinton than it was about Sanders.

The DNC wasn't exactly in Obama's pocket when he joined the melee in 2008, either, but here we are

They didn't really have a choice. Bernie changed his party affiliation to Democrat just so he could run as a Democrat in 2016, then he changed back when he lost, then he changed to Democrat again so he could run in 2020, then changed back again after he lost again.

Who's Bernie supporting/campaigning for in this election?

Bernie would have massively lost the popular vote, getting creamed all across the South.

But then, Hillary didn't win those states anyway.

He probably would have made up the 80K votes she lost in the Rust Belt with his pro-worker policies.

He had a better shot at winning the electoral than the popular vote - but that's the one that counts, I seem to recall.

As far as I’ve read, he’s supporting Biden.

You seem to think you’ve got me in some kind of “gotcha”, but I’ve still no idea of what you are accusing me.

A "thank you" is a "gotcha"?

Is this thread about you or about Bernie?

What does this mean?

It means you're stuck in 2016. That's not a luxury any of us can afford this year.

And I said "scattershot," not "scatterbrained," but I could change my mind.

I did not start this thread. So why do you think I am stuck in 2016? Why do you think I’ll whine about anything? Why do you think I’ll say “see, I was right”? Right about what? What the fuck are you talking about?

Anyone can run in the Democratic primaries. Hence why Rocky de la Fuente keeps showing up on your ballot.

Fun fact: Bernie isn't a registered Democrat, Republican, or Independent, because in Vermont, you don't declare a party affiliation when you register.

Lyndon LaRouche used to run as a democrat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_career_of_Donald_Trump

He registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987, switched to the Reform Party in 1999, the Democratic Party in 2001, and back to the Republican Party in 2009.