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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Okay, let's be Frank (minus Dodd, for now).
The primaries are largely limited to Democrats, Sanders would get virtually all of Clinton's supporters if he was nominated (I'd laugh at any suggestion he'd do poor among minorities, by the way (like he'd get anything less than 80-90+% of blacks like every other Democratic Nominee, pff)), and he's overwhelmingly more popular with Independents. He'd win if the Primaries were open to everyone.
Sure, I could see Hillary winning 2020 (a lower chance than I find acceptable, but sure), but her lack of charisma like Obama and all of her mostly fake issues means she'd probably do even worse than him against Romney. Which means there'd be a low voter turnout (for both 2016 and 2020). Which means more Republicans in Congress and the states and the local governments. Which means we're still fucked due to gerrymandering.
Sanders would draw out more voters in both this and the next election. His lack of mostly fake scandals and ridiculously enthusiastic support would help both him and other Democrats in the local, state, and national elections in 2016. Clinton probably won't do anything drastic like pass TPP, but she'd probably implement more minor forms of Austerity economics, which would make her more unpopular, and the Democrats by association.
Sanders, on the other, hand would do the opposite in implementing minor forms of democratic socialist policies (if mostly through executive action), which would extend his popularity and enthusiasm among his supporters. That means he'd win bigger in 2020 than Clinton and likely do more to help Democrats in the mid-term slumps in 2018, which means even more Liberals/Democrats/more Liberal Democrats winning, and if Sanders in addition to all of that gets Liberal Justices on the Supreme Court, it means we're not fucked by gerrymandering after 2020.
So there's the real, practical reason you vote the fuck out of Bernie if it's the last thing you do.
edited 16th Mar '16 2:56:52 PM by Ekuran
Nobody wants to live on an island anymore. The wifi is terrible.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.So I just finished reading a blog post slamming the "Never Vote for Hillary" crowd
with some great points. Link contains plenty of other links to news articles and gov sites. Bold emphasis mine, italic emphasis hers.
Clinton’s stellar record on AIDS is ignored while people indignantly attack her for making an inaccurate statement. I like Bernie. I really do feel the Bern. But I see Democrats brush aside things he and other male politicians have done while raining fire on Hillary for the exact same thing– or something much less. This happens all the time. Hillary is flamed for being a “career politician” and an “insider” when Sanders has been in political office for much longer than she has. (Hillary was first elected to political office in 2000; Sanders was elected to his first office in 1981 and his first national office in 1991.)note People flame Hillary for speaking in favor of the omnibus crime bill in the 90s when she was First Lady– a position with no political power– but Bernie, as a member of Congress, actually had the power to enact it into law, voting in favor of it despite the fact that many of his colleagues did not.
I’m not here to argue Hillary vs Bernie. I genuinely like them both. I’m here to say that I’m sick of seeing her reviled for the same things people forgive easily when they’re done by men, and that the stakes are too high this election cycle to indulge that or leave it unexamined. If you’re reviling Hillary for saying something racist and stupid in 1994 in favor of a crime bill that turned out to be a very bad idea, but you’re not reviling Sanders for actually using his political power to make that very bad crime bill law, I want you to take a long, long think about why that is. If you’re reviling Hillary for campaign contributions made by banks, but did not revile Obama for the same thing, I want you to take a long, long think about why that is.
Those of us who are old enough to remember what it was like to live under Reagan and the Bushes remember how bad it was. How much better almost everything– including the economy and job growth— got under Clinton and Obama. I lived through it, and I would support half a Snapple as the Democratic nominee rather than go back to the policies of Reagan or (any) Bush. I see people swear up and down their hatred of Hillary isn’t because she’s a woman, or doesn’t stem directly from decades of vicious, lying conservative propaganda— they will swear it!– and then immediately turn around and eviscerate her for something Bernie did (or is) himself, or call her a “crook,” or say nonsense like, “She doesn’t have an honest bone in her body.” Conservative copywriters, whoever you are, I applaud you for your success in taking a complete and total fabrication and successfully integrating it so far into the American consciousness that there are people who agree with nearly every policy position HRC has today, yet will still claim she’s “dishonest.” That’s some impressive chicanery, and I mean that.
We should be closely examining all candidates for office, and balanced, honest criticism of a candidate’s record and policies is crucial. Respectful debate about the candidates is necessary and healthy. But supporting Sanders should not be the same as hating Hillary. Too many people are not debating the candidates and their various records or platforms logically, instead viciously reviling Clinton– often in misogynistic terms– for things they routinely excuse in male politicians. And I have to say, the level of unfocused, irrational vitriol feels an awful lot like what conservatives have been doing to Obama for years.
There’s not a thing wrong with choosing Bernie over Hillary, or disliking Hillary’s current policy proposals. However, the out-and-out hatred we’re seeing from some Sanders supporters (and about which I am hardly the first person to write), bears some serious scrutiny. While the Sanders campaign has made real efforts to deal with the worst of it– the “Bernie Bros” acting as a misogynistic mob, attacking Clinton and her supporters Gamergate style; the “Bern the Witch” controversy– there’s still far too much active hatred, and far too much of it is misogynistic or coded misogyny. Far too much of it stems from willing belief in conservative propaganda about HRC that has been debunked over and over.
I think we all expected it, but I did not expect it from our side.
It’s one thing to prefer one candidate over another. That’s healthy. That’s admirable. It’s another to actively HATE a candidate for doing EXACTLY the same things as the last three men you voted for, despite her liberal record.
Let’s think practically about the election in November.
If Trump gets elected, how many vulnerable people will be hurt, how many programs cut, how bad will the the economy get under conservative policies? How much damage will be done if Trump, an open racist and misogynist, is empowered to command our military, veto bills, and nominate people to the Supreme Court, impacting life in the US for decades to come? Trump exhorts his followers to attack Black protestors at his rallies (“The next time we see him, we might have to kill him,” a follower said after punching a Black protestor at a rally earlier this week), excuses his followers who attack Mexicans on the street, claims Mexican immigrants are rapists, refused to distance himself from the KKK, supports banning Muslims from even entering the US, advocates killing the families of terrorists, and is openly sexist. Trump is the worst America has to offer.
How privileged do you need to be to imagine that it’s a good idea to risk the actual lives of vulnerable Americans because you “hate” Hillary so much you vow to stay home if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination? How protected from the consequences of a Trump presidency do you need to be to think your hatred of Hillary constitutes, as I saw someone say earlier this week, an “inviolable principle,” meaning, more important than the actual lives of vulnerable Americans? That all applies equally to anyone saying the same about Sanders. (We have yet to see the full weight of American antisemitism aimed at Sanders, and if he wins the nomination, we most certainly will.)
Vote for whoever you like in the primary. But let’s step away from vicious attacks and hatred. Let’s step away from buying into debunked conservative propaganda about Clinton’s trustworthiness. Let’s look at the candidates’ actual proposals and weigh those proposals’ actual strengths and weaknesses. Let’s respect each other’s choices in the primaries.
And whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, the stakes are far, far too high for us to selfishly stay home because we didn’t get our first choice. I will happily, proudly vote for either Clinton or Sanders, and I hope you will do the right thing and join me.
I don't see how that strawmanned you. I said I don't trust you. I don't. You probably don't trust me either. It's fair and much better than just shoving views that aren't mine down my throat, as what I'm consistently facing here.
Well, she was around. I've linked her statements on the matter a while back, from OnTheIssues.org
. You can find them under sections of "Political Hotspots" and "Russia".
I haven't claimed anything you say I'm claiming. Your claim that I'm strawmanning you strawmans me. Regardless of how weird that sounds. I said I don't trust you because I don't know what you're claiming(ok, I didn't know, details schmetails), all I said is your views and mine of what is reasonable in foreign policy are different. And, well, they are.
Ok. At what point has he been reasonable? Moot because he never wanted to run to begin with, but for curiosity's sake.
edited 16th Mar '16 2:58:50 PM by Luminosity
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While I won't deny that Hillary probably gets shtick entirely for being a woman by some people, I suspect that any "convenient ignoring" of other politician's faults often has more to do with the idea of what Clinton represents, as opposed to Sanders (though that doesn't exclude mysogyny either).
edited 16th Mar '16 3:06:48 PM by wehrmacht
This is part of why I wasn't too enthused by the Sanders campaign. Part of me worries that people bet everything on him and don't see any point in voting if he's not the nominee. Hillary is probably the most qualified person we've had in recent memory and I'm going to be very disappointed if she loses because of some childish notion that Sanders is our lord and savior and any other candidate is the devil incarnate.
edited 16th Mar '16 3:06:21 PM by Kostya
You don't have to be Nostradamus to foresee chaos at a brokered Republican convention, so I wouldn't necessarily blame him in that regard. The fact that Trump will do little to curtail his supporters'... "passion" is the issue.
Seriously. "Part of the problem is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore."
edited 16th Mar '16 3:13:17 PM by Eschaton
Sadly (despite the fact that I will be voting for her in the general), I do not trust her stances as laid out in her campaign. I can only go by her record, and most of the stuff under political hotspots she has said only after leaving her post as secretary, probably designed to please as many people as she can on the right to help in the general. But in practice, as Sec State, US and Russia has better relations than under Bush and under Obama's second term. So while she may want some of the same things as your average hawk, she goes by it a much smarter way.
And of course, vis a vis Russia, there are some things that all Americans will do the same (to my eternal chagrin), and thats mostly due to both to momentum and to the bureaucracy being run by Cold Warriors. That would still remain true under Sanders, given how things have shaken out with Obama, who even as late as 2012, had no beef with the Russians.
EDIT-
As for Jeb, he wasn't militant like Rubio, nor isolationist like the current lot still standing. He wanted reform of immigration, with path to citizenship, he wanted to cooperate with other powers rather than oppose the UN like his brother, he wanted to base policy off of expert analysis as opposed to ideological designs (again, unlike his brother and also unlike Trump and Cruz).
edited 16th Mar '16 3:17:47 PM by FFShinra
I've misjudged you. I apologise.
@Blue Ninja Here's a response to your article. Not mine.
My main issue with this article is that it attempts to reduce the complexities of the Democratic race to sexism. This is too simplistic a deduction and it ignores the obvious difference between Sanders and Clinton, which is ideology. Sanders is a progressive, and Hillary is not. To suggest that Sanders supporters’ dislike of Hillary is on the basis of sexism is unfounded. Any look at the polls will tell you that Bernie holds a significant lead among left-leaning female voters under the age of 45. He’s also received far more donations from females than Hillary Clinton. The gap between Hillary’s supporters and Sander’s supporters is not a gendered one, but rather a generational one. Simply put, older voters are more inclined to vote for Hillary than Bernie. As a young, liberal, feminist voter, I can assure you that my intense dislike for Hillary is based on her policy record, not her gender. Thankyouverymuch.
One argument you make is that if we’re to criticize Hillary for her Super PA Cs and corporate contributions, we should criticize Obama for the same thing. Guess what. We do. The reason Obama has gotten so little done during his eight years in the White House is largely because of big money in politics:
“The Great Recession started in 2007, and for millions of average Americans no recovery has come. For most of the years since then, there has been a Democrat in the White House, and those Americans have a right to wonder why the eloquent hero they voted for has done so little to improve their situation. They see that banks, health insurance companies, and Silicon Valley are doing extremely well; why, then, don’t their wages grow? The answer, and the key to Sanders’s success, is staring us in the face: Because the Democratic Party gave up years ago on its historic mission of serving working people.” –Thomas Frank of the New York Times.
The reason we’re more aware now of big money in politics and its disastrous effect on the American middle class is largely because Sanders has made it a national conversation. Literally has nothing to do with Hillary being a woman.
I don’t disagree that Hillary faces disadvantages because of her gender. We’ve all seen how the GOP makes pointless criticisms in regards to her clothes and makeup. I don’t condone the “Burn the Witch” expression, and I absolutely do not condone the use of gendered insults directed at Hillary. Although sexism has played a large role in the way the media has portrayed her, that doesn’t mean Hillary should be exempt from criticism, especially from feminists, just because she’s “a woman in a man’s world.” As a woman, I’m deeply insulted that you seem to suggest that sexism is an excuse for corruption. To suggest that Hillary’s disregard for human rights is nothing more than GOP slander is to ignore the facts and insult the countless individuals who have had their lives lost or irreparably damaged as a result of Clinton policies:
She has expressed support multiple times for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which empowers multinational corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, and the environment. Consequences include lower wages and increased violence against women and LGBT persons.
She served on the board of Walmart from 1986 to 1992 and “waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers,” two-thirds of whom were women.
Her campaign has accepted $133,246 from prison lobbyists (yet somehow says she’s going to reform our prison-for-profit system).
As Obama’s Secretary of State, she presided over the expansion of illegal drone attacks that are estimated to have killed hundreds of civilians. Her advocacy of aggressive military operations in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria in order to strengthen US ties with dictatorships is likewise disconcerting. She also defended Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza.
Let’s also not forget that she only came out for marriage equality within the last couple of years. I still do not understand how her supporters can brush this aside.
I also don’t think that her racist rhetoric, referring to black urban youth as “super predators” that need to be “brought to a heel” should be so blithely ignored either.
The reality is that Hillary’s brand of “feminism” embraces capitalistic green, racism, imperialism, and even heterosexism and transphobia that only caters to a privileged group of women.
It is not my intention to vilify Hillary. I don’t think she’s evil. I don’t think she’s the whore of Babylon. I think she’s a politician who puts her moneyed interests before the American people–and she’s definitely not the only one who does this. I don’t think a Clinton presidency would be terrible. I don’t think the economic or political landscape would necessarily worsen. But I don’t things would get better either. That’s because a vote for Hillary is a vote for the status quo. She’s said herself that she wishes to continue Obama’s policies, which, as I mentioned earlier, have brought only incremental change.
Bernie’s supporters are not trying to divide the Democratic Party, as you seem to suggest. We’ve simply found a candidate that we strongly support and are unwilling to compromise our ideological—and even, moral—beliefs. If Hillary supporters are so scared of the consequences of a Trump presidency, then why not support the Democratic candidate who actually has a strong chance of winning in the general election? National polls show Sanders leading Trump by as much as 19 points. Hillary leads only by 6 points. This is because Sanders has cross-party appeal from Republicans and Independents that Hillary, unfortunately, does not. It’s deeply hypocritical that many Hillary supporters refuse to vote for Bernie in the primary, yet then accuse Bernie supporters of “dividing the party” when we express a similar unwillingness to vote for Hillary.
I would just like to address a few more points of yours:
“Hillary is flamed for being a ‘career politician’ and an ‘insider’ when Sanders has been in political office for much longer than she has. (Hillary was first elected to political office in 2000; Sanders was elected to his first office in 1981 and his first national office in 1991.)”
So because he’s held political office longer, he’s therefore part of the establishment? This is an overly simplistic argument. When Sanders was marching for Civil Rights, Hillary was working for Republican Goldwater who opposed Civil Rights. The length of time someone holds office has nothing to do with whether they’re an ‘insider’ or not. The Democratic Party is incredibly establishment, and Sanders was an independent politician. Moreover, another reason Hillary is part of the establishment is because of her Super PA Cs and corporate contributions. The same can be said for Obama.
Also, since you’ve already pointed out that Sanders has been in politics far longer than Clinton, let me then use this as an opportunity to pan the “she has more experience” argument, which seems so inexplicably popular among Hillary supporters.
“People flame Hillary for speaking in favor of the omnibus crime bill in the 90s when she was First Lady– a position with no political power”
I think you’re underestimating the influence of a position like First Lady. Secondly, she did not so much “speak in favor” of the bill, as she did lobby Congress for it. But I do agree that we should be critical of Sanders’s voting record, as much as we are of Hillary’s.
“How much better almost everything– including the economy and job growth— got under Clinton and Obama.”
While the economy has improved under Obama, that improvement has been slight due to wealth inequality in the country. Also, it’s a misconception that the economy was doing well under Clinton. Bill’s neoliberal policies paved the way for our recession during Bush’s administration; the economy under Bill only appeared strong.
“Conservative copywriters, whoever you are, I applaud you for your success in taking a complete and total fabrication and successfully integrating it so far into the American consciousness that there are people who agree with nearly every policy position HRC has today, yet will still claim she’s “dishonest.”
Uh, wrong. So wrong. At least for progressives, anyway. This statement might be true for moderates or Republicans, but Progressives disagree with Hillary on the basis of policy. And if you’re at all suggesting that Bernie’s and Hillary’s policies are the same/similar, you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, I find it hilarious that Hillary’s supporters constantly criticize Bernie’s policies for being unrealistic yet fail to acknowledge that she’s adopted more and more of those policies as the Dem race progresses.
If young voters find Clinton distrustful, it’s not because she’s a woman. Here’s an interesting point that is rarely discussed: Older men like Clinton more than younger men. So are you positing that younger people are less enlightened and more sexist than their elders? Because that would be quite a claim.
While there are handfuls of Bernie supporters demonizing Hillary as a “witch,” as well as other unfortunate names—I’ve seen plenty of nasty, even anti-Semitic rhetoric from Hillary supporters, but I’m not about to generalize them all as anti-Semites, am I?—most of us dislike her for very policy-based reasons. If we find her “untrustworthy” it’s because we find her voting record goddamn untrustworthy. So please stop suggesting that Bernie supporters are a bunch of sexist woman-haters. As a progressive, queer, woman, I can assure you that this is completely untrue.
edited 16th Mar '16 3:27:44 PM by Luminosity
Ekuran: You're assuming Democrats would run someone against an incumbent Clinton, or that Clinton wouldn't go for another term. Which, assuming Clinton wins this time, is highly unlikely. Neither party is in the habit of going through another primary process if the president is intent on running again. And, as Sanders tends to caucus with the Democrats rather than Republicans, I doubt Sanders would try to run against Clinton unless running as a third party seemed like a good idea.
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Makes sense to me. Aggressive stances taken by Clinton are met with the usual sexism based diminutive dismissals about yelling too much and seeming too angry but when such actions would be taken by a man they'd be seen as positive qualities.
There are plenty of very legitimate reasons to dislike Clinton but nobody can deny an undercurrent of sexism with a lot of the hatred she gets.
edited 16th Mar '16 3:32:02 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?The irony is that Sanders' supporters, consciously or not, are aping Republican assassination points about Clinton.
edited 16th Mar '16 3:35:34 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Not really; go to Sanders' subreddit and throw out a "Shrillary" (or any of the other juvenile nicknames she's been given) and you'll almost certainly get downvoted. Nobody upvotes the email scandal, and Benghazi or Foster will get you banned. Obviously if you go looking at youtube comments or 4chan you'll find that, but that's GIFT for you.
As far as the corruption/warhawk/flip-flopping angle goes, it's pure hypocrisy coming from anyone in the GOP, but Sanders actually "walked the walk" so to speak.
edited 16th Mar '16 3:43:08 PM by CaptainCapsase

I trust the feds more than I trust private interests when it comes to certain areas.
Weapons production and R&D, utilities, some banks, cable and internet companies, etc.
Oh really when?