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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Wait, about that civil forfeiture thing:
There is no doubt that some Bernie Sanders supporters exhibit racism and sexism. It is categorically untrue that Sanders was running an explicitly racist or sexist campaign, nor did Sanders condone the presence of racist or sexist elements among his supporters. Okay? Let's assume good faith, here.
What Sanders did was create an umbrella under which the "antisocial left", for lack of a better term, felt safe to come out and express itself, resulting in some of those racist, sexist, violent, and otherwise undesirable outbursts on social media and in public. This is an inevitable outcome when you run a "revolutionary" campaign — some people take that word to heart and cast off their resentfully adopted veneer of civilized behavior. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized.
Sanders bears responsibility to the extent that he framed his campaign in such a way as to incite these sort of people, and he has more than enough political experience to know that he was doing so. Ergo, he considered the ends (getting nominated for President) to justify the means (bringing out all the people, some of them nasty, who don't fit comfortably inside the Democratic tent).
edited 9th Jun '16 7:14:02 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Hanlon's Razor: most racist, sexist, violent people are racist, sexist, violent people, not paid shills. And they exist on the left as well as the right.
edited 9th Jun '16 7:19:17 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Double Hanlon's Razor:
Ratfucking campaigns.exists, and this is exactly the sort of ratfucking that happens.
I'm not saying there aren't any of these types, but:
- They might be smaller than actually believed.
- I would not be surprised if a number of them were ratfucking plants from the other campaigns. Again. This happens all the time.
And thirdly, why is Sanders the sole one being held up to this standard of responsible for all those in his name. He consistently condemned these people.
This is like tying Hillary to the fucking People United Means Action (PUMA) PAC.
We are talking about them because Sanders' candidacy, along the same principles as Trump's, brought out the "revolutionary" minded people among the political fringes that don't normally have a voice in their respective parties. Unlike Trump, Sanders is politically aware enough to know this would happen, and his discouragements were half-hearted at best. Nobody is pretending that this is an exclusively Sanders phenomenon, but a statistical comparison of threats of violence issued by supporters of each candidate might be revealing.
Anyway, Sanders is old news now. He lost. Let the news shows do their post-mortems of his campaign.
edited 9th Jun '16 7:46:27 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"With all the talk of plants that comes up I have to wonder how often that actually happens in real life. Especially these days. Seems like such a stupidly convoluted plan to enact. Especially with people who really are that way are more than willing to broadcast that to the world.
So yeah, I think I'm going to be very dubious of such speculation. That really is all it is, speculation. With nothing backing it up, in this case.
Right. Sanders had to tear down Clinton's image if he wanted to win. This required a certain amount of going after her as a person as well as her record. It required validating some of the right-wing attacks that have been flung at her over the past 25 years. It required condoning his surrogates, official and unofficial, doing things that didn't jive with his ideals of running a high-minded, issues-based campaign.
Clinton didn't have to play that game, and for the most part, did not. I can't recall a time when she wasn't respectful towards Sanders and his ideas.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I was mainly referring to the Bernie Bros narrative, for which there is good reason to assume that it comes directly from the Clinton campaign, seeing that they did the same thing eight years ago with Obama. Maybe I should not have mentioned the Clinton campaign, but at least the media have been attacking him and his supporters relentlessly over things like that.
I agree up to this point. However, can we agree that these elements are a small (but maybe vocal) minority? Of course it is terrible if women are being harrassed for supporting Clinton, but 1) the majority of Sanders supporters are young progressives, so it is insulting to equate them with these people and 2) I was mainly referring to people calling everyone who has criticism of Clinton a 'Bernie Bro' (for instance, people who are concerned about her Wall Street ties). The specific example I quoted said that Bernie Sanders would have not such large-spread support if he is female, which is blatantly untrue, in my opinion.
Also, have you ever heard the man speaking? He condemns violence, sexism and racism in nearly every speech he makes. He is not a brilliant communicator, but that is not his fault.
Actually, there is some evidence backing this up - Google 'Correct the Record' (I would have post a link if I could).
What about her blaming Sanders for the Sandy Hook massacre? Also, Sanders never mentioned things like Benghazi, despite of what you are implying.
edited 9th Jun '16 9:06:01 AM by Perian
@Perian
Your Warren comparison doesn't hold up because while Warren and Sanders are politically similar, Warren presents very differently from Sanders which is my point. She has to dress well. She has do her hair nicely. She has to make sure she doesn't raise her voice too much, even when sticking it to Trump. Etc, etc.
Sanders gets away with dressing poorly. He gets away with having hair like Doc Brown. He gets away with shouting almost everything he says in his incredibly thick accent. He gets away with wagging his finger at people and talking down to people. These are all things that a female candidate, be it Warren or Clinton, would get crucified for.
Think about all the people who criticize Clinton for "being too angry" or "shouting too much". Then think about who she's running against, be it Sanders or Trump and ask yourself how that accusation is even being leveled when she's a whole lot calmer on her worst day than either of them are on their best.
Sanders has benefited from being a man, because his whole persona—not his politics, but his persona—is something that only a male politician can get away with.
edited 9th Jun '16 9:38:40 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
@Ramidel
Oh the government would crush any attempt at revolution. Of that I have no doubts. What I'm saying is that in this leftist fantasy that types like Sarandon push in which the government and army just magically vanish before the tide of the revolution, the militia guys are still going to be there, and they are going to have more guns than your average leftist "revolutionary". I mean maybe I'm wrong, but I have this sneaking suspicion that Charleton Heston owned more guns than Susan Sarandon does.
Any "revolution" that involves dismantling the power structures that keep our government functioning would by necessity open the door to the suppressed right-wing movements who think that power grows from the barrel of a gun, and the leftists would be largely defenseless against them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
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I actually agree with that - I said myself in my original post that there may be some subconscious sexism involved with certain criticisms regarding Clinton's personality or demeanour. However, I made the Warren comparison mainly to criticize the idea that Sanders supporters do not support Clinton because she is a woman, as the large overlap between Sanders and Warren supporters shows. If Warren had ran, she would probably have gained the same base of supporters as Sanders did now.

I don't like Sanders much but I love Warren.
If it was her instead of Sanders running I could see things being a lot different as Warren has more of a head on her shoulders than The Bern.