Re: Bernie 2020
 

My cousin is a huge Bernie fan who refused to vote for Hillary. She does not particularly identify with the Democratic Party but tends to vote in D primaries. You know there are people out there like her. Jill Stein got 50K+ votes in MI last year, but she got 20K+ votes four years earlier. Why do you think that Bernie's decision to stay in the race and attack Hillary more changed any minds? How do you tell which way cause and effect run? I see Bernie sticking in the race and attacking because Hillary was unpopular on the left, not vice versa. How, objectively, could you convince an undecided observer that you're right.

Or, if you're sick of this one, let's argue about something else.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I don't think there's any question that there are lefties that would not have voted for Hillary under any circumstances.

But I think it's strange to say that there were no (or so few as to not matter) marginal left-leaning people who were convinced of their dislike of Hillary in part because of Bernie's attacks.

I also think it's strange to think that had Bernie accepted the inevitable after Super Tuesday instead of ramping up his negative attacks that Bernie personally couldn't have brought some of those people back into the fold.

No of us can prove anything, but I think the set of people who (1) were convinced they couldn't vote for Hillary by Bernie personally and (2) could have been convinced to vote for Hillary by Bernie in the general election but for his prior attacks is not particularly close to zero.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I do think Bernie could have done a lot more to mobilize his supporters for Hillary. That was a lost opportunity that would have made a difference, whether or not he was responsible for turning them off in the first place. That part of the left needs to see that there can be long-term clout in supporting moderates in the short-term.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I get that. It's just not terribly persuasive. Bernie's refusal to concede for an extended period of time despite the math rendering his nomination impossible forced Hillary to fight him long after she should have turned toward the general.

Bernie held on long, and the more the DNC leaks came out, the more resonance his attacks acquired. The guy was holding one arm behind Hillary's back while Trump was using a very similar attack to pummel the shit out of her. Recall how often Trump invoked Bernie later in the race? Every GOP operative I knew was rooting for Bernie. He was clearly articulating a lot of Trump's populist arguments which Trump, ever incoherent, would often mangle into terrible word salads. Bernie was in many regards Trump's proxy candidate.

He did. It may surprise you to know I've many liberal friends. The older ones like us stuck with Hillary (lesser of two evils). The younger ones were disgusted by a DNC they saw as hobbling their guy, while delivering the nomination to someone they saw as a moderate Republican corporate candidate.

The kids loved Bernie. And the more he fought in what increasingly appeared a very rigged game, the angrier they became. That wasn't something that happened from the start of the campaign, after Bernie's initial pitch. That took time. It was a long process of seeing Bernie stand up to the "establishment" while also watching a drip, drip, drip of leaks about how that establishment was working against the old man.

I disagree. I saw a process taking place. Bernie was relentless. A lot of people were still ready to vote for her because, well... Trump. Bernie enthused so many people, and looked such a martyr in the end, that many chose to stay home, or vote for the third party, or Trump.

As the DNC leaks came out and Bernie kept fighting, I even heard liberal friends say they detested Hillary more than Trump. The logic was, "He's a lying idiot. But that's what he is. And he isn't cheating. He's going up against the GOP, which is trying to tear him down. Hillary is part of a corrupt game in which Bernie isn't being given a fair chance."

Re: Bernie 2020
 

If there were a single Bernie supporter on this board, I would find the explanations about how effective he was more convincing.

Your younger friends are morons.

OK, whatever.

Sure, that makes sense. Or not. I would just point out that the story about how Bernie hurt Hillary keeps changing. By the account of Sebby and his friends, it's the martyrdom of St Bernie and the colossal unfairness of the establishment DNC backing an establishment candidate over someone who isn't a Democrat. Somehow Democrats who were really Democratic got upset that they couldn't vote for a non-Democrat over the Democrat in the Democratic primary, and so they decided not to vote for a Democrat against another non-Democrat. But the Wall St stuff that was so essential to why I was wrong yesterday is not part of the story.

Yes, I have no doubt that people thought and said this. I just see it as the sort of reaction Hillary Clinton has been inspiring among many people for many years, rather than something that Bernie wrought. YMMV.

St Bernie in happier days, before the dogs licked him to death:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...d5e900ae5d.jpg

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Counter-hypothesis: Hillary's campaign totally failed to propose an agenda that excited anyone, and relied on people being horrified by Trump. Faced with choices that did not excite them, many people decided not to vote, and she lost. Bernie's continuing appeal to his supporters reflected Hillary's failure to give them a reason to support her, not anything he said.

If you think that Hillary's problem was a stab in the back from Bernie, then the lesson is that Trump is the fault of the left, and what we need is continued civil war among Democrats. If you think that Hillary's problem was a lack of an agenda that made people want to vote, then what we need is proposals that will make a difference in people's lives, and a focus on getting people to vote.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Good column on North Korea.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Dude. We're the establishment. We're not really Greedy Associates anymore. And they were already filthy globalist would-be establishmentarians.

The moron vote is critical to elections everywhere.

sure.

You do realize that the word "establishment", "Wall Street" and "DNC" are all synonyms in the Bernie thesaurus, don't you? Same story.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yeah, that was a regular Bernie theme. I'd respond to my Berner relatives, "But I'm excited, I love her." And they'd all look at me and say, Establishment flunky, you don't count. We only care if Bernie supporters are excited by her.

There is only one way to get to the "not excite anyone" message from what I can see, and that is to scrupulously avoid listening to an awful lot of women and not a few minorities. It's the old "she needs to excite white guys..." schtick that so united Bernie.... and Trump.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Speak for yourself, law firm dude. I'm over here disrupting shit.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

These people put down the meth pipe because nobody likes an irrational indignant tweaker.

Lee Dorsey for the Daily Dose. "Yes We Can."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4AWOmz53R4

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You either convince people who voted for the other guy to change their mind, or you excite your own voters and get them to turn out more. (Or, for Republicans, you keep the other side from voting.) My gut is the second is the way to go.

eta: Not how it's done:

http://media.salon.com/2017/07/dddc-...r2-620x412.jpg

This I find quite persuasive
 

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Disrupting is valley talk for mansplaining, right?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

How long before Trump Sr. pardons Trump Jr.?