Bernie should have been the nominee

[Petralicious]

So Trump hires horrible Bannon. And if DNC hires Ellison, an admirer of Farrakhan and CAIR it is open season on Jewish People

[YouWantitWhen????]

For those thinking Bernie could have won, please take a gander at some of the opposition research that GOP had on him.  http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

 

[YouWantitWhen????]

From the Newsweek piece: 

"So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance."

[javero]

Thank you, YouWantitWhen!!!

Hillary could NOT exploit any of those attack vectors because the strategy would have alienated a huge chunk of the base later whenever she became the party nominee.  But, Trump's team would have made hay while the sun shined.

[kdogg36]

South Florida said: "kdogg36 you seem like a nice guy but this, "Many people on this thread are behaving terribly, and owe the OP an apology.", is laughable."

First, thank you for the kind words. :) I still maintain, as a fairly neutral observer in terms of the actual argument, that the OP is far more sinned against than sinning here. That's based on the tone and content of the responses to him. He probably should have shown better discretion in his timing, but certainly no one should be responding with physical threats, even hyperbolic ones.

But that's the internet, so oh well. :)

 

[South Florida]

"He probably should have shown better discretion in his timing, but certainly no one should be responding with physical threats, even hyperbolic ones."

True, only meant it as hyperbole.

[qolbinau]

YouWantitWhen???? said: "From the Newsweek piece: 

"So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance."

 

"

Thanks for sharing this. I wasn't aware of some of those skeletons, and agree if exploited it makes the idea that Sanders would definitely have won less certain. 

[Jay Lerner-Z]

It was never remotely "certain" to begin with.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

I very much like this article by Rebecca Solnit from The Guardian.

 

"Or, as my brilliant friend Aruna d’Souza put it Wednesday: “At some point soon we need to discuss whether Sanders would have been able to win, but helpful hint: today, it just sounds like you’re saying: ‘The Democrats should have cut into Trump’s lead in the misogynist vote and the whitelash vote by running a white man.’ Let’s come to terms with the racism and the misogyny first, before analyzing the what-ifs – because otherwise we’re just going to replicate it forever. And if you think that the angry anti-establishment vote won (hence Sanders would have fared better), let me remind you that patriarchy and white supremacy are the cornerstones of the Establishment.”

 

[Call_me_jorge]

I don't agree to this sentiment. Hillary and Bernie are fighting for the exact same causes. Hillary just seemed more worthy of the nomination to me.

[Scarywarhol]

I voted for Bernie in the primary and did everything I possibly could to get friends to turn our for Hillary in the election. (I did not know a single vocal Hillary supporter within five years of me during the primary. Not a one. But we "millennials" have many more registered independents, which I think will change.) 

 

It was tacky and unhelpful for a lot of my friends to immediately post "Bernie would have won!" when so many people were legitimately grieving so much more than an election. We have the worst possible outcome. As Bernie said when Wolf Blitzer asked him to speculate, "What good would it do now?"

 

But try to understand how it sounds on the other side to shame Sanders supporters who are upset because they warned of exactly what would happen for what turned out to be extremely prescient reasons, and were often met with condescension and hubris from older party-loyalist Democrats. Shaming these people for believing in something was hardly endearing when he was a candidate, and it isn't now.

[Kinky Boy]

I think you have to play a game of give and take. Bernie would have done better with millennials, but probably wouldn't have done as well with college educated white women. She obviously didn't do as well with African Americans as Obama did, and I think Sanders would have gotten even less of them than Clinton. 

[Collision9]

All the people talk about civil duties and usually, they violate their own statements but the punishments for such actions is very strict http://skywritingservice.com/blog/essay-on-civil-disobedience

[henrikegerman]

"Or, as my brilliant friend Aruna d’Souza put it Wednesday: “At some point soon we need to discuss whether Sanders would have been able to win, but helpful hint: today, it just sounds like you’re saying: ‘The Democrats should have cut into Trump’s lead in the misogynist vote and the whitelash vote by running a white man.’ "

No. People are simply saying they think Sanders was a stronger and more popular candidate, and that this was a "change election" with a strong economic populist surge in the country and Hillary Clinton was not the best messenger for the moment.

And, newsflash, Hillary Clinton is white.

Ironic that while some dismiss the idea that Sanders was as stronger candidate by saying he wouldn't have stood a chance because he's Jewish while others dismiss the same idea by calling it an acquiescence to a whitelash.

As to Sanders not being able to win with Trump voters because he was Jewish, that idea ignores the reality that it isn't just Trump voters who turned the election, it is many other voters who didn't vote for Trump but who also didn't come out for Clinton.   And it also neglects that there are - what is the number, I've heard 800 or more - an overwhelming and pivotal number of districts that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 that went for Trump in 2016 - and that includes the entire three states that everyone points to winning the electoral vote for Trump - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But returning to OP's point, I still reject it!

While I preferred Sanders to Clinton (because I agreed with him more, trust him more, and also thought he would be the stronger general election candidate), that in no way means that we can be at all certain that he would have prevailed against Trump.

This hindsight is 20/20 fingerwaiving has got to stop.  It's not convincing.  And it's not good - either for the country, the party, or the world. 

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts


 

[Sunshine!]

I think this is an old thread that got bumped, but I guess we'll never know. 

[kdogg36]

With some hindsight, I agree with the OP (qolbinau). I don't think Sanders would have won, but he would have kept a host of crucial issues in the spotlight, things that need to be discussed but were basically ignored in the general election. Clinton was simply another voice for the status quo - which made her a much better choice than Trump, to be sure.

[South Florida]

This thread is a counterproductive annoyance.