| HylianSwordsman said: For starters, that Clinton-Sanders percentage is a lie, and you ought to know that if you paid attention. Many of his biggest victories were in caucus states that didn't have primaries, thus aren't counted in the vote total. Then when you consider that the media painted Hillary as a progressive when she decidedly wasn't, certainly not in spirit, and with countless supposedly progressive voices like Warren not supporting Bernie or in some cases even supporting Hillary (usually these were older feminists, but also several unions), and the news blackout surrounding his campaign, keeping him unknown, and the fact that all of this was due to interference by the DNC, I'd say that even after factoring in caucuses into what their votes would be in primaries (impossible to know, but lets say we could) that you'd still be underestimating Bernie's vote. That primary was about as legitimate with the DNC favoring their candidate so heavily as the general was with Russia interfering on behalf of theirs. That said, we may have been outnumbered, my point is just that a lot of people hadn't really thought about progressive ideas before, and with the DNC and the media working to suppress Bernie, we weren't able to have a proper debate. There's been a bit of an awakening in this country since, as more people have asked themselves, "really though, why are we the only major developed country without universal healthcare, especially since we're the richest nation in history?", and asked themselves the same thing about other progressive ideas like why other countries have free college and we don't, other countries have maternity leave and we don't, the list goes on and on. Pew research and Gallup both have several polls noting a steady march upward in identification as "liberal" because more and more people are realizing the possibilities, and that the right is intellectually dead with no ideas to offer to solve any of our problems. I've read the 538 article you referenced, and even he concedes that the party wins 89% of the time partially because they back the person who is already likely the strongest, and that several of their candidates have progressive endorsements as well. Establishment and progressive are not mutually exclusive. The whole point of a "political revolution" is to change the establishment into a progressive one. It looks like we're having success in that endeavor, and give us a decade, and I think the transformation will be complete. You also have to keep in mind that we're being more practical and strategic about this, running and winning with progressives everywhere we can, but accepting moderates where that's the only option left. The Republican Party is an antidemocratic institution and our democracy will not be safe until it dies. As such, a big tent is necessary if we want to have the democratic infrastructure in place to elect a progressive government in the future. Bernie understands this, why do you think he endorsed Hillary? He saw the possibilities long before his base did. I really don't see a future where America is a democracy and the Republican party still exists. Most of them are complicit in obstructing justice, leaving our electoral infrastructure vulnerable to Russian attack because they know Russia will help them win again, and in general doing everything they can to rig the democratic process so that they can't lose, rather than winning in an actually democratic way. Things are going to go down one of two basic ways. First, if the Republicans win, they'll rig everything so they can never lose again, Putin style, and we'll have a dictatorship. If they don't win, but don't collapse, they'll eventually win again and you still have the first scenario. The other way things go down is the Republicans not only lose, but straight up collapse. The party becomes irrelevant electorally for a few cycles while non-extremists either go to the Democrats or wander the political wilderness for a while. Eventually it disappears entirely, while either a new party pops up to replace it made of moderate Dems join former Never Trumpers, or the Democratic party splits and the Never Trumpers join the moderate wing. There's no time to build 3rd parties, no time to restructure the two party system to be more than two parties, and virtually no chance of a Macron style popup party coming from nowhere to win. It's Dems or dictatorship now. That means that for now, and probably for the next decade or so while the demographics line up, a marriage of convenience with moderates is necessary, however gross that might feel. That said, if you feel comfortable with Gillibrand, then Dem unity is going better than I thought. I don't trust her farther than I can throw her. Her reformation is fake. She's about as progressive as Hillary, and is just putting on an act because she thinks her best bet is to have a record that is more anti-Trump than anyone. Her anti-Trump fervor is sincere, but her voting is not. I'd vote her over Trump though. Based on polls, Bernie has the best chance vs Biden. No one else comes close in polls that I've seen, and both of them are also the most competitive vs Trump in general election matchups. I think Biden v Bernie is progressives best chance, he's the consensus progressive choice. Warren burnt a lot of people by not endorsing Bernie in '16, and Kamala Harris is viewed similarly to Gillibrand by some as a fake progressive, they'd not be the best to unite progressives against Biden. Bernie's biggest sin is being blamed for Hillary's loss because he dared criticize her in the primaries. That and his age, but that doesn't hurt him versus Biden or Trump. But regardless who the consensus choice is, it's not like there's a separate progressive primary to build that consensus, and as such, the vote will be split by people who will vote Booker or Gillibrand instead of voting strategically. If Biden wins, it's as much progressives fault for not uniting around one candidate as it is moderates fault for picking one ahead of time. Of course, there's the possibility that a slew of moderates run too and chip away Biden's support, but even if they do, Biden has establishment support to get the endorsements needed to concentrate the moderate vote. There's a lot of variables, but I still think that while the odds are in Biden's favor, nothing is set in stone yet. No matter how it goes down though, don't disengage out of frustration. Democracy depends on it. |
On your first paragraph, I tend to think that arguments about the structure of the voting process are kind of silly. The fact that most of the states Sanders won were caucus states isn't really much of a case for his comparative popularity, considering that caucuses are designed to minimize voter turnout to include only the most dedicated activists. It shows that the Sanders campaign generated more passionate supporters, but not that it was actually more popular overall. Let's say that those same states had a different, more legitimately democratic system in place, like say either an open or closed primary instead where people could actually vote in private rather than in public and not have to listen to hours of speeches before getting the chance to. Those draw a lot more people for obvious reasons. Would Sanders still have carried those states by the same margins? Or even necessarily even at all in some cases? Not very likely. On the other hand, Sanders did tend to fare better in the MOST democratic kind of voting structure, open primaries, than in closed primaries also, though he did not tend to win those reliably or by comparable margins to what he usually won by in caucuses. Therefore, if we just maximized the democratic nature of the whole process and the party used only open primaries, the practical effect of there being no caucuses on the one hand and no closed primaries on the other would likely cancel each other out and we'd be left with a similar vote ratio to what actually happened. So you see what I'm saying? It's a silly argument to make that voting structures are responsible for Sanders' defeat.
However, I do agree with you that it's possible that more debates would have improved Bernie's level of support! Possible. However, the fact is that there were polls of viewers taken at the end of each of the debates that did happen and they all showed that Clinton was perceived as the "winner" of each one of them, and by a margin that increased over time, so...you know, I'm just as likely to conclude that maybe the Democratic Party's paranoia about too many debates hurting their preferred candidate was actually misplaced and more debates might have actually had the opposite effect: the effect of boosting Clinton more in the polls.
I don't mean to sound like a pessimist (though I am one 
), but I think we need to look at this realistically is all and be honest with ourselves.
As to the third paragraph, yeah I actually do agree with you that the Republican Party has become terrifyingly authoritarian of late, and could well, if they retain this level of monopoly on political power for too long, successfully reorganize the country in a way that mimics Russia, which seems to be an example they like a lot, with its presently very conservative politics, lily white population, Christian quasi-theocracy, oil-driven economy, lavish military spending, weak (and shrinking) level of public welfare investment, net emigration instead of immigration, younger people leaving in particular, general anti-intellectual, masculinist aura, etc. etc., all structurally guaranteed by single-party rule and official censorship of both public and press. I believe that many American conservatives, including our current president, look at that and see in contemporary Russia something of a going model deserving of emulation here. That definitely worries me. I recently finished reading former tea party leader Rick Wilson's new book, Everything Trump Touches Dies, and it left me wishing there were more Never Trump Republicans to balance that out in the GOP and hoping that his core argument is at least partially correct.
Looking over your last paragraph honestly leaves me with the conclusion that maybe you don't have a very positive opinion of women in general if you sit down and are completely honest with yourself since they all seem to be enemies in your mind regardless of what their politics are: Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, all liars and frauds and whatnot. Only men can be trusted. All politicians are fake to some degree, including Sanders, who is also, one may notice, not entirely the same person he was back the '80s when he was Mayor of Burlington, Vermont rather than a member of the U.S. Congress. On the one hand, what office one holds, or is attaining to, seems to generally change their politics. On the other, people also do honestly change their views over time. (I know my political views have changed on many issues over the course of my lifetime, including just in recent years.) Sometimes it can be hard to tell which is the more significant factor for any one individual. I like Bernie Sanders and would love to see him become president! But if everyone who is currently speculated to be plotting a presidential bid in fact runs, then he would be my second or third choice because he really only seems to sincerely care about economic issues. They are important! But they're not the ONLY thing on my mind either. If I can be so selfish, I would like for our next president to be not only an economic populist, but a progressive woman because we have never had a female president before in this country and I feel like Kirsten Gillibrand is someone who would raise issues that I care about that Bernie Sanders would be less likely to, as a man. I hope that doesn't come across as hateful or mean. It's just my preference, and I don't think you need to be worried about that because Gillibrand has so little name recognition outside her home state of New York anyway that she isn't even included in many of these early presidential polls for 2020 that we're seeing so far. She won't win the Democratic primary battle. Won't even come close. May not even make it to Iowa, IF she runs at all. But that doesn't stop me having that personal preference nonetheless. Again, I hope that doesn't come across as hateful or anything like that.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 19 August 2018
