The other night’s debate was difficult to listen to if you’re a Bernie supporter, at least for me. This was because it was frustrating listening to Hillary’s statements that were those of a perhaps too-well-honed-lawyer. Things were technically true but just too close to being misleading. But that’s a part of politics. I wasn’t happy, but too bad.
What has been a lot more disturbing is the deteriorating tone out there on Facebook. Instead of predictably complaining about the raw tone toward Bernie. I’d rather point out as a Bernie supporter that the attacks on Hillary personally are becoming dangerously over the top.
The real problem is this: it is one thing to say that Hillary has often been slow to embrace forwardly progressive positions on issues from gay marriage and a $15 minimum wage to tougher labor standards on trade, electoral finance reform or fracking.
It is quite another to pretend Hillary’s caution is the same thing as corruption.
There is virtually no evidence that Hillary Clinton is personally corrupt. This a serious charge, and this not what Bernie is saying. Bernie is saying it is common sense that donors want something for their money. That is a reasonable conclusion to make, and I agree with it. But that does not mean that Hillary is corrupt, any more than it means that Barack Obama is corrupt, or Elizabeth Warren is corrupt because she accepts donations from wealthy individuals as well as those of modest income.
I hope we who support Bernie can follow his lead in making this critical distinction. Hillary Clinton has her limitations like any human being, but she is not corrupt, and has been transparent about her financial dealings. This is no small matter.
Should she have accepted large speaking fees from corporations like Goldman Sachs? I say no. But I also can acknowledge that she could grow on this issue as she grown through the years on so many others – in part by listening to people very close to her like Barney Frank and many labor leaders.
Continuing to create a Hillary caricature when Bernie criticizes certain of Hillary’s past decisions helps no one except Trump and Cruz.
A passage from Audacity of Hope is interesting on this issue.
I agree generally with your post, but think there is a spectrum of corruption re: money in politics. The total system is corrupt, and it’s more than just Citizens United. Obama seems to nail it. Maybe not corrupt, but corrupted?
…that you mention it was frustrating to watch the debate as a Sanders supporter. I felt the same way as a Clinton supporter. I thought he was aggressive and she a bit timid. Also, the audience scared me politically with their reactions. My thoughts throughout the debate were holy moly this crowd is awfully anti-Hillary in her own state!
“What has been a lot more disturbing is the deteriorating tone out there on Facebook.”
It’s political discussion on a social media platform. When was it ever good? People will vent and accuse, and get over it by November. cf Obama/Clinton and Kerry/Dean. I don’t understand this recent outbreak of pearl-clutching about Sanders people saying bad things about Clinton. It’s been mutual and ugly for a while…
I saw Hillary supporters on Twitter pushing a meme that Sanders was soft on pedophiles. The dislike, vitriol, and hysteria has been mutual for months now. I can’t tell you how many Hillary supporters I’ve had to unfollow on Twitter.
Your post is a good reminder that there are rational supporters of Bernie Sanders and that good people can disagree. As a Hillary supporter, my partisanship my undermine my point of view, but I’m very concerned about how many other Bernie supporters are thinking and talking.
Part of being progressive is being reality-based. We are open to information and a complex view of the world. There is, quite frankly, a frightening amount of unhinged commentary and fallacious thinking of some people’s thinking.
The most obvious thought failure is a Manichaean, black and white thinking. Bernie is good, everyone else is wrong or evil. Anyone who sides with Clinton–regardless of the progressive accomplishments or credentials–is a shill. The implication is that only Bernie is right or the right choice. I’ll call out JohnTMay on this.
For fallacy, we have guilt-by-association. Hillary took money for speeches on Wall Street. Because she took money from them, she must be a shill for them. I’m not trying to debate the complexities of this, rather I’m just trying to point out that
Valid arguments can be made about not taking speaking fees for speaking to Wall Street, but too often, they aren’t
Most concerning are the apparent conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton stealing votes. I first heard this listening to a call-in-show on WAMC, the upstate New York public radio powerhouse. The accusation came from a woman talking about Bill Clinton visiting the polls in a Massachusetts apparently to suppress the vote. Then someone in The Nation wrote about his mom subscribing to a conspiracy theory about Clinton stealing votes. Given 25 years of GOP conspiracy mongering, I suppose cross-pollination was bound to happen, but progressives should not be borrowing the other side’s bad habits.
…as a personal affront. Now I understand he is officially complaining that HRC and the DNC are illegally colluding on fundraising, a charge the Clinton camp vociferously denies. I think Clinton is doing exactly what Sanders SHOULD be doing if he wants to be the nominee, but it’s feeling more and more like Sanders can’t break his old Vermont habits as running almost as hard against the Democratic Party as he does the GOP.
He should raise $353,400 from Alice Walton?
…but I do believe in playing by the rules we have rather than rules we wish we had.
not a Democrat: he only joined the party in 2015 to run for president. I think he is being very true to his politics. But I don’t think it is the best approach to gain the nomination.
There was once a time when the party welcomed Democratic socialists, especially when our greatest President adopted the 1932 Socialist party platform in his first 100 days to save the country. Bernie’s run is showing us that this is a tent big enough for a large group of Americans committed to these ideas, your insults would prove that his initial instincts were right and it’s wrong to associate with a party that won’t have someone like him as
a member. FDR welcomed Wall Steet’s hatred, not its campaign contributions. Bernie is following in those footsteps.
Sanders himself has identified as a Democratic Socialist and said we need a political revolution. Nothing Bob said was inaccurate.
By implying that those two factors are disqualifying for his nomination. Quit being elitists and let the voters decide. They will likely side in your candidates favor at the end of the process, so I really don’t see what all the fuss is about tone and having to unify, etc. Let’s have a primary and pick the people we like best, it’s not rocket science. The condescending attacks from Frank, Krugman and the likes of JohnK bely how small-c conservative the Democratic mindset is. Immune to change and immune to movement. Willie Horton and George McGovern are dead, let’s elect the nominee we like.
That struck me as pretty dispassionate analysis. I’ve seen very little condescension and plenty of us really do like Hillary better.
There is nothing in that comment that suggests that Sanders is not “qualified”. It seems to me that he is suggesting that Sander’s crapping all over the party establishment might not a good way to win the nomination of that party. There are plenty of regular Democratic voters who really like Clinton or other Democratic politicians who Sanders appears to consider “corrupt”. His rhetoric not only is likely to turn the away “evil” superdelegates he needs to win the nomination, but it turns away those voters who don’t believe that the politicians they have voted for in the past are corrupt or no different from Republicans.
Even if Sanders is 100% correct in his characterization, this does not seem like a good way to win as a Democrat, and that is the point.
Even the Hillary supporters here want little Debbie gone. The Democrats are at a historic low in terms of statehouses controlled, Congressional seats, the Senate and governorships all because timid corporate Democrats have repeatedly ran away form this President and the progressive movement in the name of moderation and compromise.
The best result we ever had in a midterm was when we ran against Republicans with a 50 state strategy in 2006. Nobody bitched about under 30 turnout then since we won decisively. It’s a myth that it’s the voters fault we can win midterms, it’s the fault of the party establishment for running weak kneed cowardly lions for high office and watching them lose to decisive hard core conservatives who at least have the courage of their deranged convictions.
Nothing Sanders has said about the Democratic Party or its flaws is inaccurate and it’s the kind of griping all of us have routinely engaged in here.
While I think that Bernie goes a bit overboard in his criticism of the Democratic part establishment, I don’t entirely disagree with it. I do think it is ridiculous to claim that the party has become the same as the Republican Party, and this is something you will hear from time to time from Sanders supporters (and in the past from Sanders himself).
However, regardless of whether or not his criticism is correct, the reality is that by choosing to join (or at least pretend to join) the Democratic party while at the same time attacking it, he makes it that much harder for himself to win the nomination. That’s the point. It doesn’t matter if Sanders is right if the way he chooses to push his message turns off many of the voters he needs to win.
and your FDR comment is interesting, since it should be remembered that the Socialists ran against FDR in his re-election campaigns, since they thought he was a sell-out and that the early New Deal tracked the interests of corporate elites. Many unions were unhappy with him as well for not fully embracing union tactics in the mid- to late-’30s (like the sit-down strikes).
On that score, the candidate who seems the most like FDR in this race is Clinton, since she seems to be getting attacked with equal fervor by both the Left and the Right.
There is a 1936 book which I have
…he didn’t have much in common with this Bourbon!:)
The term was coined to refer to the Democrats like Grover Cleveland who gained national office in a Republican dominated era by supporting civil service reforms, anti-corruption, free trade, low tariffs, and strict constructionist constitutionalism.
Which made them oppose such inventions as corporate personhood while also defending abominations like Plessy v Ferguson and the Pullman strike injunction. The Bourbon origin refers to either the French dynasty since they apparently controlled the party like that dynasty controlled France or because the southern tinge made them bourbon drinkers. John C. Davis was the last nominee from this faction which died out probably with the death of Sam Earvin of Watergate fame.
Called “Let’s NOT re-elect the President” written by a his former aide who defected since FDR ran on balanced budgets and to Hoovers fiscal right and then the side criticized him for implementing 9 out of 10 points of the Norman Thomas agenda.
And sure plenty ran to his left from Thomas again to open communists to Huey Long on economics (who ran to his right on social issues). As crazy as this time seems to be the 30s were really the last time truly radical parties won large percentages of the vote. Actual communists were elected to the House and socialists ran Milwaukee and other major cities.
I am also saying that every Democratic president since LBJ has run far to his right on economic questions in comparison. Full employment, basic income, single payer used to be basic Democratic principles. Nixoncare was far more
intrusive and socialized than Obamacare. Nixon even embraced basic income, it was killed by the Democratic Congress because his plan only covered housewives with a childcare and housing allowance rather than being fully comprehensive and universal.
Hillary would be the first to call Nixons proposals “unworkable” today. Bernie is to the right of Eisenhower on corporate taxes and personal income taxes and Hillary is still calling him a pie in the sky tax and spender.
The point of the Sanders campaign which Clinton supporters and too many Sanders supporters themselves routinely forget is that we are recovering true blue liberalism in the mainstream. He embraces the socialist label instead of considering it a dirty word. My friends parents who keep the Red Bookstore in business still consider him a Menshevik sell out, but the rest of America is embracing someone they would’ve pilloried 12 years ago.
This is probably one of the least offensive comments on Sanders out there. I think you have lost all objectivity on this.
Bernie HAS indeed called for a “political revolution” and in fact it has become a mantra of many of his most passionate supporters. And he has made it VERY clear that he is indeed a “Democratic Socialist”. It is also very clear that Sanders has been extremely critical of the Democratic party and its current fund raising practices. So I am not sure what is controversial or insulting about that comment.
Bob has consistently underestimated and downplayed the significance of this campaign. All I am saying to Hillary supporters is be magnanimous in victory and not hubristic or dismissive as many of them are. I have been crystal clear in my view that Sanders has no foreign policy experience or interest whatsoever which is disqualifying as a potential commander in chief. I’ve been clear that on the policy issues I tend to favor Clinton and her approach. I’ve been quite clear to Bernie supporters that they are delusional that he is going to win or that he is more electable.
So I’ve been calling out bullshit on either side. Bernie isn’t running for President, he is running to make socialism in our party as mainstream as the Pauls made libertarianism on the right and has far exceeded their successes in that regard. Mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned and winning is secondary to making that message mainstream.
We can support Hillary without tarring and feathering her opponent as outside of the mainstream of the Democratic Party or arguing he has been disloyal or opportunistic in joining the party.
Many folks called on him to run as a third party candidate before the primary and during he primary and he has rejected that call and pledged to support the Democratic nominee. So let’s stop bashing him as a Johnny come lately to the party. Where he has attacked it in the past it’s been on solid grounds since the party has become too corporate, too centrist, and too elitist at the expense of representing the working people it was founded to support.
but you really need to stop trying to justify your overreaction.
“he is running to make socialism in our party as mainstream…”
Aaaarggh! Are people in the United States unable to comprehend binomial terms in politics? It’s a wonder they don’t think the Patriots play for England. Bernie is a democratic socialist, a school of thought he is trying to inject into the Democratic Party. He is not a socialist — almost nobody outside of a university is anymore. The Communists aren’t even socialist. Calling him a socialist is like calling North Korea a Republic…just because the word is in the title doesn’t mean you get to ignore the other ones.
Or social democracy. He’s also referred to himself as a democratic socialist.
And democratic socialism is about as similar to socialism as a family tree is to a plant.
Not red baiting. I was only reiterating what Sanders himself has said many times as a way of explaining to Christopher why, in MHO, it is not so surprising that Sanders has been “running almost as hard against the Democratic Party as he does the GOP.”
But I also got the impression, and I am nitpicking a bit here, that you were repeating the talking points that he isn’t a real Democrat or that he only recently decided to get involved with party politics to run for President. Thank God he did! Can you imagine how many votes he’d draw if he ran outside the party?
Secondly social democracy has been a mainstream element of the Democratic Party for years. Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King, Michael Harrington, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger and if we consider his Full Employment bills Hubert Humphrey. Even George Meaney called himself a social Democrat. The ADA was explicitly a social democratic counterweight to conservative Democrats on the right and more Moscow friendly fringe groups like the 1940s Progressive Party on the far left. Nothing Bernie Sanders said would sound fringe to someone like Harry Truman. Bernie is recovering a tradition long lost in the party and is arguably the small c conservative candidate for doing so. Clintonian neoliberalism is the modern outlier, even if it’s currently the ancien regime.
Just ask Jerry Brown’s dad, Robert LaFolette or another progressive Republican by the name of Abraham Lincoln. Bernie is expanding the field of play instead of playing by the Republicans rule book of what’s acceptably “mainstream” in American politics. It’s a playbook the Clintons have been enormously successful playing, and I credit them for the 90s. But it’s outdated. Bernie’s campaign is a back to the future exercise in expanding the politics of the possible to include what was previously taboo or impossible. He is not unlike Goldwater or Reagan in that regard.
…is that would make a lot more sense if he were running for Governor somewhere. Educational infrastructure is largely the creation of states. A gubernatorial candidate can say if we can make K-12 free, why not the next four years. Uncle Sam IS, however, in the student loan business which is why I think it makes more sense for HRC as a presidential candidate to talk about DEBT-free college.
The states are a major holes in either of his plans since Republican governors would refuse the free money like they did with Obamacare. They are the largest barrier to public college in places like Wisconsin.
A presidential can and should say the same.
The rejection of the idea of free public college by progressives is so frustrating. It’s also perfectly reflective of one of my biggest issues with Clinton. On issue after issue Clinton rejects (yes, rejects) the more progressive goal and pushes a compromise instead. The compromise should be just that, the compromise, not what we shoot for. Making college debt-free is something we should do and may be able to do more quickly, but it is not something that “makes more sense.”
On the college issue, I think Matt Yglesias nails it.
The fight for the $15 minimum wage is exactly the same. The right amount for much of the country is likely $12, with $15 in cities and the coasts. The fight for $15 is the way to get to $12 nationally. A fight for $12, would get us to $9.50.
And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the Democratic Party is not a vehicle ready to host it. People are sick and tired of government by organized money. Hillary could solve this controversy by returning the speaking fees and all the Wall Street contributions.
Bernie has shown they are not necessary to field a competitive presidential campaign. Democrats should stop taking them at once. The only way to defeat the system is to stop employing it’s mechanisms to gain power. It means we are held captive by them when we try to govern.
I was really hoping not to hear about those stupid speaking fees from you:(
They hurt her with independents and they were a self inflicted wound. Returning the money and apologizing is pretty straightforward way to address them. Bernie is making an attack now Republicans will be making in earnest in the fall. They are minor to me since the nuanced explanation makes sense to me, they don’t with average voters who view it as a conflict of interest.
…most of the fees went to charity anyway.
It is reaching the point where (i) the campaign is essentially over; (ii) Sanders supporters are a little desperate; and (iii) Clinton supporters are fed up with it because there is an election in November.
But, even at the facebook level, this campaign is NOWHERE near as nasty as the 2008 primary. We have never reached the level of “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
This time around, the candidates have been relatively cordial, whereas in 2008 they were not at all cordial.
Candidates’ supporters are a mob, and mobs are never reasonable, rational, or cordial.
This hasn’t been nearly as nasty as that fight and Bob is wrong to argue Sanders and Clinton have been meaner to one another than the Obama and Clinton fight. And they got over it and the loser came on board as a great surrogate and future cabinet member. I see the same thing happening in this cycle. Clinton should have the sit down with Bernie and endorse some of his priorities in exchange for his endorsement. 15/hr minimum wage is an easy win, so is fighting for a public option.
Obama was the movement candidate and he won. His movement is different than the movement Sanders is trying to build, which is very anti-establishment. Losing out to the establishment candidate makes it a lot messier to bring the movement diehards over to support the winner, especially because the movement is so much about the message and not the messenger. Not fully supporting the nominee may be dumb and naive, but I think there will be a lot more reluctance this time compared to 2008 when it was only the small group of PUMA-type people who were reluctant.
I know you and I agree on this, but the dumbest possible move is for Clinton and her supporters to attack those people as naive and stupid.
So much of the unification will be on the Clinton campaign and their supporters, and right now I’m really pessimistic about the prospects. I suspect that the whole theme of unification will be “we can’t let Trump or Cruz win” and that is a loser argument. Some of Sanders recent attacks have been cringeworthy, but so have some of Clinton’s attacks, which only reinforce bad feelings from people she will need in November. Engaging in those attacks while well ahead seems even more unnecessary than Sanders’s later game desperation volleys.
Today will be a big point in this race. If Clinton wins handily (+10 points) as is expected, the race is over barring a bizarre catastrophe. Negativity from the Clinton campaign, even in response to attacks, would be so foolish going forward. (And if Sanders somehow wins, everybody freak out because that’s a straight up unmitigated disaster for the Clinton campaign.)
…when the shoe was on the other foot. My biggest concern is in fact Sanders supporters becoming PUMA’S, and yes, quite frankly Trump or Cruz should be enough to scare them into holding their noses and voting for Hillary.
My perception, as I wrote, is that Sanders has been harsher in his attacks than Obama was, but I can be convinced otherwise. I certainly don’t dismiss Sanders. I said many times, and repeat here for the record, that I think his campaign is an excellent thing on the merits, for the Democratic Party, and even for Clinton’s campaign. That doesn’t mean he can’t be criticized. (“I’ve been quite clear to Bernie supporters that they are delusional that he is going to win or that he is more electable. … Bernie isn’t running for President …” as you wrote above might be considered dismissive too, on a superficial read). It will be interesting to see how New York votes today: elections are never over until they are over.
right now.
Factoid: after Obama secured the nomination, 40% of Clinton supporters said they wouldn’t vote for him. In the end, 90% of Democrats voted for him. Right now, 25% of Sanders voters say they won’t vote for Clinton.
In the end, an election is a choice, not an endorsement: Clinton vs. Trump or Cruz. It’s very hard to get people to think about the future when they’re in the middle of now. The choice changes once Sanders is done. Bernie fades into the background, and the choice between Hillary and Trump or Cruz dominates perception. Sane Bernie supporters don’t risk one of those guys becoming president because they lost. They will start to change their tune over the summer as Bernie uses his electoral influence to to negotiate party changes and the convention becomes a unifying event.
So I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Bernie has been great for the party and his supporters will revive the progressive movement downballot as they run for office themselves and begin campaigning for other candidates. He will force her to embrace things like a 15/hr minimum wage, social security expansion and fair trade that are broadly popular anyway and will help her win the election. He will then be her best surrogate on the stump alongside our senior senator and they will both help her have a senate majority that moves her agenda. Why are we all panicked about this primary again? It’s the best thing that could happen, a coronation was always the worst thing.
you’re bound to try to stomp on theirs. It’s human nature. It takes a lot of energy to do otherwise.
Terry is right: Bernie supporters need to lay off. Hillary supporters should too. It gets very hard to lay off, however, when your opponents keep irritating you. We’ll all need to do some healing, and inflicting more wounds just makes the healing take longer.
The distinction is that this time the candidates are being relatively civil, whereas in 2008 they were not. Obama’s “likable enough” line; Clinton savaged him over the “clinging to guns and religion” bit. Remember the bit about Clinton delegates from Florida and Michigan not counting because of the date those states did their primary? And that was a contest that was close, whereas this one really isn’t.
It was worse in May, and supporter took their cues from the candidates.
It is not the same this time. While the candidates have been cordial, the supporters have not been cordial in any way.
I think in general the Democrats have been pretty cordial. Sure, this is politics, and it’s important, so people care, but in general it has been a reasoned discussion. I do think that after his series of recent wins Sanders, and-or his campaign team, convinced himself he could win, and turned more negative. In particular, the “not qualified” business which, whether intentional or mistaken went over like a lead balloon. I think that was unwise, not because it will permanently damage the party — I agree with the above analysis about coming together etc. — but because it will make is less likely that he will get primary voters to support him. I could be wrong. That’s why today’s results in NY will be so interesting. Anyway, this discussion here is pretty cordial, all things considered. At least jconway agreed I’m probably not a red baiter 🙂
little softness in your record, sir.
have a sense of deceny