Aside from the fact that it ain’t over until it’s over, Democrats are sitting in a pretty good position for the general election.
The Republican brand is at an all-time low. The presumptive Republican nominee is widely reviled by women and people of color. He’s looking at testifying in a law suit against his Trump University scam and a convention that promises to be a circus. Big money donors are sitting out the presidential election. Even Charles Koch is expressing doubts. Republican voters are so pissed, they are ready to punish down-ticket GOP candidates. (See more here and here). We still have a long way to go, but the headwinds are favorable.
The root of the Republican problem is that the base has caught up to the party establishment:
Their party has historically won elections by appealing to racial enmity and cultural anxiety, but its actual policy agenda is dedicated to serving the interests of the 1 percent, above all through tax cuts for the rich — which even Republican voters don’t support, while they truly loathe elite ideas like privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
As far as Democrats are concerned, our
party defines itself as the protector of the poor and the middle class, and especially of nonwhite voters. Does it fall short of fulfilling this mission much of the time? Are its leaders sometimes too close to big-money donors? Of course. Still, if you look at the record of the Obama years, you see real action on behalf of the party’s goals.
We’re in good position, but there are always wild cards, the most important being Bernie Sanders and the Sandernistas. Bernie has inspired a lot of voters, but they aren’t all typical Democratic voters. There are the conspiracy theorists and the revolutionaries, the biggest revolutionary being Sanders himself. I wrote previously, one of the biggest differences between Sanders’ side and Clinton’s side of the primary was a theory of change. Kevin Drum says much the same thing in Mother Jones:
if you want to make a difference in this country, you need to be prepared for a very long, very frustrating slog. You have to buy off interest groups, compromise your ideals, and settle for half loaves—all the things that Bernie disdains as part of the corrupt mainstream establishment. In place of this he promises his followers we can get everything we want via a revolution that’s never going to happen. And when that revolution inevitably fails, where do all his impressionable young followers go? Do they join up with the corrupt establishment and commit themselves to the slow boring of hard wood? Or do they give up?
If Sandernistas were to change democracy for the better, I’d happily eat my words. But I’m worried that they truly don’t understand American politics. All the talk of revolution sounds great, but we haven’t had a revolution since 1776. As Drum says in his article, we’ve never had a revolution since then.
Ed Kilgore writes in New York Magazine that a group of laid off Sanders campaign staff has started what amounts to its own party with the political initiative A Brand New Congress:
the closer you get to the Sandernistas’ Brand New Congress initiative — the new project by recently laid-off Bernie staffers to create a revolution in Congress beginning with the 2018 elections — the less it looks like the instrument for a difficult but achievable task and the more it looks like the product of a very strange set of beliefs about American politics. It’s not focused on boosting progressive turnout in general elections, but on recruiting and running candidates in Republican as well as Democratic primaries who meet a rigid set of policy litmus tests. The idea is very explicitly that people alive with the Bern can literally elect a “brand-new Congress” in one election cycle to turn public policy 180 degrees.
President Obama began his presidency believing he could work with Republicans. We know how that worked out. If that weren’t weird enough, A Brand New Congress also believes it can work with tea party activists.
Corbin Trent, another former Sanders staffer, said bringing Republicans on board is “the key to it being a successful idea” and there’s enough overlap between Sanders’ platform and tea party conservatives to make the PAC’s goals feasible.
Reality television star Donald Trump’s current status as the Republican front-runner demonstrates that GOP voters are eager for candidates who, like Trump, criticize the corrupting influence of money in politics and the impact of free trade deals on American workers, Trent said.
“This will allow Republicans to say ‘Yeah, I’m a Republican, but I believe climate change is real and I don’t believe all Muslims are terrorists,” he said. “It will allow people to think differently in the Republican Party if they want to pull away from the hate-based ideology.”
Bernie Sanders and the Sandernistas have an excellent opportunity to change the Democratic Party. They won’t affect a revolution, but they can exert the force necessary to reorient the party. Sanders can get concessions on party platform, convention speakers, and DNC operations. They can work for progressive Democrats already running for office. Maybe they’ll make enough money from this initiative to keep themselves employed, but in the end, we need them to work on the presidential election.
Bernie will continue to run and make appearances. That’s okay. But we need to start working on party unity. Half-baked political initiatives won’t help.
George Takeihas lived in an America where Americans were rounded up and thrown into Concentration Camps simply for being of Japanese descent during WWII.
Honestly, Mike, I would not bother to say anything if I did not respect you.
Once this fevered dream breaks it’s going to turn out that there were like 5 partisan assholes from each side stirring the pot and thousands of people re-tweeting and wringing their hands about them, leading to Very Serious columns and blog posts about it, leading to more of the same.
I am not going to be so obnoxious as to tell you what to do, but I am going to chill for now.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride to November but if anyone can handle it that person is Clinton.
And if she can’t it will be on her, not on a handful of Sanders supporters on the internet.
If you type in “Bernie or”, the first item that comes up is “Bernie of Bust”. If you know anything about how the Google algorithm works, you know it is not just me and George Takei that are freaking out and putting this as the top of the list, there are Sander supporters out there trying to create a scorched earth defense, that can only hurt our Party in the end.
As someone who has run for political office and now shares the Ward 16 committee with my former opponent, know what it is like to lose as a candidate, and I believe it is a genuine disservice to Senator Sanders for his supporters to act against Party Unity.
If there’s one thing that’s been clear this year is that a lot of people really don’t give a flying %*&$ about The Party.
Almost all Sanders supporters are going to vote for Clinton and many will work for and donate to her campaign. Keep in mind that many of his supporters, however, are completely bought in to a movement. Exhortations about “Party Unity” are going to fall on deaf ears. As are attempts to win them over by trying to scare them about a Trump presidency or telling them to “grow up.”
Calling them Sanderistas while asking them to come on board . . . also counterproductive.
Barney Frank caught a lot of flack for speaking candidly about those Sanders supporters who are so “completely bought in to a movement” that they don’t care about anything except their messiah-du-jour. For example, he correctly said that to have any impact AT ALL they have to win two elections.
Too many of these supporters are acting like unhappy children who stamp their feet and yell in frustration because Mommy and Daddy aren’t handing them what they demand when they demand it. That behavior IS juvenile, and telling them to “grow up” (or quietly ignoring the temper tantrum) is an appropriate response.
Here is the reality, like it or not. A “movement” has political power ONLY when it changes the outcome of elections in a way that it both chooses and controls (the Ralph Nader “movement” changed the outcome of the 2000 presidential election — that change was NOT in the direction the participants intended, however). If the supporters of Bernie Sanders aren’t willing to listen to exhortations about “Party Unity”, then they need to offer an effective alternative — and they haven’t done that yet. Finally, any self-identified progressive who cares about government and society who looks at a Trump presidency and is NOT scared isn’t bringing a full basket of sandwiches to the picnic.
Bernie Sanders joins Elizabeth Warren in articulating an agenda that is crucially important to our future. Democrats — officials and voters — have to be persuaded. Republicans — officials and voters — have to be persuaded. That requires intellectual discipline, reasoned and sharp rhetoric, and most of all rational alternatives to our current policies. Elizabeth Warren is a marvelously effective Senator because she exemplifies all this. Bernie Sanders, early in his campaign, was walking the same path.
I have been paying attention, both to the agenda and to the “movement”. I am enthusiastically signed up for the agenda. I view the subset of Sanders supporters that you describe as a distraction that threatens to do actual harm to the agenda, just as the “Naderites” did actual harm to all of us in 2000.
I agree with you that the term “Sanderistas” is not appropriate and I don’t use it. I also think that that time has come to get on board the train or be left at the station.
@Tom
The Nader comparison is totally baseless since Bernie decided to run in the Democratic primary as a Democrat and has consistently pledged to support the Democratic nominee. The unfair treatment he has gotten from Democratic stalwarts, the DNC, and folks like Krugman and Drum notwithstanding, he has been up front about his end game from the get go.
Move the party to the left and keep Hillary honest. He has succeeded wildlt beyond those simple goals. The Nader attack is illogical and unfounded. Its also nearly 20 years old and pretty desperate when anyone opposing neoliberalism invokes it. He’s running within the system, what more can you ask for? Should he have stayed up in Burlington and given her a free ride? I really don’t know what you Clinton supporters want, he has been the ideal primary opponent.
@ Mark
This new movement is focused on Congressional elections which is exactly where Clinton supporters particularly Barney Frank insist the action should go, and where Bernie supporters can be more effective. We need primary challengers in every party for more competitive elections, don’t see the harm there. As for working with Tea Partiers it’s how Milford Democrats beat the casinos and how my new party saved Boston from the Olympics. Frank himself worked with Tea Party Republicans to audit the Fed and declassify marijuana at the federal level. Isn’t that exactly what Barney says needs to be done?
In both criticisms you two moved the goalposts and disparaged these activists yet again, making me think your ideal primary was one where Bill just laid his crown on Hillary’s head and to quote the late Prince, we partied like it was 1999. The Democratic Party has to be a young party in order to survive, and the average age of your town committees, convention attendees, lobbyists and activists should be severe cause for concern. Rose agrees with me so I’m not an ageist here. Welcome them within the party and let them have a shot at changing congressional leadership, is this not what you’ve both been begging them to do for months?
I get that we apparently disagree about this. I respect your position, even though I don’t share it. Congratulations on your choice of Salem, BTW — it’s a great town with great potential.
I want to just clarify that my cite of “Naderists” is NOT directed towards the Sanders campaign, Mr. Sanders, or most of the Sanders supporters. I like the way he is now focusing the energy of his campaign.
My comment was specifically directed at those Sanders supporters cited by doubleman who are so bought in to the movement that they reject this new direction from Mr. Sanders. I hope and assume that those are a small portion of the overall movement that Mr. Sanders has created.
For that small subset alone, I stand by my comparison to the earlier Nader “movement”. Both assert, incorrectly, that there is “no difference” between the Democratic and the Republican nominee. Both reject all invitations and exhortations as “corrupt”. Each asserts a self-described moral purity that from the outside appears to be a product of naivety rather than insight. Twenty years seems like a much longer time at 30 than it does at 60. It is, in fact, only five campaigns.
As you observe, there is a substantial and striking difference between the behavior of Mr. Nader in 2000 and Mr. Sanders in 2016, and I celebrate that difference.
Better not specifically direct comments at those Sanders supporters cited by Doubleman etc.
Why? It would be the better part of valor, and the alternative gives offense to many whom you probably do not mean to insult in ways that you probably do not intend.
I have no quarrel with your clarification, Sanders supporters in purple states who would stay home will elect Trump. And where I do disagree with many here, is my belief there are far more purple states this year with Trump in the picture. I wouldn’t even take any chances in Massachusetts.
Clinton walloped Trump in the MA primary. The only way he wins is she gains practically no Sanders supporters and he takes almost all GOP primary voters. I don’t expect that to happen, nor do I expect people who only vote in general elections to break heavily enough for Trump (if at all) to put him over. The high-profile Dems in MA who endorsed Sanders are ultimately party people who will go to the wall for Hillary in November.
And it’s safer to assume Trump is unpredictable and has bested better funded palatable opponents in his primary and could do so again in the general. Hillary is performing worse among independents at the moment and their historically high negatives among the general voting populace could reduce turnout which helps Trump. That’s all, I’m not saying he will win, I am saying out of the three left the GOP is nominating their best candidate against Hillary.*
*Kasich would be easy to define as Romney 2.0 and isn’t a great campaigner or candidate, the only way he’s the nominee is via a convention that nullifies the votes of the majority of his party and they’d stay home costing him the election.
…that whenever someone points out how high Hillary’s negatives are, the easiest response is to point out that Trump’s are higher, right? That’s especially true within their respective parties. Trump has very high negatives within the party that is probably about to nominate him whereas the same cannot be said about Hillary. In this particular debate I’ve been the one able to back up my case with figures whereas you seem to be going with your gut. The Democratic Party also in recent cycles has a default electoral map advantage, which polls have yet to show significant movement in this cycle.
Also, while I still don’t buy the narrative let’s just say for the sake of argument that 20K MA voters abandoned the Dems in a huff because they could find nothing they like about either Hillary or Bernie and really have voted for Trump because they actually like him and not to troll the GOP. The devil’s advocate in me wants to ask if that matters. You have multiple times said you would be OK losing a few nominally Dem seats in the General Court in favor of having a comfortable as opposed to overwhelming majority of legislators who actually act and vote like Dems. (I’m not convinced many of these aren’t still more in line with us than the GOP, but we’ll go with it for now.) Where do you think these legislators come from? I would submit many of them are elected, certainly in my neck of the woods, by voters who are also marginally Democrats (and a few even serve on DTCs). My very strong suspicion is that many of these 20K “Democrats” who you cite as having left the party only registered as such because it is the “thing to do” in MA.
You may be right about the effect of a Kasich nomination, but many Republicans still want to win and can’t stand Clinton. Again, for now at least the only evidence we have suggests that Kasich beats Clinton or at least puts states in play, that Trump and Cruz can only dream of. I of course won’t complain if they stay home, but they can’t complain if they are more interested in sulking about process.
I agree that we should not be complacent. I think there’s a middle ground between paranoid and complacent.
Donald Trump terrifies me. I hope that most supporters of Bernie Sanders join their candidate in turning out to elect Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic ticket, here in MA and elsewhere. And my response to any who ask me about “the rest of the Democratic ticket” is to invite a cite for a SINGLE STATE where the GOP ticket is better for a Bernie Sanders supporter (or any other progressive) than the Democratic ticket in that state.
Dracut and Tewskbury come to mind. My biggest concern about this negative race against Trump and the dismissal of the principles Bernie fought for by the Democratic establishment is that we run as “not Trump”, which will work about as well as running as “not Bush” did twice.
This is the year voters in both parties turned on the establishment and we run a real risk nominating the least liked, most establishment friendly candidate in several election cycles. Now she won fair and square and Bernie was riskier at the end of the day, all the more reason more credible Democrats should’ve challenged Clinton.
The worst thing about Trump is that it will breed Democratic complacency and laziness and a refusal to move the needle leftward in a failed assumption moderates will turn on Trump, even though NBC/Esquire has put him squarely in the populist center of where many independents are.
David discussed this on several occasions, how he is actually one of the most moderate nominees they have put forth in years. Indifferent on the social issues, hates taxes and loves entitlements, “tough” on “illegals” and “terrorism”. That’s where a lot of voters are, and Clinton has to demonstrate unequivocally how she will govern better than Obama on those issues as well as Trump. She can’t just assume being on the stage and not being odious is enough, which is what too many advisors are telling her to do.
I am unfortunately surrounded by many of them, but they go GOP when the Dems win statewide, so I don’t see them on their own flipping the state. If Trump is moderate the definition of that word changed at some point. You don’t get to be nasty toward different religions and national origins, not to mention the gender that is not yours, and call yourself a moderate. I have no doubt HRC and her surrogates will point that out at every opportunity. If you think I have advocated not taking it right to Trump you have greatly misunderstood me. HRC is a fighter who I am sure won’t take any of this lying down.
I was referring to national tickets (House and Senate), not local races.
I tend to vote only for local candidates whom I actually know. I agree with you that for some MA towns, the GOP ticket is better for LOCAL offices.
I care about Sanders supporters understanding politics. Some do, e.g. Doubleman. Some don’t. I won’t name names. I have a lot of hope for your generation, but I’m also very concerned about their attitude toward and understanding of politics. Maybe they will create something new eventually, but I’m looking for evidence.
Moving the goal posts? The goal posts are right here: effective action. I respect Sanders effectiveness. I’m concerned about the conspiracy theories, their theory of change (or lack thereof) and their belief in purity.
This is exactly what I want:
This doesn’t seem to be what they’re doing. And treating them like special snowflakes isn’t going to solve the problem.
“Making me think your ideal primary was…” You are responsible for your thoughts, not I. I’ve been pretty clear about my support and my concerns about the Sanders campaign all along. I was the only person who actually thought BLM taking his mike was a good move, and that Bernie’s response was even better.
I agree with this comment, and I think I joined you in liking the BLM action early in the campaign.
think alike. At least sometimes.
The preemptive attacks on Sanders supporters seems to be in preparation of the scapegoat for what could be another loss for similar reasons.
Reliable Democratic voters will come out in November and vote for the Democratic nominee, just as they did for Martha Coakley when she lost to Scott Brown and when she lost to Charlie Baker.
I recall sitting in a Democratic meeting after the most recent Coakley loss, with her supporters looking at me and those of my ilk who were Berwick or Grossman supporters insinuating that it was our non-involvement or worse yet, votes for Baker that lead to the loss. No, we were not non-involved, but we’re only human and the enthusiasm we had for the former candidates was hard to muster for such a bland option and yes, we all voted for Martha.
It was easy to blame us. We were in the room. It was easier than admitting the truth and the truth was and remains that while the reliable Democratic voters will vote for the Democratic nominee and all of us did vote for Coakley, it was the people not in that room (and not at the polls) who mattered. The casual voter, the independent, the person who is motivated by anyone with a bold idea or even a barn jacket and a pickup truck, they were the ones who voted for Scott, for Charlie, and soon, for Donald. But they are not in the room and they are not reading Blue Mass Group.
Yeah, thanks. It was our fault. Blame us. Ignore the truth and move on. Try to tell yourself that doing the same thing next time will yield a different result. If not, you know that drill; find that goat.
One more time: Hillary Clinton is not Martha Coakley. Donald Trump is not Charley Baker.
Some new riffs: America is not Massachusetts. The president is not a governor.
I don’t recall people blaming supporters of Don Berwick or Steve Grossman for Martha Coakley’s subsequent loss. Mostly I heard people blaming Ms. Coakley herself. Another thing I heard was that Ms. Coakley substantially over-performed statewide polling, suggesting that her campaign was actually quite effective and still lost. The only conclusion I can draw is that even an effective campaign was not able to elect the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. That is an indictment of the candidate and of the process that made her the nominee. Nowhere in that story (except, apparently, for a handful of Dan Berwick or Steve Grossman supporters with some sort of martyr complex) is any blame cast towards supporters of Mr. Berwick or Mr. Grossman.
If you, or anyone else, votes for Donald Trump and he is elected, then YES, the consequences ARE your fault.
The bottom line, here in America, is that each VOTER is ultimately responsible for his or her decision. The election in November will be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Martha Coakley is not on the ballot. Scott Brown is not on the ballot. Charlie Baker is not on the ballot.
If enough voters in enough states choose Mr. Trump to elect him, at the end of the day the responsibility lies with THOSE voters (along with a degree of blame for the fusillade of lies, disinformation, and right-wing propaganda that has filled each day’s Fox News broadcast).
The differences between Mr. Trump and Ms. Clinton are already apparent, and will be more apparent by November. Each is already making their case, and will do more so. I remind you that in the current primaries, if we examine primary votes for Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Sanders comes in dead last.
Bernie Sanders is a presidential candidate and senator from Vermont. He is not a Messiah. He will not rise from the political dead after he loses this nomination battle. He is not being crucified, the supporters of Ms. Clinton are not participants in a nefarious conspiracy betraying him in the dark of night.
This is a primary election campaign that Ms. Clinton is winning.
Surely it is time for supporters of Mr. Sanders to stop whining, stop complaining, and join their candidate in making sure that the Clinton campaign presents the most aggressively progressive Democratic campaign in YEARS. Surely it is time to focus our energy on making progressive populism the CENTRAL issue in this campaign — led by our nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Surely it is time to remind those working-class voters who contemplate voting for Mr. Trump that he has already promised to screw them, has spent a lifetime screwing them, and loudly and gleefully promises to continue screwing them if elected. A civil action against Mr. Trump for fraud is currently proceeding, targeted at the fraudulent scam that was branded and promoted as “Trump University”. Who do you THINK was victimized by that scam? Was it the 1%? Was it “Wall Street”? Donald Trump knowingly and intentionally defrauded WORKING CLASS MEN AND WOMEN.
A working class voter who is aware of that and votes for Mr. Trump anyway is, well, not predictable enough to merit serious campaign attention. I do not think ANY campaign should bend over backwards to protect men and women from their own stupidity, ignorance, or both. When a person KNOWS that a man is a pickpocket and a thief and voluntarily invites that men to their dinner table, I am singularly unsympathetic to whining that the silverware subsequently went missing.
Ms. Clinton has been fighting FOR working class men and women for more than two decades. She will continue that fight as president. She will aggressively advance the progressive populist agenda of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
If you liked the economic programs offered by Mr. Sanders during the campaign, you will LOVE the economic programs advanced by President Clinton during her administration.
Were you away from BMG for months?
Otherwise I think you’re making sound points, you just have to recognize that it’s the independents John is concerned about and polls do not show them leaning towards Clinton. It’s a real concern, even if he expresses it hyperbolically.
I agree that there was a fair amount of finger-pointing and stone-throwing here on BMG. I’m pretty good at tuning out things that I find forgettable. 🙂
As others have observed, I guess I’m uncomfortable with large groupings like “independents”. In my view, there is a hard-core base of voters I think of as nihilists or anarchists who love Donald Trump — and who, pretty much by construction, will never support any candidate with a sane view of government.
While I’m happy to take whatever votes we get from that hopefully-small subgroup, I disagree with the premise that we should target it.
Let me offer a Sunday-morning hypothetical. Just as Donald Trump will pivot towards the center after he gets the GOP nomination, I similarly suggest that Bernie Sanders would have done the same had he won the Democratic contest. My rash speculation is that he would alienate his own hard-core supporters we’re talking about — and so will Mr. Trump on the other side.
On the other hand, Ms. Clinton will similarly reach out to supporters of Mr. Sanders after she is nominated. She will not have to pivot, because she hasn’t been that extreme to begin with. I don’t think she’ll lose ANY supporters as she does so, because I think a great many of her supporters are, like me, supporters in spite of rather than because of her small policy differences with Mr. Sanders.
My bottom line is that I find it incomprehensible that a significant number of supporters of Bernie Sanders will vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the primary. I agree that some will choose not to vote at all — I also think a similar number of today’s supporters of Mr. Trump will do the same.
So to me, these two groups will tend to offset each other in the primary. I think the much more significant difference will be what portion of each respective “base” turns out to vote.
I think it will be VERY HARD for Mr. Trump to turn out the GOP base for his campaign, in comparison to Ms. Clinton and the Democratic base.
I therefore think that this election is Hillary Clinton’s to lose — and I hope and pray that she does not. This is a significant difference between Ms. Clinton and Ms. Coakley, by the way. I’m not suggesting that we be complacent, and I see no evidence of complacency in the Democratic campaign.
I do, however, it will be very hard for Donald Trump to win in November. I think that’s why the GOP establishment opposes him so vigorously.
I would argue I’ve been consistent reality based. I’m handling both candidates with an objective lens. I was critical of Sanders supporters early on in this primary clinging to a fantasy that he was more qualified or more electable. I dismissed polls showing him beating the Republicans by double digits. I dismiss polls currently showing Clinton winning a landslide including places like Utah or Texas that never voted for her husband, let alone any Democrat the last half century as similar flights of fantasy.
The 60% of Republicans who would never vote for Trump would never vote for Clinton, and just like the Bernie or Bust folks will come around so will they. It’s a fantasy to think Republicans beyond the David Brooks sort will come out for Clinton. It’s delusional to chase after those voters. I want the UAW workers who went to Trump rallies to go to hers, the Carrier factory workers torn between Sanders and Trump to be courted by Hillary instead of written off.
My theory is this:
Trump has run right on immigtation, illegal or otherwise, and has dragged the “establishment” GOP with him. It seems like the hopes for a brokered convention will fizzle today, and so that is the main thrust of the Trump campiagn thus far.
Sanders ran left on immigration, and dragged Clinton with him. The debate before Florida was a leftward sprint.
I suspect that there will be an effort to make that THE issue in November, because it is the clearest place where Trump differs from Clinton as a matter of policy, rather than simply as a matter of tone.
I agree that this will make November far more of a close-run thing than it presently appears.
I do not quite understand your presumption that the various minority groups that are reliably Democratic will stay home out of disgust, particularly given that they are the targets of the racist and xenophobic rhetoric of Clinton’s opponent. And even more, considering that she has been winning these groups fairly consistently against Sanders. What is there to suggest that Sanders would suddenly inspire these groups, when he has not done so thus far?
Also, it is going to be a long summer of off-the-cuff, grossly sexist remarks.
1) My analysis isn’t about Sanders v. Clinton
I think I confused you and I apologize. Clearly, he lost to Clinton, so any question about how he would fare in a general is irrelevant since he couldn’t win the nomination. I feel the same way when people say Kasich is the most electable Republican, if a resounding majority of Republicans are unenthusiastic about voting for him, why would a general electorate be any different? I felt the same way about folks who said Berwick or Grossman would’ve done better than Coakley, if they couldn’t beat her they wouldn’t have beaten Baker. So I didn’t mean to reintroduce this question, as I strongly feel it’s a waste of time to discuss it, and I suspect you’d agree with me on that.
2) White Working Class Voters
What I was trying to argue is that Sanders did decisively beat her with this demographic, which she carried decisively over Obama in 2008. Why did they desert her? Why did this group of more fiscally and socially moderate voters pick the 74 year old socialist Jew from Vermont? Why did her flip flop on TPP fail to convince these voters?
These are the kinds of question Team Clinton has to ask and answer now, rather than just disregard. Trump is currently beating her in this demographic in those key states according to polls, and he is beating her among self identified white male independents.
There are also first time voters coming out of the woodwork to vote for Trump, like the guys who trolled Cruz yesterday or the 47 year old interviewed on All Things Considered who said ‘this is the first time I’m voting for President since it’s the first time any party nominated someone who will stick it to China and Mexico and stand up for American workers’. That’s troubling to me, that there was this wide demographic of alienated voters turned off by the free market bullshit of the GOP and the cultural elitist myopia of the Democrats waiting for a champion of American working class values and people.
That to me is quite troubling, particularly when Trump got more cheers at UAW rally than Clinton ever did. Particularly when Bill Clinton was the master of appealing to this class and making it back progressives again. She needs to show more grit and less Goldman.
3) Minority Turnout
The key here isn’t Sanders v Clinton, where Clinton has decisively beat him in this demographic, but Clinton 2016 v. Obama 2008. Minority turnout in the primaries is nowhere close to what it was when he ran, and my fear is if we go back to 2004 and 2000 general election numbers it will hurt us in places like Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
They aren’t staying home because they are mad Bernie lost, that’s clearly a fantasy, but they might stay home because they aren’t motivated to turn out. Assuming Trump is enough to turn these voters out is coasting dangerously close to taking these voters for granted. A fatal mistake for Al Gore and John Kerry.
I have in the past, mostly from Real Clear Politics, which make the case that Clinton is leading in these key states, and maybe even in a few that should be reliably red. You still seem to think that everything will go Trump’s way, despite evidence to the contrary, and that Clinton doesn’t know how to campaign.
Stop the Gore/Kerry references. Gore got more votes in 2000. His mistake was not running on Clinton’s record. Kerry should have hit back harder against attacks, but the public wasn’t quite with him on some key issues. In both cases GWB wasn’t nearly as scary or obnoxious as Trump is. When I see those signs with Bush’s picture saying, “Miss me yet?” my reaction is not as President, but as an adult voice in the GOP I actually kind of do.
One reason might be because they are different people. A demographic is filled up with people; over time, the demographic remains the same, but the actual individuals that constitute it change.
No doubt some of the same people in this demographic remain, but those as the younger level were not in the demographic 8 or 9 years ago. And many have aged out and are no longer part of the demographic.
There were still a decent number of Greatest Generation and Silent Generation voters during that primary that aren’t around today, and some Democratic strongholds at the state and congressional level in the South that aren’t around anymore.
After I posted my original reply, I re-red your post and have more to say. You find it incomprehensible that a significant number of supporters of Bernie Sanders will vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. That’s missing the point entirely. They are not going to vote for Trump or Clinton. It’s called low voter turnout. It’s when independents and casual party members are not motivated to vote because they are not sensing that anything will change.
You agreed that there was a fair amount of finger-pointing and stone-throwing here on BMG. Thanks. I’m just bothered by that pile of stones you and other Clinton supporters are piling up.
You think it will be VERY HARD for Mr. Trump to turn out the GOP base for his campaign, in comparison to Ms. Clinton and the Democratic base. I think both will find it difficult, so we’re left with low voter turnout and relying on independents. How does that affect a Democrat’s chances?
Finally, I am a 61 year old white male laborer. What, specifically, has Hillary Clinton fought for and gained for me?
I strongly agree with the notion that this campaign will be nasty, brutish, and long and will have historically low turnout. Minority turnout will be low and won’t be the savior of the Democrats, and we are already seeing former Trump critics within the GOP saying he is the lesser of two evils compared to Clinton. Most Cruz and even down Kasich supporters will say that. The kind of Republicans that might endorse Hillary (Jeb?) are the elitist kind that will galvanize the right and turn off our own base let alone independents.
If Clinton runs as a Rockefeller Republican who is socially tolerant, fiscally moderate and hawkish against the unpredictable blend of positions Trump has I worry it won’t be enough. Moderation and reason against extremism rarely capture the zeitgeist of an angry electorate. The electorate wasn’t angry in 1964 and it was still grieving Kennedy, far easier for LBJ to best Goldwater than it was for Carter to beat Reagan. Trump could be another Reagan if Clinton runs a White House campaign emphasizing her experience and moderation in a year when the voters crave an outsider to shake up the system.
And there are enough white voters like you John in the rust belt swing states, if Trump picks a Kasich or Portman it bridges him to the establishment while making a serious play for the Rust Belt. The fact that Sherrod Brown is on the short list gives me hope Team Clinton is beggining to recognize the real contours of the electoral map. I’m cautiously optimistic about her chances, which is where I suggest we all should be.
On what do you base your prediction that minority turnout will be low? I’ve heard that at least Latinos are registering in record numbers and Muslims are getting more active too. Donald Trump will drive UP minority turnout, but not in his favor, it seems. SOME voters are ready for an outsider, but keep in mind the insider has all but won the Dem primary. Why is it in your calculus Sanders supporters are more important to placate than Clinton supporters even though there are more of the latter? I have to say the person I would least like to be in politics right now is Reince Priebus. I think he knows his party is on the brink. We are in better shape both as a default position and our ability to campaign.
In this primary. Paul Simmons has discussed this extensively, and he is far more of an expert on the subject of turnout and grassroots enthusiasm than I am. But he has had several insightful posts showing an enthusiasm gap between primary voters that could portend trouble in the general.
I would rather be the Democrats right now too, but I think we are in the middle of a political realignment we are only beginning to understand. The culture war is over, and those issues no longer animate voters in either party. The religious right is a spent and dying political entity with little political capital and few victories to show for itself in the past two decades, it’s churches are literally dying off and suffering the same demographic implosion the mainline is.
The main dividing line is class, and we are seeing a realignment between the have not’s and the have mores rather than the religious and the nones. Class, not religion, has been the key predictor of who someone would vote for this year. If the voter was white and making under 250,000 a year they voted in the Republican primary for Trump and in the Democratic primary for Sanders. If the voter was white and making over that amount of money they were voting for the Rubio/Kasich/Cruz combo on the GOP side and Hillary on our side.
Cambridge is a microcosm of the Democratic party. A playground for the creative class with their high education levels, low religiosity and high levels of cultural tolerance with a substantial minority population dependent on government assistance in order to afford to live there. Is that really the kind of stratification the Democratic Party wants? I thought it was supposed to stand for the middle class and working class too?
I think there are multiple explanations for differences between the turnout in 2008 and today. I think it is likely to be at least years, if not decades, before we are able to accurately describe, never mind understand, the political realignments that may be happening.
One thought that comes to my mind springs from biology — “punctuated equilibrium”. The original understanding of Darwin’s theories led scientists to expect a continuous rate of change in various metrics like new species creation, extensions, new population sizes, and so on. One of the genuine surprises of modern science is that the geological, fossil, archaeological, and even anthropological record shows just the opposite. In fact, history suggests relatively long periods of equilibrium interrupted by brief and intense spurts of change.
More modern science, especially chaos theory, has demonstrated why this happens. While evolutionary processes happen continuously at a fine-grained organism-by-organism scale, those continuous processes themselves create the observed punctuated equilibrium as an epiphenomenon of the resulting system.
I suspect that something similar is true of political realignments.
Regarding voter turnout, I remind us that 2008 was a very special primary season for we Democrats that included at least the following unique elements:
1. A major candidate was a well-known woman, and was a woman with deep and wide ties to and support from the minority community.
2. A major candidate was an African-American who was well-spoken (especially in comparison to the incumbent), well-educated, and well-regarded in the business community.
3. America was in the final year of an administration that had been absolutely ABYSMAL in its treatment of minorities — and the primary season was mostly over by the time of the 2008 crash.
I think that had Bernie Sanders turned out minority communities in 2016 the way Barack Obama did in 2008, we would have had comparable turnout overall. Bernie Sanders is not Barack Obama. In my view, the difference in turnout between 2008 and 2012 is less about a political realignment and more about the happy accident that we had two absolutely STELLAR candidates on the ballot in 2008.
We Democrats DO stand for the working class. Each of our candidates has spent a lifetime striving to help the working class. I do not share the comparison you make in your final paragraph — I think Cambridge is not very representative of pretty much anything, and especially not the Democratic Party overall.
I agree that the main dividing line is class. You and I have agreed during the entire campaign that a key benefit of the Sanders campaign is the resulting focus on this issue during the election season. We are seeing this play out, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.
I want to see us relentlessly hammer on the policies and practices the GOP has done and tried to do since the Reagan era. I think we need to explain, again and again, how those practices have harmed working-class men and women and how the 1% have plundered working-class men and women.
I think we need to show, by contrast, what we Democrats have done and tried to do during the same period.
I think we should remind working-class Americans of the arc of the last GOP President. I think we should remind working-class Americans of the value of their collective home equity in January of 2001, when George W. Bush took office, and in January of of 2009 when he left office.
I think we should ask working-class men and women whether federal unemployment benefits help or hurt them. I think we should remind working-class men and women of which party has RELENTLESSLY striven to reduce, restrict, and oppose those federal benefits and which party has worked to enlarge, expand, and support them.
The list goes ON and ON and ON. The Democratic party truly IS the party of working-class men and women. Always has been and still is.
I think we need to simply tell the truth. I suggest we recall this famous quote from Adlai Stevenson:
I am not arguing it’s not the working class party, I am worried it is drifting away from that and towards something else. Thomas Frank’s arguments are very compelling, particularly his analysis of Massachusetts politics and why we are more liberal on paper than we are in reality, particularly on economic issues.
There is a more wonkish book on suburban liberalism focused on Massachusetts that I highly recommend reading. Once the primary dies down I might make a post synthesizing it’s arguments.
My analysis is focused on voter perception and the kind of gut level sense I have that this is an angry electorate that wants to punish someone for the status quo. Arguments that the economy has actually rebounded using graphs and statistics won’t work. Arguments that Obamacare and all of these other domestic initiatives have actually helped them won’t work either.
It’s the gut check. It’s saying you welcome Wall Street’s hatred and the willingness to call a crook a crook. Trump is waging very effective class warfare right now, and it’s time our nominee stops shying from it for fear of alienating the Acela corridor. They don’t win elections, hard hats in Ohio do.
a day late and a dollar short. The Democratic Party is drifting back toward the Left.
Hillary is a weak candidate, a party insider favorite without bold ideas. Nope, she is not Martha Coakley…..?
Thanks for the geography lesson as well. No wonder Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. There are plenty of Democrats here who think they can just win because “we’re Democrats!”
A working class voter who is aware of that and votes for Mrs. Clinton is voting against their own self interests, but maybe (MAYBE) the lesser of two harmful candidates.
If Mrs. Clinton was FOR working class men and women, she’d be fighting for $15 and health care as a human right….and she’s be happy to release the transcripts.
But I think you are all clinging to a bipartisan establishment that has failed the American worker. I think Trump recognizes that is the single issue that is animating the American electorate this year. I think a lot of idealist young people need to be welcomed, it’s not hard, and it’s not treating them like special snowflakes it’s letting them now their contributions to the movement are valued and will continue to be valued in a Clinton campaign and administration.
I don’t see Barney Frank or Hillary making that ask yet, I see them bitching and moaning that the hoi poli doesn’t understand how Washington works. It does understand all too well and is disgusted by it and wants it to change. It doesn’t want the slickest establishment operator, it wants someone who will tear the establishment down.
I’ve spent little time in Cambridge, I’ve been to Leominster and Fitchburg and Weymoth and the places where a majority of people are torn between Sanders and Trump. I think Tom Frank is right and Barney Frank is wrong. So the question of how we come together should be the establishment embracing populism, Clinton embracing the Sanders agenda and message, and her campaign welcoming its supporters into its leadership. This is exactly how Obama unified the party with Clintkn, even inviting her into his administration. Clinton isn’t doing that yet, she should. She should’ve done it yesterday.
The one I’ve listened to has done quite a bit of exactly what you say you want lately. She DOES have slightly different positions and it makes no sense for the winner of the primary to suddenly adopt all of the positions of the one who came up short.
And that’s why she does to poorly with independents. Unlike Somerville Tom who knows which Hillary is the real one, independents do not. Maybe that explains here high disapproval ratings….
Including the mandate which he hit her on during his primary campaign. I think people forget that Obama made extensive overtures to the Clinton campaign to bring it on board, including paying off her campaign debt, giving her a prominent spot on the ticket and holding joint rallies, and letting her and her team get prominent roles on the campaign, transition, and of course the eventual administration. Remember when Team of Rivals was the 2008 buzzword?
Why are Hillary and her staff and surrogates so allergic to Sanders playing a similar role? He’d make a great Labor secretary or ally in the Senate and many aspects of his platform are no longer controversial because of his campaign. Fully universal paid leave, $15/hr minimum wage, easing marijuana restrictions, raising corporate taxes and prosecuting bankers are all positions widely supported by over 60% of the electorate and are changes Bernie supporters would be excited to see in a Clinton campaign. She immediately adopted his position on trade at the start of the campaign, a far more brazen flip flop than any of these ones would be. It’ll shore up the youth and minority vote while winning over white working class makes skeptical of her agenda.
I don’t believe I have heard that they don’t want him to play a role. The things you cite about 2008 all happened AFTER Obama had definitely clinched the nomination. HRC is already on record for at least a few of things you asks, but again, she IS the one who prevailed so it makes no sense to turn her entire platform over to the one who came up short.
Then again, Sanders may have read Robert Reich’s excellent book about holding that office in a Clinton administration
Like good fiction. A bit too much like it, apparently.
N/T.
This cycle has really been quite gentle.
I’d like to build on this.
My sense is that the actual policy differences between Mr. Sanders and Ms. Clinton are vanishingly small. To me, it therefore makes perfect sense that the primary campaign has focused on magnifying those microscopic differences out of all proportion, and has also focused on style rather than substance.
To paraphrase the old lawyer’s aphorism: “When the facts are against you, you attack the witness. When that fails, you pound the table”.
I think we’re seeing a lot of attacks on the witness and lot of table-pounding. My takeaway is that the facts are against Mr. Sanders. Not that he isn’t a fine man saying things that desperately need saying — but instead that there was never much daylight between his views and those of Ms. Clinton.
In my view, some of the “generation gap” is a result. I’ve known of Bernie Sanders as long or longer than Hillary Clinton. I know that they have long been fellow travelers who differ on votes from time to time and who have worked together for decades anyway. I’ve also seen other primaries where similarly microscopic differences are greatly magnified so that they seem huge — until a few days or weeks after the primary, when they magically revert to their actual size.
Bernie Sanders is not the first candidate to promise a “political revolution”. He will not be the last. He is not the first candidate to magnify his differences with the front-runner. He will not be the last. He is not the first such candidate to fail in his effort, and he will not be the last.
I guess that perspective makes me a genuine old-fart, and I guess I have to plead guilty. I mostly just want the conventions to happen, the primary season to be over, and I want to get on with the campaign.
I think you mischaracterize it a little bit. The goal isn’t to make a common cause with the Tea Party, but to come up with Republican candidates who would tap into their dissatisfaction, but from the left rather than from the right. I have my doubts as to whether this would work, but Trump has shown that the Republican base is less doctrinal on economic policy than the GOP elite believed. If it did work, it would be a very odd, unstable coalition, having both right-wing and left-wing populists, but it would certainly shake things up. Most likely, not much will come of it, though they may score an upset or two here and there.
A representative elected as a Republican will vote to support the GOP nominee for Speaker of the House. A senator elected as a Republican will vote to sustain a GOP-led filibuster or to block the nominee that the GOP opposes.
I agree that the premise of this is odd and unstable. I agree that not much will come of it. I think this is mostly election-season posturing by various operatives of various candidates.
Surely the Obama administration, with its exaggerated outreach to the GOP, demonstrated that no senator or representative affiliated with today’s GOP is going to anything but relentlessly obstruct ANY Democratic initiative — regardless of the consequences of that obstruction.
Class rather than culture is the real fissure of the future in this country and it seems that the GOP’s base is considerably more working class than the Dems, once race is accounted for. If you take a place like Oklahoma it will never elect a pro choice or pro gay candidate, but if we can get pro-labor and anti Citizens United conservatives (I’ve met many in my new role-they do exist!) we can rebuild a New Deal coalition that is the inversion of the old Conservative Coalition of Taft Relublicans and Richard Russell Democrats.
A cross partisan coalition committed to expanding Social Security and Medicare, committed to ending money in politics and crony capitalism, and committed to expanding workers rights and wages would be a sight to see. And judging by exit polling, positions even the GOP base apparently embraces. Let them have their Neanderthal views on social issues confined to their region since the federal government and courts have become progressive, but let’s welcome our fellow class warriors on the right as allies. It’s not a dumb idea.
Koch is staying home, the old country club/religious right alliance is permanently dead. Kasich (cc) and Cruz (rr) represent those factions and have no prayer of beating Donald Trump. The only GOP candidate to run on saving social security, protecting American workers from globalization, and replacing Obamacare with single payer healthcare. As David noted earlier in this cycle, it’s amazing someone with those views not only did well but resoundingly well in the GOP’s primary.
Obviously his success running on welfare for whites shows an odious element to this potential alliance, but he has shown future candidates it is not only possible but advantageous to run to the economic left in Republican primaries. There is room for that, and it’ll be interesting to see if voters will respond to such an argument in states where the Dems will never be given consideration. And if it can be argued on the right without resorting to racism.
Trump wins the election. Trump dumps Obamacare in exchange for Trump Care, a universal single payer European style plan that he, the master of the deal with management experience, pulls off. Nations saves billions of dollars in health care costs. While seeing smaller paychecks because of “Trump Care”, citizens surprised at the end of each month to actually see more money in their checking accounts, now unbridled by massive payments to health insurance corporations.
And why not? The guy is smart. He wants to make a big name for himself. He reaches out to Bernie Sanders in the senate for help on this one. Bernie is very, very willing to help.
Donald Trump as “master of the deal with management experience”? More accurate is known shyster whose “management experience” has more in common with the downtown hustler taking your money with three-card monte.
This comment is off the wall in Donald Trump la-la land. Here’s a suggestion — there’s plenty of time between now and November to sign up for Trump University (oh, maybe not, I guess maybe that was shut down) or become a participant in the “Trump Network” pyramid scheme (oh, maybe not, I guess maybe he pulled the plug on that too). Well, you can always go to Atlantic City and sample Mr. Trump’s “management experience” first-hand at the Trump Plaze — oh never mind, that’s closed too.
Donald Trump is a conman and hustler. He has lost as much money as he’s earned. The most accurate learning about his “management expertise” is to keep him as far away from actual management of an actual company as possible. I sincerely hope that Mr. Sanders has the street-smarts to say “thanks but no thanks” to any offer of “help” from Donald Trump.
I sincerely hope that you come to your senses sometime between now and November. In particular, I hope that you will pay attention when Mr. Sanders repeatedly and loudly exhorts you to join him in working to elect Ms. Clinton.
Ms. Clinton WILL work to achieve the progressive revolution envisioned by Mr. Sanders. Donald Trump will actively work to betray it.
Looks like your rock pile it growing.
Please stop.
I know who Donald Trump is. I know liars and self centered types when I see them.
You actually agree on quite a great deal. John was being mostly sarcastic in his Trump quote, though he makes a good point that David also made that Trump has won a Republican primary moving to the economic left of his opponents. I think that’s a very interesting and somewhat positive trend. It’s why I wouldn’t entirely discount the group trying to create populist primary challengers in both parties.
I agree that Clinton is the best we can do this cycle, but let’s not pretend she’s the best our party or movement has to offer. And no,Bernie isn’t either. We need a young, charismatic woman of color who has the domestic policy chops of Elizabeth Warren and the foreign policy chops of John Kerry or Bob Gates.
Perhaps Kamala Harria or Donna Edwards can be that figure? Perhaps another? The way to build the bench is to primary deadweight incumbents and every Republican in every party. It’s to build a 50 state strategy rather than the endless piecemeal incrementalism of the Clinton-Obama era.
on goals. But with John, we disagree quite a bit on reality.
I voted for Hillary Clinton. I didn’t work for her. I didn’t contribute to her campaign. Somehow we’re all to blame if we cast a vote for her. We did irreparable damage to the party because we didn’t do what Bernie supporters want. They are the bearers of the truth faith. Now we are pre-scapegoating Bernie supporters so when Hillary loses (another article of faith) we can blame Sanders supporters.
It really bothers me that I should be criticized for whom I support. I didn’t and don’t have a problem with people supporting Bernie, even to the end. I didn’t criticize Tom when he refused to support Coakley. I supported Berwick. I want Bernie to influence the party.
Political grown-up’s know they are going to work with people from the other side, so they don’t demonize the other side. They swallow their pride and they support the other side. This will probably happen with Bernie supporters, but I’m nervous.
If the goal is party unity,
I for one have never been so excited about how great a President a candidate has the potential for being. Polls actually show greater enthusiasm for her than Sanders among respective supporters, though the latter make time for rallies in the way the former do not. Clinton is hands down the strongest, best prepared, most knowledgeable, most politically astute likely nominee we have had, possibly in my lifetime.
Why, does the age, race, or gender of the candidate matter? Those are the factors that we should worry about the least.
BTW, nice to see you still referring to Dems as “our party”:)
n/t
That’s my Arlen Specter moment, though FWIW most of our members will likely vote for her in the general.
You’re a real junkie and party insider and that’s why you’re gonna get excited about her, and I say that with a ton of respect. You know your political history, are on the inside of the party and respect her policy chops, and like I do, expect her to be another LBJ and operator to cut through the garbage and actually pass bills and make laws. I for one loved her interaction with BLM for that reason, finest moment of her campaign so far.
She’s been a sloppy candidate at times, and I am quite worried she’s misreading the electorate this year. I say this as someone who wished she ran in 2004 and in retrospect had second thoughts about voting against her in 2008. I always knew she would have my vote in November and I hope she wins. Perhaps that hasn’t been clear enough, but I honestly admire your passion for your candidate. And that it’s been consistent since 2008.
You really have to be careful with sarcasm on the internet. It is not always obvious to others when you are being sarcastic especially if you are already prone to hyperbolic language. When in doubt, just add a smiley – that’s what they were invented for.
😉
I can’t see this at all.
If so I missed that. On the vast majority of issues if you are a Sanders supporter we will come a lot closer to achieving your goals under Clinton than we will under Trump.
might be overstating things a bit. A resoundingly good GOP candidate would have wrapped up the GOP nomination months ago. If Trump gets the nomination, he will do so with far less support among GOP primary voters than has any previous nominee.
A President Trump that follows his campaign playbook into the White House, gets stymied by Ryan’s House and a Democratic Senate of his own making and resigns due to boredom or his impeached due to scandal. Or he will try and be a Good Republican and simply be a warm body to sign Grover Norquists bills. It’s either/or. It’s highly unlikely he passes the progressive elements of his economic program. It’s also less than likely that he wins, I just don’t see it as the sheer impossibility everyone else here views it as.
that should he win, he will suddenly change into an obedient Republican? The man is in this for himself. He’s got enough money, so much that he does not have to sell his soul at $225,000 per speech. I think it’s a tossup actually. I think he either does what I mentioned or, dares to have a huge standoff with Republicans and face impeachment for something. That or he just quits and Scott Brown is the president……..
The man is seriously crazy.
I can well imagine a President Donald Trump forcing a conflict with a reluctant Pentagon, where Mr. President says “Nuke ’em” and our sober military chieftains say “no way”.
This is starting to sound like an upside-down inside-out “Dr. Strangelove“.
I voted for Bernie, I went to his rallies, I donated to his campaign multiple times, but I recognize that we no longer have a shot at the nomination. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it’s true. I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton but don’t think she’s any worse than your standard career politician, and definitely prefer her to any of the Republican options, so I will be fine voting for her in November.
If my fellow progressive activists still have time, money, and energy to devote to a real fight, I recommend donating and volunteering for Tim Canova, the primary opponent of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida. DWS has awful stances on criminal justice reform, civil liberties and many other issues, and is the archetype of the conservative, establishment Democrat. She also runs the DNC and has been responsible for much of the shady business that made things hard for Sanders. If we kicked her out of office, it would be a strong signal to the establishment, and we’d get a true progressive into Congress. Please join me in helping Tim Canova win this primary, and the general: https://timcanova.com/
By all means push progressives into Congress. After all, I agree with Sanders on a lot of issues, but prefer Clinton for her ability to do the job. One specific example is even though Clinton is not going to the mat for a $15 federal minimum wage she has also said she would sign such a bill if it happened to land on her desk. I strongly suspect that is the case for a lot of progressive positions.
I would prefer Bernie Sanders even if he could get nothing done over Clinton who gets the wrong things done. She and Bill can get Republican things done that no Republican could get away with. Deregulation, Trade deals, mass incarceration, war upon war, Social Security privatization (thank you Monica Lewinski for coming along and distracting the Republicans from helping Bill do the deed), appointing Wall Street friendly Supreme Court Justices. Then there are the things she won’t do, like removing the Wall Street sycophants from her administration, or prosecuting Wall Street fraudsters, or massive infrastructure investment because she does not understand what it means for a country to be soveriegn in its own currency.
I just don;t understand why Hillary fans are blind to all the evil she will do.
I am confident that she will move the country forward and is more progressive than many give her credit for. Like I say, she will sign progressive legislation if delivered to her. She also understands that different times call for different policies. She will be at least as tough on WS as Sanders and I don’t know why you think she will appoint WS friendly Justices. She has talked a lot about some of the very things you mention AND has a record to back it up.
Which fortunately you will have the opportunity to do in a few places this year, and many more in 2018.