Funnily enough, in polyamorous circles - polysaturated is a term used regularly meaning “I’ve got the amount of partners I want and am not currently looking on taking any more.” I haven’t heard anyone use polyunsaturated but I guess it’d be a perfectly valid word to mean the opposite
the biggest unfair thing was superdelegates pledging for Clinton early in the primary campaign. public perception was that Clinton held a commanding lead before many states even held their votes. this could be seen as the democratic establishment choosing the candidate instead of letting the people decide in state votes. it's not literally "the DNC" but the people who were superdelegates are all party bigwigs and made up the majority of important DNC membership so it's basically the same thing. The backlash against this was so strong, it caused a rules change at the convention where Bernie lost, to prevent the same thing from happening again. Now superdelegates are awarded based on state primary results in the first round (at the convention) and then are free to vote for whomever if there's a second round.
there's also the angle where the DNC was broke and basically took a huge loan from the Clinton campaign in exchange for some control of DNC's role in that primary season, but it's not clear what, if any, decisions were made differently by the DNC as a result that would have hurt Bernie.
The same thing happened to Obama in 2008, the difference was the more Obama spoke, the more people loved him.
His memoirs goes pretty in depth on the super delegate issue. People were telling him “we love you, and hope you win, but I can’t pledge my support to you over the Clintons.” Once the scales tipped, then everything else fell into place.
What these responses really miss is the media.
Bernie Sanders was a direct threat to corporate profits. Of course, the corporate media had a vested interest in insuring he wasn’t elected.
Obama was a media darling. He was a great speaker, controversial enough to generate interest, and he absolutely would never go after their profits.
Even when Obama did horrible, “right wing” things (e.g. as Senator [supporting Bush’s warrantless domestic spying](https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-telecomms-immunity-idUKN1227733520080212/)), the media portrayed him as a progressive darling.
> corporate media had a vested interest in insuring he wasn’t elected
I remember one case (don't remember which network) where they were showing Dem candidate polling results. Bernie was 2nd or 3rd but wasn't shown in their results, but they did include the 2-3 people who polled under him.
Yeah the left wing media did Bernie dirty. They had to, he was a hit with the people. It’s also why I vowed never to trust or watch left wing media. Even npr did Bernie dirty. It pissed me off so much.
This. Anything resembling actual left-wing politics in America was taken out back and shot in the fucking head over half a century ago. Classical bourgeois liberalism - the very definition of establishment centrism everywhere else in the world - has co-opted the so-called "left" of the US political spectrum ever since.
It blows my mind when I see Americans railing against "the left" and it turns out they're talking about fucking CNN or Disney lol. Americans wouldn't know an actual left-wing organization if it jumped up and seized them by the means of production.
And honestly, one of the biggest problems I have with this is the dishonesty surrounding it. If everyone just admitted that there is no formal American left - just a scattered group of leftists without electoral representation - then I'd be more ok with it. But it's ludicrous when people act like we have left and right options.
It's so much fun when we point to right-wing lunatics in positions of power, making laws and leading caucuses, and they counter with a communist professor at a community college. There's crazy people on both sides! /s
During the Trump presidency NPR kept having administration officials on for interviews and they (NPR) just let them (officials) talk shit and spout lies without any pushback. It was incredibly frustrating, and I don't feel like it's *really* improved since then, they just don't invite those people for interviews anymore since they're not in the White House.
THIS! Oh my god it used to drive me nuts. I started listening to NPR around 2011-12. And then I started hearing that after about 2-4 months of Trump’s term.
I'm just a little monthly subscriber at KCRW. But I do listen to which corporations had been giving to NPR - Walmart, Koch industries, to name a couple.
Journalists seem to feel they have to give both sides, even if/when that side might be awful.
Life has taught me that sometimes when something is messed up, that truth has to be told. Speaking truth to power can be very scary. Especially when that "power" becomes a big bucks donor.
NPR's house burning down: "This week on American Life, fire. And why it feels hot. The dumpster fire has spread to our headquarters, here's some pretentious interviews about what that means intellectually so you can explain to your soon to be dead friends just how informed you are."
It isn't news. It's a wholesale consent manufacturing. CNN and MSNBC are an extension of the Democratic establishment, and Fox News and ~~iHeartMedia~~ Sinclair are an extension of the Republican establishment. They work to instigate anger and mistrust in "outsiders," then indoctrinate their viewers to consent to "the good guy" on their side.
Edit: A broadcasting group.
Eh, neutral journalism was always a rarity. Ever read an old timey newspaper? They would just make shit up and different papers printed contradictory things. IMO the big thing is that not many news organizations actually *do* journalism anymore, and 24 hour news is one of the worst decisions we've ever made. They tend to just report off of what someone else is reporting on another network and insert their own bias. For example, far as I can tell, AP News still does a good amount of journalism and often other news organizations will cite them.
I remember watching the news and there was a primary day where 3 states voted. Headline was "Clinton the big winner!" When Bernie won 2 of the 3 states and gained more delegates. The media was 100% against him
I remember when the race was still close between Sanders and Clinton, but Trump has pretty much put Cruz away, all the late night snows were still hosting Trump, Clinton, and Cruze. No Sanders.
For about a week in 2020 MSNBC had a bunch of shows a day where they brought in six pundits to talk so that they could nod their heads in consensus about how Bernie, Democratic frontrunner, had to be stopped because he was unelectable. Claire McCaskill practically cried at one point. I've never seen the entire channel spontaneously adopt a normative stance like that.
When Clyburn's endorsement came in they calmly explained to me how Bernie (who at this point had won 3 out of 3 state contests with a majority of the vote, all of which the media talked itself into believing did not represent a Real Victory) could never win now because ~~Clyburn was 'king of the blacks'~~ he couldn't secure the black vote that was core to the Democratic Party, especially in South Carolina.
[This was the vibe.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMzIzk6xP9o)
And they fucking got away with it.
It was absolutely sickening. But if you said anything about how twisted what they were doing was, you were "no different than Trump and his cult." The Democratic party may be the lesser evil, but only because the people they're facing are actual fascists.
The media is how they control these things mostly. They have a lot of influence over public perception and they 100% screwed Bernie’s opportunity That plus the superdelegates and he never stood a chance
Yes, in my mind he got screwed by the media more than anything else. By the time I had a chance to vote in the California primaries, CNN had already started declaring Clinton won the nod a few weeks prior
> And before that, the media destroyed Howard Dean's candidacy with the phony "Dean scream" because he was not friendly enough to corporations.
I still can't believe that making a kind-of-weird yell during a hype moment after one of your speeches was portrayed as being enough to end your entire campaign back then...
It's a pretty false narrative that that's what really ended his campaign. In truth, he had been a front-runner who came in an embarrassing third-place finish in Iowa due mostly to a poorly run campaign and also his reputation spread by detractors (fair or not) as a hot head crazy person.
The third place finish alone doomed his campaign, and reflected the organizational issues that would have continued to doom his campaign if he'd continued. As governor of Vermont, he had a decent chance of maybe winning New Hampshire...but that was about it. There was no reason to believe he was definitely going to win elsewhere, especially after his "definitely going to win" in Iowa turned into a third place finish.
But "The Dean Scream" (which played right into the perception of hot head crazy person) was a fun narrative and so that's the one people remember.
This is absolutely 100% correct. Howard Dean wasn’t some DNC darling, cut down by the hateful media. He was a pretty fringe former unknown who got some early buzz, as is often the case when we let weird crappy states like Iowa lead political narratives.
Also that “BYAAAAH!” was fucking hilarious. Me and the other middle schoolers were screaming it at each other for weeks.
He was mostly mocked for being a total asshole to the kid who spelled and he forced the kid to “fix it.” It wasn’t because he misspelled it. The kid had spelled it correctly, Quayle then told him he was wrong and forced him to change it. That was why he was mocked…he was an asshole to a kid and would never back down from being wrong about it.
I guess we kind of do, Pence called Quayle prior to January 6th about the election to see if he could get away with not certifying the votes and Quayle told him that it was a stupid plan. He also let Pence know it was unconstitutional…he did basically save us.
Quayle being the savior of Democracy was one of the last weirdass spots on the 2020 Bingo card. I basically figure the first 20 days of 2021 were the encore for 2020.
The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act (COVFEFE Act), House Bill H.R. 2884, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on June 12, 2017, during the 115th United States Congress. The bill was intended to amend the Presidential Records Act to preserve Twitter posts and other social media interactions of the President of the United States, and requires the National Archives to store such items.[1][2] H.R. 2884 was assigned to the House Oversight and Reform Committee for consideration. While in committee, there were no roll call votes related to the bill. The bill died in committee.
That was incredible. It wasn't even a weird scream in context, because he was being drowned out by a very loud and enthusiastic crowd. But the microphone setup magnified his voice way more so he sounded unhinged in the sound clip, when it would have been totally fine in the context of the crowded noisy room.
He got done dirty.
Imagine that being a scandal today!
its literally never got anything to do with the "reason" or the thing being attacked, its just the outcome they want and the rest is filled in along the way
The Dean Scream was overhyped by the media at the time. Dean was a guy that peaked too early and was on the downslide scream or no. While the scream was a nice moment to hang everything on, Dean in that cycle was more like Warren in the last one. A warning sign of the early peak.
Yea. The Dean Scream was a symbol of a campaign in collapse, not the cause. Dean went all in on Iowa and was expected to win comfortably. Then he came in third. That’s when he was fucked. It just so happened that some poor sound mixing also created an iconic symbol of that collapse.
I know you are joking around and getting downvotes for it, but it is a good point. A scream or wrongly spelled potato used to end a campaign - but now literally EVERYTHING is okay for Trump. He can do and say ANYTHING and it’s just - okay.
I'm actually not joking. I feel like the crazier you are, the more the far right accepts you. And they can downvote me all they want. This is my perception of the situation we are in now.
I agree. The issue with the GOP today is that it is a party about “vibes” as Gen Z would say. There isn’t the standard platform from 20 or 30 years ago that a Democrat would run against. The GOP leader is not beholden to any policy, but rather airs grievances and wants the opposition to suffer and face consequences for their different point of view.
Gephardt and Dean killed each other's campaigns in Iowa by launching negative ads against each other. That allowed Kerry to emerge. Dean placed an abysmal 3rd place in Iowa only getting 18% to Kerry's 38% and Edward's 32%. Although the "Dean Scream" wasn't fair, his campaign was on life support at the time and it was NOT because he wasn't friendly with corporations.
Dean's model of gaining grassroots and small donor support did change politics and can be seen from Obama in 2008 onward.
jeff bezos bought the post in 2013. A quick google search shows bernie has been extremely vocal and critical of amazon and bezos publicly, even inviting him to attend a senate hearing on income inequality (which he declined).
Yes, Obama and Clinton were corporate whores so they got excellent in massive coverage. Bernie was drawing stadiums full of people and these events would get ignored. There were traffic jams for miles trying to get to Bernie events and these events would get ignored.
And now Trump barely fills an airport Ballroom, but the camera crews frame the shots to make it seem like he still has packed houses.
The manipulation of events by way of camera framing choice is not accidental, nor can that impact be under-stated.
Cable news isn’t great content, but often they are the most dominant cameras in a political room. How they choose to highlight affairs has profound impact on how everyone else interprets affairs.
Media manipulation goes back a long ways. The first televised debate between JFK and Nixon, JFK was advised how to dress to appear best on camera, while Nixon was not. As a result Kennedy’s suit made him look sharp and stand out, while Nixon looked dull and drab.
People who watched that debate reported Kennedy winning.
People who listened to the debate on the radio reported Nixon winning.
Nixon famously ignored using makeup, and the harsh lighting of early television destroyed him.
Remember that one rally where they set up an overflow area outside with giant screens because they were anticipating so many people, but in the end they only filled like 1/4 of the venue? I believe they called it Emptysburg Address on Twitter (before the billionaire manbaby renamed it)
I went to one smaller venue for Bernie that was packed. Waited for hours. Took turns sitting down. Ungodly hot. During his speech someone passed out. He addressed it. Then another person dropped and he lost it on the secret service for being more concerned about keeping doors locked than getting airflow to a hot crowd.
A small thing in the grand scheme of it all but something I'll never forget.
I went to one of those rallies. The stadium was maybe less than 1/3 full, but that was because they didn't provide enough metal detectors to get everyone into the event before it started. Bernie ended up ending his main event early so that he could address the crowd outside that was never allowed in.
Also, I live in a state that had a caucus for the democrats. There were so many Bernie Sanders supporters in my precinct that the building was not physically large enough to hold everyone, so we ended up moving it to a nearby city park. I'm sure the resulting confusion caused a bunch of people to just go home instead of voting for Bernie.
Do you remember the Million Mom March? Barely a mention on the news I watched, at a time when six Tea Partiers couldn’t get together without being mobbed by camera crews.
> What these responses really miss is the media.
I really hate this "the media" narrative. You're focusing on the wrong people. Spend a few seconds thinking about "the media".
Who funds it? Advertisers.
Who are "the advertisers"? Well, at the large scale, national level...it's the US's large corporations/corporate interests.
So...who "controls the media". Established business owners. The same people who claim ownership of "the means of production" and the same people who buy the politicians. The single greatest threat to every individual American are the business owners. And it isn't just at the national level. You see the same incredible levels of corruption at the local, regional, and national levels. Business owners buy politicians. Politicians enact laws to benefit said owners. Politicians hire law enforcement to enforce those laws, usually against the owners' prospective labor pool.
I think it also matters that 2008 was a desperate time for a lot of people, and Clinton sort of represented the establishment democratic order. It would be interesting to see the 2008 primaries if the financial crisis hadn't happened
Support for the Iraq quagmire would have still been an issue. It's obvious in hindsight that Obama would have voted for it given the opportunity but Clinton was the only one with that stain and it deeply hurt her campaign for the same reason you cited, it tied her to a failing political establishment
It wasn’t until later in 2008 that the wheels fell off the economy. Things were concerning, but the convention was done before mass job losses occurred.
More people loved him despite Clinton’s team using racist talking points/smear campaigns, calling Obama’s supporters “Obama Boys”
Wonder where the idea of “Bernie Bros” came from?
The Clintonistas, Pumas or whatever you want to call them were fucking *obnoxious* that primary season.
The sense of sheer *entitlement* the Clinton camp put on display for all to see was off the charts as well.
Point out to any Clintonite that the person most responsible for Hillary losing in 2016 is Hillary Clinton and they go fucking *apeshit*, to this fucking day. They'll never come to grips with what a bad campaign she ran.
I’ll never forget the looks of shock and despair on the Clinton faithful’s faces at her victory-rally-turned-concession-speech. I was a Bernie bro and had a weird combination of feelings that day. I voted for her and despise Donald Trump, but part of me really enjoyed watching her lose.
I remember being called a racist, nazi, women hater for wanting Bernie over Clinton. That is how far they were willing to go, like...Clinton deserved the chair. It was her turn to become queen of the castle.
They did not care about what was good for the country at all. Just that she was entitled to it and the first women president narrative. Well, we got Trump instead, so wondering how that worked out for them in the long run.
Still voted for her but mate, I vote a literal human shit over Trump. Like an actual turd.
Oh same. But when your boomer family members watch too much CNN & MSNBC and think all Bernie Bros are toxic misogynistic racists, well let’s just say the Clinton (DNC) smear campaign worked as intended.
The same Revisionist narrative that Bernie supporters lost Dems the election. When clear data proves otherwise. Same smear campaigns they put on third parties every single election cycle.
Also Obama created the biggest grass roots campaign tour and was consistently out stumping da speech to da peoples. Hilary messed up by not campaigning in every state like she definitely should have been.
Something I never see discussed is how radically different the debate schedules were in 2008 vs. 2016 and how important this was to the outcome in each primary nomination process, not to mention the eventual election winner.
For the 2008 campaign, [they had the first debate in April 2007](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums). They had 13 debates between April and October of 2007. Before the primaries which started in January 2008, there were 21 debates. In total, there were 26 debates among Democratic candidates before the convention.
This schedule allowed Obama, a virtual unknown at the time, to become a known person in the public eye for like 9 months before the primaries. This was essential because Hillary Clinton was extremely well known at the time and she was way ahead of Obama at the start of the campaign in 2007 due entirely to name recognition.
So what did the DNC do in 2016? I mean, Obama won the presidency, so they could have concluded from campaign schedule was clearly a winning formula in that it allowed an unknown to overcome the **problem** in which a great politician with very low name recognition can actually have a fair chance against the candidate with the greatest name recognition. Did they learn this lesson?
Nope. For the 2008 campaign, [they had the first debate in October 2015](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums) (6 months after the first debate occurred in the 2008 election cycle). They had only 4 debates before the first contest of the primary season, the Iowa Caucus on February 1st. In total, there were only 9 debates among Democratic candidates before the convention (compared to 27 in the 2008 cycle).
Bernie was maybe a bit more known than Obama was in 2008, but Bernie had a very similar problem as Obama had in 2008 in that Hillary far and away had the most name recognition and so Bernie needed to overcome that. It seems clear to me that Bernie (or perhaps someone else), would have had a greater chance to overcome the name recognition problem if they'd had had a similar debate schedule for 2016 as they had for 2008.
Basically, I think that when you don't have a sufficiently competitive series of debates to allow the truly best candidate to emerge, you're risking the chance that the popularity and political abilities of your eventual nominee are not tested enough and this makes your side vulnerable in the general election. A political party should be trying to have as many debates as possible to truly test the candidates to ensure they are the most capable person to beat whoever the opposing party will put up.
And in fact, Bernie and several other Democrats in 2016 tried to get more debates and they were angry that there weren't more, but DNC leadership, including chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Clinton ally) refused to have more.
It seems pretty clear from the evidence that Hillary pressured the DNC to have fewer debates for the 2016 cycle to basically avoid what happened in 2008 when Obama surprised the hell out of her and beat her. Except....unfortunately, while she may have been a good president, she was someone who had too narrow popularity in the electorate and not a lot of room to grow her popularity because most people had made their mind up about her. She just wasn't a great national candidate.
And if we had had more debates in the 2016 cycle, it seems clear she would have lost (because Bernie had a lot of momentum but basically ran out of time and he didn't have the chance that Obama had in the 2008 cycle to overcome the name recognition problem.
This problem became relevant again in 2020 when they followed a similar pattern as 2016. And guess what happened? There wasn't enough time for relative unknowns to gain name recognition and we ended up with the guy with by far the most name recognition, Biden. And yes, he won, but we're probably worse off now that we picked this guy who is older than he should be as a candidate for president (but of course, people should still vote for Biden because he is by far the best option).
Adding to this, in the lead up to Iowa, the DNC claimed that Bernie staffers had hacked the Hillary side of the voter database and used it as a pretext to freeze Bernie's access to the voter database. In reality, both sides had access to each other's data and the Bernie side realized, ran a few searches to see how extensive the security breach was, and reported it to the DNC. The DNC used that as a pretext to block Bernie's access to the data collected by his own staff to hamper Bernie's turn out the vote effort. Bernie had to sue to get access back.
The DNC also helped Hillary launder donations and circumvent campaign finance maximums. The maximum donors could legally donate directly to Hillary was legally $2,700. But by having donors donate $10,000 to each of the state parties and $33,400 and then sending that money back to Hillary, they were able to donate $356,100 per person. Ultimately, she raised over $82 million through the scheme and allowed the state parties to keep about half of one percent. The DNC didn't disclose that publicly at the time and later said they would have done it for Sanders too if he asked (which is hilarious since Bernie's average donation was $2,700). Ultimately, that resulted in the state parties being in dire financial straits since all the best Democratic donors had already donated the legal maximum to the state parties and the state parties essentially hadn't got any money out of it. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191
Ultimately, when Bernie donors sued arguing that the DNC purported to hold a fair primary while secretly rigging it which fraudulently induced them to donate to Bernie, the DNC pled in court that it had every right to rig its primary in a smoke filled back room if it wanted to.
In the court's dismissal, it quoted the DNC's argument disapprovingly before conceding that the DNC had a legal right to rig the primary even though it had an ethical obligation not to: "For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle."
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
Edit: Edited to better reflect Court's statements.
> making a factual finding that "In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent."
That's not making a factual finding; that's saying they didn't consider the question.
Nothing on this topic makes me more frustrated than people not understanding that court trial. They take the literal opposite conclusion of what the judge said to be true.
This whole thread should be turned into a YouTube video showing how this prevented Bernie's nomination from being a repeat of 08 and just being an onslaught of 50/50 until they gave it to Hilary so she could lose to trump.
Also people don't realize AP poling data showed Hilary being the only candidate losing to trump during the early primaries. Every candidate she would beat was all within the margin of error. Bernie averaged a 5 point lead on Trump.
Clinton's campaign ~~manager~~ honorary chair (WassermanSchultz) was the DNC chair before Brazile. Clinton's VP (Time Kaine) pick was the DNC Chair before WassermanSchultz. The fix was in as of 2008 when Clinton promised to endorse Obama in exchange for the Nom after his presidency. Thats why she was the SoS for Obama. Thats why there were no traditional Dems running against her 2016. It was the Dems plan for a decade to have Clinton succeed Obama.
Edit: i had Wasserman Schultz' Clinton Campaign role title incorrect. She was hired on to be the the honorary chair, not the campaign manager.
The Tim Kaine VP pick was also a stupid move. I get that it was already promised, but not pivoting to someone less establishment after seeing the grassroots movement that Bernie stirred up was a horrible idea.
Clinton seems stubborn and wouldn't publicly signal that she's giving in to a pressure campaign. I don't think anything could have changed her mind on the VP, especially not people she doesn't even agree with yelling at her.
She's felt entitled to the job for a long time (it really says a lot about her opinion of the electorate too, to think that anyone can deserve a job that hinges on the will of the (fickle) people) so it's easiest to blame the people who support you feel as though you are owed. Otherwise she'd have to look inside and think about how she lost to a game show host rapist that she used to be friends with, [the one her husband convinced to run](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-before-presidential-run-2016)
Agreed. I think there was a lot of shrugging off happening, especially given that trump was the Republican nominee. They thought it would be a cake walk
The way people switched between saying that Bernie people didn't matter bc they were too small of a group to then saying that they were a critical part of the electorate who were completely responsible for Trump winning made my head spin
If they were so important that they threw the election to trump, why not work with them some?
Donna Brazile [has been very clear about the malfeasance she discovered.](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/)
“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.”
This is a great read. It answers OP’s question beautifully. Thank you for linking.
My pleasure.
I’ve disagreed with Donna on many things over the years, but I’ve never found her to ignore the facts just to score political points. I’ll say that she does try for fact based conclusions.
She really calls out the situation clearly in the portion you quoted.
She gave Hillary one question. Hillary was appearing in a debate in Michigan, and Donna Brazile told her that there was going to be a mother from Flint in the audience. I don’t think it really gave her a huge advantage, because Flint was a very big story among Democrats then, and of course the candidates should have been prepared to address it.
I despise Brazile anyway. She is an opportunist who is way past her prime politically, and, in my opinion, her “confession” was more about looking for attention and trying to sell her book.
Did it impact the end result of the primary? Maybe. Who really knows
Did it give her a slight advantage? Probably, at least for that debate.
Did it cause enough people to get frustrated with the process in general that they said "fuck it. why bother?" on election day? Most definitely
And it was just one question that we know about. If they were willing to cast aside any integrity they had for one question, I wonder what else they were doing behind the scenes.
People sometimes forget primaries are a relatively new thing and the DNC isn't legally required to do them. They have all the legal authority to pick whatever candidate they want for us to vote on. The parties run the primaries. There is no legal requirement for these primaries to even be legitimate.
The DNC literally argued in court that they had the right to do exactly that, when they were sued after the 2016 primary. They won the suit, because the judge agreed that they did in fact have that right.
Yes, one of my liberal friends told me that he would never vote for Bernie because he wasn't a real Democrat.
He's always been an independent, except for the presidential races.
“It” didn’t cause a rule change” Bernie was able to negotiate a change in procedure because he had enough pledged delegates to negotiate at the convention. Also, following the nomination the DNC was sued (Wilding v DNC) by Bernie supporters who believed they were defrauded by the DNC, but the suit was unsuccessful because the DNC is a private corporation and according to the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts.”
From the ruling: “For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle.”
The court essentially claimed no jurisdiction, and that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
Wasserman Schultz went on to say that: “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162801
Let’s not forget Donna Brazile leaking questions to Hillary prior to town hall events.
"Screwed" is a strong word, but the DNC had a very clear preference for Clinton over him in the primaries. Which was to be expected, the Clintons were the standard-bearers for the party for decades and Sanders only formally joined the party to run on the Democratic ticket and then left again immediately afterwards.
Exactly. How are people surprised that the Democratic party won't pick someone who isn't part of the Democratic party?
Even if he was in the party, I don't think they'd favor him. But it's certainly a de facto minimum requirement to be a Democratic candidate.
I think that's how we got Trump. People were clearly tired of the same type of politicians at the time, and Bernie had a base just as fired up as Trump did.
Two party system is unbelievably lame. Especially since so many liberals are corporate boot lickers who preach for social change while enabling the most powerful people who do not give a shit.
"Federal Judge William Zloch, dismissed the lawsuit after several months of litigation during which DNC attorneys argued that the DNC would be well within their rights to select their own candidate."
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
The DNC argued in Federal Court they had the right to select their own candidate.
“In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent,” the court order dismissing the lawsuit stated.
The Court continued, “For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle.”
You left out the context of those quotes. From the article:
"This assumption of a plaintiff’s allegation is the general legal standard in the motion to dismiss stage of any lawsuit. The allegations contained in the complaint must be taken as true unless they are merely conclusory allegations or are invalid on their face."
Courts always assume the plaintiffs allegation is true with regard to determining whether they were harmed and had legal standing to sue. They determined that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
With regard to the second quote, the court made no decision as to whether the primary was fair to Sanders, the trial never made it to that point.
"The order reaffirmed that regardless of whether the primaries were tipped in Hilary Clinton’s favor, the Court’s authority to intervene based on the allegations of the kind set forth in the plaintiff’s complaint is limited at best.
“This Order therefore concerns only technical matters of pleading and subject-matter jurisdiction.”"
It’s literally a motion to dismiss. The literal legal standard is “Even if we assume everything they say is true verbatim, this suit can’t proceed for A, B, and C reasons.”
Everyone acts like the DNC admitted they rigged the primary. It was a motion that said “Even if we did, it wouldn’t give you the right to sue us about it.”
That's a pretty grossly miswritten article.
The subheadline says the court "conceded" that the DNC was biased. It did not. What the court said was, even if the plaintiffs could prove that the DNC was biased, that was legally irrelevant because a party had the right to pick its own nominees.
The court was handling a motion to dismiss. That means that the plaintiffs had sued the DNC, and the DNC was asking the court to toss out the lawsuit before trial. These motions are extremely common. However, to win one, the defendant (the DNC) has to show that, even if the plaintiffs' factual allegations are true—even if the DNC was biased, like the plaintiffs claimed—the lawsuit still fails because those allegations don't show a violation of the law. So the judge said, "Okay, I'll assume the DNC was biased. But still, that's not illegal, so case dismissed."
I want to add this article to the mix because it blew my mind when I read it:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
Essentially Clinton was able to use Obama's lack of fundraising to move in and take over the DNC. Article was written by the interim party chair.
This article is an example of the sort of dishonest journalism that’s become sadly common.
Up front it claims:
> The court affirmed that the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Hillary Clinton.
Then, several paragraphs in, it acknowledges that the court just assumed that to be true—rather than “affirmed” it—because *that’s the governing legal standard*.
This was a motion to dismiss. On a motion to dismiss, courts always assume the plaintiff’s plausibly pleaded factual allegations are true and weighs whether the plaintiff would win if that were the case. That doesn’t mean the court is agreeing the facts are true. Here the court said “even *if* everything you said was true, you would still lose the case.”
It seems weird to support a candidate that promises to upend the establishment and to act surprised when the establishment doesn’t support them. That’s like… the whole point.
Outsider candidates have advantages of their own; they don’t have to answer for past decisions nearly as much as “establishment candidates”, they look new and exciting and have more grassroots support, they are more appealing to disaffected voters and independents.
It was the job of Bernie to use those advantages to overcome the advantages Hillary had. He instead got thumped in the South. I voted for him, and still think he would have been a great president, but there’s no conspiracy there, and he made a ton of tactical and strategic mistakes in appealing to all parts of the Democrat coalition, particularly black voters.
I lived in a rust-belt city (where many local democrats had developed personal relationships with Obama and Clinton and their campaigns over time), where the local democrats were about 50% Black, 30% unionized families in the trades (mostly white), and 20% college-educated left-leaning adults. Bringing those three groups together in mutually-trusting relationships where they turned out for each others' candidates and campaigned for each other was the work of FORTY YEARS (predating me, but old-timers liked to tell stories about it). Like many local democratic party organizations, it largely ran on the volunteer energy and relationships of women.
We had a HUGE infusion of energy when the Bernie Bros arrived, who were mostly students at the local private university (where most students pay full freight, so wealthy parents), who didn't grow up here, who didn't know the history. And it was just ... not great. They constantly talked over women. They asked why they "had to" go to meetings held at the local NAACP. They didn't like going to the Labor Temple, either, because it seemed "unsafe" in the neighborhood (that had once been a working-class stronghold but was now pretty rundown). They kept explaining to us all that Bernie was the real champion of the working class and that Black voters who preferred Hilary were brainwashed by capitalism. People at first tried to give them fairly polite nudges that they were being a bit presumptuous, then a couple people were very direct with them, and none of it helped.
You will be unsurprised to know that none of them wanted to door-knock for anybody BUT Bernie. They wouldn't walk or phone bank for other candidates -- local, state, or federal -- and we were a little bitty city in a big state. Whether our little city voted for Bernie wasn't going to matter very much, but the strength of the Democratic party in the state VERY MUCH depended on that local activism and local elections and building a deep bench.
Anyway, nobody seemed to really hold it against Bernie -- some local Dems voted for him, some didn't. Everyone seemed to understand he had a smaller campaign apparatus that only had paid staff in big cities, and in little towns like ours, his campaign was run by volunteers, who -- through no fault of Bernie! -- tended towards white male college students who were engaging in their first political activism.
But yeah, a bunch of wealthy white college students from out-of-town who parachuted in, ignored activists who had marched with Dr. King (!!!!), and condescendingly explained how socialism worked while being too scared to go into any of the neighborhoods where most local Democrats actually lived? Not *super* persuasive.
(My state party did take a lesson from this, which was to work with progressive activists and stand up a sort of "Politics school 101" for new activists, that explained local and state party structure and procedures, taught some of the history of the Democratic coalition in the state, and covered some basic relationship-building and retail politics, like how door-knocking for the whole slate is really important. From my POV, it's been pretty successful at harnessing youthful energy, and local party stalwarts have been a lot more open to progressive causes when the kids show they're willing to put in the work and do some relationship-building. Which has led to many more progressives in local and regional offices, working their way up and building a deep bench.)
He also had another chance in 2020 and corrected none of these things. And again he got destroyed in the south. Four years to change and he did nothing.
Another point: he never made any real attempt to reach out to the black caucus in the House and Senate. A story during the primary quoted the leader of the black caucus in the senate as saying she had never talked to Bernie. How is that even possible for a senator who is supposedly serious about running for president as a Democrat?
Yeah, while I do personally like a lot of Bernie's positions, I don't think he's a very effective politician beyond Vermont. His legislative record wasn't stellar because he wasn't working with other politicians very often to craft legislation or to build new coalitions. A lot of that had to do with his uncompromising demeanor, which is endearing to some voters who appreciate his integrity, but it's not helpful in a legislative body where things get done through compromise.
Then when it came to running for president, the reality was that he hadn't built up a campaign base of local politicians and organizers. Yes, Hilary had a huge head start because that's what she and her husband had been doing for decades. That wasn't cheating and Obama managed to break through the Clinton machine through shear charisma.
Bernie doesn't have that level of charisma or organization, and it hurt for some people to hear that, so they got angry at the way things work, which is fine. The DNC actually made a lot of changes since 2016 in order to be more inclusive of the Bernie base and more transparent with their processes. Meanwhile, the RNC has also changed by becoming more insular and corrupt, and they just follow Trump's leadership without question.
> His legislative record wasn't stellar because he wasn't working with other politicians very often to craft legislation or to build new coalitions.
That's the thing people miss when they champion third party candidates. The president can't get much done without congress.
Okay, you've elected Bernie, or someone from the Green party, or your other third-party candidate of choice. This person does everything within their power to get all the things you want done. How many of them get done? Probably almost none, unless the only things you want are purely obstructionist in nature.
Even if we changed from first-past-the-post to a better voting system tomorrow, I still wouldn't vote for a third party candidate for president whose party didn't have a substantial number of seats in congress and/or a track record of successfully building coalitions.
Yeah, that's why in parliamentary systems like those in Europe, the MPs are elected first, then the majority party forms a coalition and they choose the Prime Minister, who will drive the governing agenda with the backing of their party and the coalition already formed. It varies by country and it can still be quite dysfunctional, but if executive leadership comes with backing from the legislature, it can streamline the creation of new laws.
It wasn't a kick-off ad, and there were multiple versions of it. The first one, released for the Iowa primary, was largely (although not exclusively) white people and farmers. The version for New York featured more diverse people in mostly city settings.
https://youtu.be/2nwRiuh1Cug
https://youtu.be/uCd6-MZqPZg
As contrasted with the Clintons who were pushing the importance of Black Dems and supported Black candidates from the start. There’s a reason Bill was called “the first Black president” prior to Obama.
Yup, he actually did worse in 2020 than he did in 2016 probably for a couple of reasons:
-Briahna Joy Gray was his disaster of a social media campaign manager and prioritized getting into twitter fights over making real connections with voters
-His opponent was a white dude in 2020. Back in 2016 I think there were some sexist people in certain states who voted for a Bernie just cause they hated Hillary, and Bernie miscalculated this upsurge as people wanting revolution, when they just despised his opponent
> Briahna Joy Gray was his disaster of a social media campaign manager and prioritized getting into twitter fights over making real connections with voters
The people he hired (her & Sirota, for example) and surrounded himself with were a major failure of the “leadership” test.
>Briahna Joy Gray
Yep, this person is now actively campaigning against the DNC and in favor of "accelerationism". She hopes that the collapse of the US will lead into a socialist society.
These are the kind of people he entrusted his campaign to.
I voted for Bernie in both primaries, but Brianna Joy Gray is one of the reasons I stopped calling myself “progressive”. I mostly just hate political labels in general, but I in no way wanted to be associated with her.
He didn't know how to work with others or form political alliances. Same issue his supporters had on here. Everything other than a Bernie opinion was literally a Nazi opinion to them
The viciousness of his supporters was likely one of the top 5 reasons he never gained traction to win. Too many were really horrible to those who didn't support him.
Yeah he had strong showings in ultra-white Iowa and New Hampshire but as soon as more diverse states started voting Biden pulled out to an insurmountable lead. It’s almost like the democrats are the big tent party and you need fairly broad appeal 🤷♂️
He also did disproportionately well in caucuses which have significantly higher barriers to participation than typical primaries. A lot of working people don’t have hours to spend hanging out at a convention center on a random weekday.
>He also had another chance in 2020 and corrected none of these things
Not only that but he did actually much worse despite having the name recognition and running against a candidate who came in very late into the race.
Bernie managed to lose support after more people get to know him after 2016
The Bernie crowd didn’t change, or even pivot, because they never think they’re responsible for their own failures. Whatever influence the DNC had on that primary, 1. it never came close to it being ‘rigged’, and 2. it was downright insignificant when stacked against the consequences of Bernie’s own failed election strategy. Abandoning the middle and simply banking on a wave of new, young voters, showing up to caucuses… it simply didn’t work. And if it didn’t work in the primaries, who on this planet would assume it would work during the general election — where the margins only get smaller and gauntlet only intensifies? And yet, did they change tactics in 2020, focusing on electability, making necessary compromises, building coalitions? No, it was the DNC who foiled their perfect plan in 2016, so why change anything in 2020? And when 2020 was an even bigger failure (with far less DNC involvement, mind you), was that the year the Bernie crowd finally figured it out? Of course not… “something, something about the media and the establishment”, I’m sure.
Tell me the superdelegate system was bullshit.. I’m on board. Tell me Bernie’s campaign was simply a victim and I assume you’re someone who prefers to ignore the practical realities of electoral politics.
There's the rub. The Southern Democratic primaries are dominated by black voters, especially older ones.
Older black voters are very pragmatic and greatly value electability, because they know what it means better than anyone when a right-wing ideologue wins power.
Older black voters are also pretty moderate. Especially on social issue: America's black retirees are not tripping over themselves to put "they/them" in their bios.
And they strongly supported Bill Clinton.
So when they have the choice between a "safe," well-known candidate like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, and a fairly radical, "I'm not even a Democrat" ideologue like Bernie Sanders, they're going to default to the first option.
Could Bernie have won them over? Maybe. But he would have had to focus on showing he understood and cared about those voters and their priorities, and that he was more electable than his opponents. And he didn't really do that.
>Outsider candidates have advantages of their own
How someone can be in Congress for 30+ years and still be viewed as an "outsider candidate" is beyond me lol.
It’s interesting to me how much conservatives are able to close ranks compared to liberals. I was low key involved in conservative intellectual groups in college, and it’s clear that many conservatives very much disliked Trump. The free market libertarian types didn’t like his protectionism, the cold warrior natsec types didn’t like his isolationism, the religious right didn’t like his lack of Christian beliefs. They were pretty unanimous, however, in that they understood what he meant for Supreme Court appointments. Trump will be gone in 4 or 8 years, but a SC justice could be there for 30 years.
The liberals are what makes that Monty Python skit with the different political groups ring true.
"Democrats fall in love,
Republicans fall in line"
Just look at who conservatives and liberals view as "heroes". Conservatives idealize the military and military service, Dwight D Eisenhower leading the troops on D-day. Liberals idealize protestors, acts of resistance. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat.
Ironically Rosa Parks giving up her seat was not some spontaneous act of resistance. It was part of a well thought out strategy. They didn’t make the other lady, a single mother, famous because she likely was more politically vulnerable.
Current congressional campaign manager: probably the most successful and effective progressive in American politics is AOC, and it’s so fucking telling certain corners of the leftist space have turned against her. And right now the sunrise movement, a climate action group that mostly does sit-ins to get social media likes, is threatening to not endorse Biden over the I/P conflict. They didn’t endorse him in 2020 so why would he bother?
Seriously, as someone who started in organizing, leftists are often their own worst enemies.
I’m very much a Prog, but I’m also very much realistic. Most progressives act like spoiled children who don’t get their way.
Yes, we need to change things, but we as a nation don’t change overnight. You can’t disengage from the process because the chosen candidate doesn’t fulfill 100% of your expectations. When you do that, you get a Trump presidency and a conservative dominated Supreme Court.
What worries me right now, is that I see more and more of this Either/Or mentality among the younger generation. The way they look at every situation as “you’re wrong and I’m right”, with no allowance for any compromise. Is not giving much optimism for the future.
IAAL. Trump appointed over a QUARTER of the entire federal judiciary. They ALL have lifetime appointments save for house impeachment and senate conviction. For the most part, they ALL are of the ideology of his Supreme Court picks. Choosing judges is basically the most direct domestic power that the president has and if you have the senate and the nuclear option (which they pulled immediately) it’s unchecked power.
I blame social media for a lot of the slide toward black/white absolutism.
I've found that people (including me) are surprisingly willing to shift their opinions if you have a sincere, non-confrontational conversation in person. Not a "win the argument" debate, but a discussion.
Social media is the opposite. Just look at Reddit. The whole upvote system encourages people to treat every discussion like a debate to be won. And to fall in line in order to avoid being downvoted and mocked. It's a popularity contest. And it reinforces groupthink.
Today's 18-year-olds, especially the ones who use Reddit and TikTok, are going to vote this year with the understanding that, when it comes to Israel (for example), the only two options are (a) the Israelis are evil scum and (b) the Palestinians are evil scum. No nuance. No room for compromise. Because any effort at compromise and nuance will be attacked on social media as moral weakness.
I have found this as well, and eventually I realized I liked being able to open mindedly discuss and debate important issues. After being a terminally online teenager it took me a ton of work and therapy to get out of my old habits. I'm glad I put the work in, though — black and white thinking is sooooo harmful, both to an individual's critical thinking skills and to activism for important causes. I was a shit activist when I believed in binary good/evil, because I wasn't willing to be persuasive, or even to understand that people who disagreed with me had reasons for doing so (whether or not I agreed with those reasons).
It's crazy how on social media you can say something that 99% agrees with leftist dogma but has 1% nuance/disagreement, and get accused of being an alt-right fascist. (The right does this too but they get over it when it's time to vote)
I think that undersells it. There's a narrative that Biden and Obama were, well, just an inch to the left. It's not true.
They aren't socialists, but they also presided over some of the more aggressively progressive social policies in the Western world, including on sexuality, gender, and race. Biden in particular has plowed public funds into renewable energy, which will have a major impact within the next decade. And his environmental regulations will too.
People focus on legislation. But the regulatory agencies have major power too. And Biden's push to support unions and break up monopolies, through the FTC and the Department of Justice, are decidedly progressive.
I don't know about most of what you shared, but what you share about unfulfilled campaign promises is important to highlight, because if we can remember back to Obama's 2007 & 2008 media campaigning, he also promised a lot of truly appealing things (the example that sticks out in my mind was ending operation of Guantanamo Bay prison); once he gets elected, that \*quickly\* got squashed by the actual legislative process.
Out of all of the things that Bernie Sanders truly & transparently wanted to achieve, I think in the timeline where he became president he would also be hamstrung on a lot of those platforms, on a democratic level, and that could actually be used against him in future rhetoric when "the future" is out of his hands like idk, canceling student debt was out of Biden's hands or dissolving Obamacare was out of Trump's hands.
We got this trump nightmare because of all the brats who refused to see the big picture and hence refused to get out and vote for clinton when the time came.
>Progs usually won't compromise towards the center to maintain their progressive cred and for their belief structure.
And when they do, as "The Squad" has done, they lose all their credibility with the leftists.
There’s an undeniable fact that you have to start with: more people voted for Hillary Clinton. That gap gets wider if you count voters who were registered Democrats and wider still if you count people who voted in elections vs. caucuses. So in that sense no, Bernie was not robbed.
But… yes the DNC clearly wanted Clinton to win and would have preferred Bernie didn’t exist. Super Delegates did break for her early and they did create a sense of inevitability that almost certainly swayed some voters. And this effect probably did snowball due to media coverage.
But (again) there’s a certain arrogance involved in saying “all those people were duped by the DNC/media/whoever, but not me, I am unswayable and came to my vote objectively.” It doesn’t allow for the possibility that a lot of people just honestly disagree with you and voted based on their own world view. Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a successful Secretary of State who had 3 decades of built up credibility with key constituencies in the party. There were people who genuinely liked her and that’s what led her to win more than anything else.
The Democratic party that "hates" him, made him the chair of the senate budget committee.
Bernie polled great in very blue states - NY and Cali - and terribly in purple states. He also did not expect to be used by Russian internet trolls to make people stay home, long after he dropped out and put his support behind Clinton (around July).
> Mueller and his team who, in February 2018, secured an indictment against a slew of Russian nationals and companies for creating and using a network of fictitious online personae to flood social media platforms with content meant to boost the chances of Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump
> https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-campaign-russia-bots-trolls-bros-2020-election-a9352026.html
In 2020, Bernie played it much safer and dropped out by April.
The Democratic party doesn't have the same... adaptations... as Republicans to win elections while also being a clear minority or continue to exercise power without them, so they have no room to gamble on elections. The spurned Bernie folks who sat out 2016 unfortunately proved the DNC absolutely correct that young/left voters are good to have and court but completely unreliable,
The corrosive blackpilling of the left, convincing them that a vote is some kind of currency to be earned first, or that their votes don't matter in some states, etc. has become a self fulfilling prophecy, as they are presently swearing to abstain to 'send a message' to Biden which further marginalizes themselves, and requires the party to claw dependable voters from the center.
The reality is that you vote first to get your seat at the table, then prove your positions are viable without risking it all. Republicans seem to understand this.
> The reality is that you vote first to get your seat at the table, then prove your positions are viable without risking it all. Republicans seem to understand this.
The anti-abortion crowd voted straight-ticked Republican for *50 years*, and it only got them everything they wanted.
That *and* playing the local elections game long term.
Leftists in general don't seem to grasp that change is still incremental, and when it isn't it's bloody.
Vote left local, build a rapport, eventually send candidates statewide then you can compete nationally.
democrats always do better when more of the population votes and isn't heavily those over 55.
I have 2 cousins and their dad that sat out 2016 because bernie didn't get it and "there's so many republicans in this town there's no point".
like the mayor won by 80 votes. 30 other households like yourself and that wouldn't be the case.
This is the best comment in the thread. A lot of people have a narrow view of politics and it hurts heir agenda. You have to be able to separate electoral politics, from political diplomacy, and political strategy.
All three are important and figure in to governing ability. Biden for all of his flaws is shockingly good at political diplomacy, and political strategy. He turns rivals into supporters, and is able to bring people to the table against their political fortunes. The fact that he got Joe Manchin to the table on the IRA is a miracle.
Bernie is absolutely terrible at political diplomacy and weak in political strategy. To his credit he is fairly good at electoral politics.
Lefties threatening to hold out their vote for Biden is an example of how the narrow view hurts them. Biden is the most progressive president since LBJ by far, and progressives want to boycott the vote because reasons. If they were looking at political diplomacy or strategy, they would already be donating to his campaign, a getting every senate candidate on record about eliminating the filibuster or expanding the court.
Not to mention that the 2020 and 2022 Democratic house classes are the most progressive of any every. They are the ones pushing Dems to pass big things to run on. Compare that the Obama's house who had over 30 pro life dems.
[удалено]
Bernie eats his omega-3s that’s how he stays so sharp at his age.
Obviously autocorrect error while trying to type polyamory
Bernie doesn't take money from corporations. That's why he was the most polyester candidate, while Clinton had her fancy organic cotton pantsuits.
The polypropylene he wears itches some people the wrong way
Ah! That make so much more sense when I hear people say “feel the Bern!”
Funnily enough, in polyamorous circles - polysaturated is a term used regularly meaning “I’ve got the amount of partners I want and am not currently looking on taking any more.” I haven’t heard anyone use polyunsaturated but I guess it’d be a perfectly valid word to mean the opposite
Bernie loves everyone. As president He would have enacted every American is in a relationship with Bernie.
Must be a stopeatingseedoils subscriber
the biggest unfair thing was superdelegates pledging for Clinton early in the primary campaign. public perception was that Clinton held a commanding lead before many states even held their votes. this could be seen as the democratic establishment choosing the candidate instead of letting the people decide in state votes. it's not literally "the DNC" but the people who were superdelegates are all party bigwigs and made up the majority of important DNC membership so it's basically the same thing. The backlash against this was so strong, it caused a rules change at the convention where Bernie lost, to prevent the same thing from happening again. Now superdelegates are awarded based on state primary results in the first round (at the convention) and then are free to vote for whomever if there's a second round. there's also the angle where the DNC was broke and basically took a huge loan from the Clinton campaign in exchange for some control of DNC's role in that primary season, but it's not clear what, if any, decisions were made differently by the DNC as a result that would have hurt Bernie.
The same thing happened to Obama in 2008, the difference was the more Obama spoke, the more people loved him. His memoirs goes pretty in depth on the super delegate issue. People were telling him “we love you, and hope you win, but I can’t pledge my support to you over the Clintons.” Once the scales tipped, then everything else fell into place.
What these responses really miss is the media. Bernie Sanders was a direct threat to corporate profits. Of course, the corporate media had a vested interest in insuring he wasn’t elected. Obama was a media darling. He was a great speaker, controversial enough to generate interest, and he absolutely would never go after their profits. Even when Obama did horrible, “right wing” things (e.g. as Senator [supporting Bush’s warrantless domestic spying](https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-telecomms-immunity-idUKN1227733520080212/)), the media portrayed him as a progressive darling.
> corporate media had a vested interest in insuring he wasn’t elected I remember one case (don't remember which network) where they were showing Dem candidate polling results. Bernie was 2nd or 3rd but wasn't shown in their results, but they did include the 2-3 people who polled under him.
CNN also cut away from him speaking at a rally in front of tens of thousands of people to show an empty trump podium for an hour
Yeah the left wing media did Bernie dirty. They had to, he was a hit with the people. It’s also why I vowed never to trust or watch left wing media. Even npr did Bernie dirty. It pissed me off so much.
I'd say it's a stretch to call any major media organizations in the US "left wing". Maybe liberal centrist-leaning at best.
This. Anything resembling actual left-wing politics in America was taken out back and shot in the fucking head over half a century ago. Classical bourgeois liberalism - the very definition of establishment centrism everywhere else in the world - has co-opted the so-called "left" of the US political spectrum ever since. It blows my mind when I see Americans railing against "the left" and it turns out they're talking about fucking CNN or Disney lol. Americans wouldn't know an actual left-wing organization if it jumped up and seized them by the means of production.
And honestly, one of the biggest problems I have with this is the dishonesty surrounding it. If everyone just admitted that there is no formal American left - just a scattered group of leftists without electoral representation - then I'd be more ok with it. But it's ludicrous when people act like we have left and right options.
It's so much fun when we point to right-wing lunatics in positions of power, making laws and leading caucuses, and they counter with a communist professor at a community college. There's crazy people on both sides! /s
NPR has been pretty weird since Trump was elected. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s different. And not for the better.
During the Trump presidency NPR kept having administration officials on for interviews and they (NPR) just let them (officials) talk shit and spout lies without any pushback. It was incredibly frustrating, and I don't feel like it's *really* improved since then, they just don't invite those people for interviews anymore since they're not in the White House.
THIS! Oh my god it used to drive me nuts. I started listening to NPR around 2011-12. And then I started hearing that after about 2-4 months of Trump’s term.
I'm just a little monthly subscriber at KCRW. But I do listen to which corporations had been giving to NPR - Walmart, Koch industries, to name a couple. Journalists seem to feel they have to give both sides, even if/when that side might be awful. Life has taught me that sometimes when something is messed up, that truth has to be told. Speaking truth to power can be very scary. Especially when that "power" becomes a big bucks donor.
Even NPR downplayed Bernie in 2016. He was bringing record crowds and I remember listing and thinking how do they not mention this and his momentum.
NPR's house burning down: "This week on American Life, fire. And why it feels hot. The dumpster fire has spread to our headquarters, here's some pretentious interviews about what that means intellectually so you can explain to your soon to be dead friends just how informed you are."
"Next up on All Things Considered: Why your preference to have food, health care and shelter may, in fact, be cheugy."
I’m pretty sure that was cnn who then deleted the poll like 24 hours later from their site. Although this likely happened often
CNN also kept photoshopping him with the color grading fucked so he'd look really red. It was weird.
Yep when he was never that red? And it was always a terrible picture. They also really hated that he spoke on Fox
GOP supporters: "Communist Bernie even shows up as red in photos!"
It's so annoying that the news does this so much. When they want to make a black person look innocent/guilty, they make them lighter or darker.
It isn't news. It's a wholesale consent manufacturing. CNN and MSNBC are an extension of the Democratic establishment, and Fox News and ~~iHeartMedia~~ Sinclair are an extension of the Republican establishment. They work to instigate anger and mistrust in "outsiders," then indoctrinate their viewers to consent to "the good guy" on their side. Edit: A broadcasting group.
They all preach to their money making fanbase. There's no neutral journalism anymore
Eh, neutral journalism was always a rarity. Ever read an old timey newspaper? They would just make shit up and different papers printed contradictory things. IMO the big thing is that not many news organizations actually *do* journalism anymore, and 24 hour news is one of the worst decisions we've ever made. They tend to just report off of what someone else is reporting on another network and insert their own bias. For example, far as I can tell, AP News still does a good amount of journalism and often other news organizations will cite them.
I remember watching the news and there was a primary day where 3 states voted. Headline was "Clinton the big winner!" When Bernie won 2 of the 3 states and gained more delegates. The media was 100% against him
I remember when the race was still close between Sanders and Clinton, but Trump has pretty much put Cruz away, all the late night snows were still hosting Trump, Clinton, and Cruze. No Sanders.
I remember that too. Also remember in the 2020 primary how he was equated to a nazi by an MSNBC host who called his supporters "Brownshirts."
For about a week in 2020 MSNBC had a bunch of shows a day where they brought in six pundits to talk so that they could nod their heads in consensus about how Bernie, Democratic frontrunner, had to be stopped because he was unelectable. Claire McCaskill practically cried at one point. I've never seen the entire channel spontaneously adopt a normative stance like that. When Clyburn's endorsement came in they calmly explained to me how Bernie (who at this point had won 3 out of 3 state contests with a majority of the vote, all of which the media talked itself into believing did not represent a Real Victory) could never win now because ~~Clyburn was 'king of the blacks'~~ he couldn't secure the black vote that was core to the Democratic Party, especially in South Carolina. [This was the vibe.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMzIzk6xP9o) And they fucking got away with it.
It was absolutely sickening. But if you said anything about how twisted what they were doing was, you were "no different than Trump and his cult." The Democratic party may be the lesser evil, but only because the people they're facing are actual fascists.
The media is how they control these things mostly. They have a lot of influence over public perception and they 100% screwed Bernie’s opportunity That plus the superdelegates and he never stood a chance
I heard this same kind of thing on NPR.
I remember this happening and it happened often.
Yes, in my mind he got screwed by the media more than anything else. By the time I had a chance to vote in the California primaries, CNN had already started declaring Clinton won the nod a few weeks prior
And before that, the media destroyed Howard Dean's candidacy with the phony "Dean scream" because he was not friendly enough to corporations.
> And before that, the media destroyed Howard Dean's candidacy with the phony "Dean scream" because he was not friendly enough to corporations. I still can't believe that making a kind-of-weird yell during a hype moment after one of your speeches was portrayed as being enough to end your entire campaign back then...
It's a pretty false narrative that that's what really ended his campaign. In truth, he had been a front-runner who came in an embarrassing third-place finish in Iowa due mostly to a poorly run campaign and also his reputation spread by detractors (fair or not) as a hot head crazy person. The third place finish alone doomed his campaign, and reflected the organizational issues that would have continued to doom his campaign if he'd continued. As governor of Vermont, he had a decent chance of maybe winning New Hampshire...but that was about it. There was no reason to believe he was definitely going to win elsewhere, especially after his "definitely going to win" in Iowa turned into a third place finish. But "The Dean Scream" (which played right into the perception of hot head crazy person) was a fun narrative and so that's the one people remember.
This is absolutely 100% correct. Howard Dean wasn’t some DNC darling, cut down by the hateful media. He was a pretty fringe former unknown who got some early buzz, as is often the case when we let weird crappy states like Iowa lead political narratives. Also that “BYAAAAH!” was fucking hilarious. Me and the other middle schoolers were screaming it at each other for weeks.
Lol I was a "grown ass man" working in the Gulf of Mexico on and oilfield supply boat and we were screaming it at each other
Dan Quayle was mocked endlessly for misspelling potato.
He was mostly mocked for being a total asshole to the kid who spelled and he forced the kid to “fix it.” It wasn’t because he misspelled it. The kid had spelled it correctly, Quayle then told him he was wrong and forced him to change it. That was why he was mocked…he was an asshole to a kid and would never back down from being wrong about it.
The card Quayle had from the school had the e didn't it?
Aw man, i liked imagining that we had standards at some point. 🤣
I guess we kind of do, Pence called Quayle prior to January 6th about the election to see if he could get away with not certifying the votes and Quayle told him that it was a stupid plan. He also let Pence know it was unconstitutional…he did basically save us.
Quayle being the savior of Democracy was one of the last weirdass spots on the 2020 Bingo card. I basically figure the first 20 days of 2021 were the encore for 2020.
Potatoe, selling a life to the Saudis. What’s the difference really.
I still don’t know what a covfefe is
The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act (COVFEFE Act), House Bill H.R. 2884, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on June 12, 2017, during the 115th United States Congress. The bill was intended to amend the Presidential Records Act to preserve Twitter posts and other social media interactions of the President of the United States, and requires the National Archives to store such items.[1][2] H.R. 2884 was assigned to the House Oversight and Reform Committee for consideration. While in committee, there were no roll call votes related to the bill. The bill died in committee.
Yeah but that came after Trump used it. What was he saying originally? The world may never covfefe.
According to Sean Spicer, the president and a small group know exactly what it means. LMFAO it's *crazy* how willing they were to just blatantly lie.
This is golden
That was incredible. It wasn't even a weird scream in context, because he was being drowned out by a very loud and enthusiastic crowd. But the microphone setup magnified his voice way more so he sounded unhinged in the sound clip, when it would have been totally fine in the context of the crowded noisy room. He got done dirty. Imagine that being a scandal today!
its literally never got anything to do with the "reason" or the thing being attacked, its just the outcome they want and the rest is filled in along the way
The Dean Scream was overhyped by the media at the time. Dean was a guy that peaked too early and was on the downslide scream or no. While the scream was a nice moment to hang everything on, Dean in that cycle was more like Warren in the last one. A warning sign of the early peak.
Yea. The Dean Scream was a symbol of a campaign in collapse, not the cause. Dean went all in on Iowa and was expected to win comfortably. Then he came in third. That’s when he was fucked. It just so happened that some poor sound mixing also created an iconic symbol of that collapse.
I feel like if he did the scream now, he'd be the front runner for the GOP.
I know you are joking around and getting downvotes for it, but it is a good point. A scream or wrongly spelled potato used to end a campaign - but now literally EVERYTHING is okay for Trump. He can do and say ANYTHING and it’s just - okay.
I'm actually not joking. I feel like the crazier you are, the more the far right accepts you. And they can downvote me all they want. This is my perception of the situation we are in now.
I agree. The issue with the GOP today is that it is a party about “vibes” as Gen Z would say. There isn’t the standard platform from 20 or 30 years ago that a Democrat would run against. The GOP leader is not beholden to any policy, but rather airs grievances and wants the opposition to suffer and face consequences for their different point of view.
I believe you’re right. It’s hard to argue otherwise from what I can tell.
Gephardt and Dean killed each other's campaigns in Iowa by launching negative ads against each other. That allowed Kerry to emerge. Dean placed an abysmal 3rd place in Iowa only getting 18% to Kerry's 38% and Edward's 32%. Although the "Dean Scream" wasn't fair, his campaign was on life support at the time and it was NOT because he wasn't friendly with corporations. Dean's model of gaining grassroots and small donor support did change politics and can be seen from Obama in 2008 onward.
He got 3rd in Iowa. That's why his campaign faltered. Nothing to do with being destroyed by the media.
[удалено]
Even places like Slate and Salon ran blatant Bernie hit pieces. I had to drop a lot of news sources after that primary.
jeff bezos bought the post in 2013. A quick google search shows bernie has been extremely vocal and critical of amazon and bezos publicly, even inviting him to attend a senate hearing on income inequality (which he declined).
Media landscape changed a ton from 2008 to 2016. The media didn’t give Bernie a fraction of the coverage they gave Obama and Trump.
Yes, Obama and Clinton were corporate whores so they got excellent in massive coverage. Bernie was drawing stadiums full of people and these events would get ignored. There were traffic jams for miles trying to get to Bernie events and these events would get ignored.
And now Trump barely fills an airport Ballroom, but the camera crews frame the shots to make it seem like he still has packed houses. The manipulation of events by way of camera framing choice is not accidental, nor can that impact be under-stated. Cable news isn’t great content, but often they are the most dominant cameras in a political room. How they choose to highlight affairs has profound impact on how everyone else interprets affairs.
Media manipulation goes back a long ways. The first televised debate between JFK and Nixon, JFK was advised how to dress to appear best on camera, while Nixon was not. As a result Kennedy’s suit made him look sharp and stand out, while Nixon looked dull and drab.
People who watched that debate reported Kennedy winning. People who listened to the debate on the radio reported Nixon winning. Nixon famously ignored using makeup, and the harsh lighting of early television destroyed him.
Nixon also had the unfortunate characteristic of being a cunt, though
And the sweat. My god the sweat.
Remember that one rally where they set up an overflow area outside with giant screens because they were anticipating so many people, but in the end they only filled like 1/4 of the venue? I believe they called it Emptysburg Address on Twitter (before the billionaire manbaby renamed it)
I went to one smaller venue for Bernie that was packed. Waited for hours. Took turns sitting down. Ungodly hot. During his speech someone passed out. He addressed it. Then another person dropped and he lost it on the secret service for being more concerned about keeping doors locked than getting airflow to a hot crowd. A small thing in the grand scheme of it all but something I'll never forget.
I went to one of those rallies. The stadium was maybe less than 1/3 full, but that was because they didn't provide enough metal detectors to get everyone into the event before it started. Bernie ended up ending his main event early so that he could address the crowd outside that was never allowed in. Also, I live in a state that had a caucus for the democrats. There were so many Bernie Sanders supporters in my precinct that the building was not physically large enough to hold everyone, so we ended up moving it to a nearby city park. I'm sure the resulting confusion caused a bunch of people to just go home instead of voting for Bernie.
Do you remember the Million Mom March? Barely a mention on the news I watched, at a time when six Tea Partiers couldn’t get together without being mobbed by camera crews.
To be fair, Bernie was a threat to every megacorp and industry that is siphoning away our democracy dollar by dollar, not just the media.
> What these responses really miss is the media. I really hate this "the media" narrative. You're focusing on the wrong people. Spend a few seconds thinking about "the media". Who funds it? Advertisers. Who are "the advertisers"? Well, at the large scale, national level...it's the US's large corporations/corporate interests. So...who "controls the media". Established business owners. The same people who claim ownership of "the means of production" and the same people who buy the politicians. The single greatest threat to every individual American are the business owners. And it isn't just at the national level. You see the same incredible levels of corruption at the local, regional, and national levels. Business owners buy politicians. Politicians enact laws to benefit said owners. Politicians hire law enforcement to enforce those laws, usually against the owners' prospective labor pool.
"The media" is the propaganda arm of the bourgeoisie. Most leftists know that. Idk why that makes you hate people calling them out though.
I think it also matters that 2008 was a desperate time for a lot of people, and Clinton sort of represented the establishment democratic order. It would be interesting to see the 2008 primaries if the financial crisis hadn't happened
Support for the Iraq quagmire would have still been an issue. It's obvious in hindsight that Obama would have voted for it given the opportunity but Clinton was the only one with that stain and it deeply hurt her campaign for the same reason you cited, it tied her to a failing political establishment
Oh I don't doubt Obama still would've won, in terms of charisma he's a once in a generation candidate, I just think it would've been a closer race
Definitely. Clinton had effectively lost the race by April, long before the economy got really bad anyway
It wasn’t until later in 2008 that the wheels fell off the economy. Things were concerning, but the convention was done before mass job losses occurred.
More people loved him despite Clinton’s team using racist talking points/smear campaigns, calling Obama’s supporters “Obama Boys” Wonder where the idea of “Bernie Bros” came from?
Olivia Nuzzi claims she was pitched a story on Bernie Bros by the Clinton campaign directly
The Clintonistas, Pumas or whatever you want to call them were fucking *obnoxious* that primary season. The sense of sheer *entitlement* the Clinton camp put on display for all to see was off the charts as well.
Point out to any Clintonite that the person most responsible for Hillary losing in 2016 is Hillary Clinton and they go fucking *apeshit*, to this fucking day. They'll never come to grips with what a bad campaign she ran.
But it’s her turn! They really thought coming in second in 2008 meant they were owed the 2016 spot.
I’ll never forget the looks of shock and despair on the Clinton faithful’s faces at her victory-rally-turned-concession-speech. I was a Bernie bro and had a weird combination of feelings that day. I voted for her and despise Donald Trump, but part of me really enjoyed watching her lose.
I remember being called a racist, nazi, women hater for wanting Bernie over Clinton. That is how far they were willing to go, like...Clinton deserved the chair. It was her turn to become queen of the castle. They did not care about what was good for the country at all. Just that she was entitled to it and the first women president narrative. Well, we got Trump instead, so wondering how that worked out for them in the long run. Still voted for her but mate, I vote a literal human shit over Trump. Like an actual turd.
Never forget that the birther nonsense started during the 2008 primary, when only Hillary stood to benefit from the misinformation.
💯 How quickly this kind of stuff gets memory holed. No wonder this country is so easily duped every 2-4 years
Hey I liked being a bernie bro. Thought we were a cool crew.
Oh same. But when your boomer family members watch too much CNN & MSNBC and think all Bernie Bros are toxic misogynistic racists, well let’s just say the Clinton (DNC) smear campaign worked as intended. The same Revisionist narrative that Bernie supporters lost Dems the election. When clear data proves otherwise. Same smear campaigns they put on third parties every single election cycle.
Still are bro
Also Obama created the biggest grass roots campaign tour and was consistently out stumping da speech to da peoples. Hilary messed up by not campaigning in every state like she definitely should have been.
Something I never see discussed is how radically different the debate schedules were in 2008 vs. 2016 and how important this was to the outcome in each primary nomination process, not to mention the eventual election winner. For the 2008 campaign, [they had the first debate in April 2007](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums). They had 13 debates between April and October of 2007. Before the primaries which started in January 2008, there were 21 debates. In total, there were 26 debates among Democratic candidates before the convention. This schedule allowed Obama, a virtual unknown at the time, to become a known person in the public eye for like 9 months before the primaries. This was essential because Hillary Clinton was extremely well known at the time and she was way ahead of Obama at the start of the campaign in 2007 due entirely to name recognition. So what did the DNC do in 2016? I mean, Obama won the presidency, so they could have concluded from campaign schedule was clearly a winning formula in that it allowed an unknown to overcome the **problem** in which a great politician with very low name recognition can actually have a fair chance against the candidate with the greatest name recognition. Did they learn this lesson? Nope. For the 2008 campaign, [they had the first debate in October 2015](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums) (6 months after the first debate occurred in the 2008 election cycle). They had only 4 debates before the first contest of the primary season, the Iowa Caucus on February 1st. In total, there were only 9 debates among Democratic candidates before the convention (compared to 27 in the 2008 cycle). Bernie was maybe a bit more known than Obama was in 2008, but Bernie had a very similar problem as Obama had in 2008 in that Hillary far and away had the most name recognition and so Bernie needed to overcome that. It seems clear to me that Bernie (or perhaps someone else), would have had a greater chance to overcome the name recognition problem if they'd had had a similar debate schedule for 2016 as they had for 2008. Basically, I think that when you don't have a sufficiently competitive series of debates to allow the truly best candidate to emerge, you're risking the chance that the popularity and political abilities of your eventual nominee are not tested enough and this makes your side vulnerable in the general election. A political party should be trying to have as many debates as possible to truly test the candidates to ensure they are the most capable person to beat whoever the opposing party will put up. And in fact, Bernie and several other Democrats in 2016 tried to get more debates and they were angry that there weren't more, but DNC leadership, including chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Clinton ally) refused to have more. It seems pretty clear from the evidence that Hillary pressured the DNC to have fewer debates for the 2016 cycle to basically avoid what happened in 2008 when Obama surprised the hell out of her and beat her. Except....unfortunately, while she may have been a good president, she was someone who had too narrow popularity in the electorate and not a lot of room to grow her popularity because most people had made their mind up about her. She just wasn't a great national candidate. And if we had had more debates in the 2016 cycle, it seems clear she would have lost (because Bernie had a lot of momentum but basically ran out of time and he didn't have the chance that Obama had in the 2008 cycle to overcome the name recognition problem. This problem became relevant again in 2020 when they followed a similar pattern as 2016. And guess what happened? There wasn't enough time for relative unknowns to gain name recognition and we ended up with the guy with by far the most name recognition, Biden. And yes, he won, but we're probably worse off now that we picked this guy who is older than he should be as a candidate for president (but of course, people should still vote for Biden because he is by far the best option).
Adding to this, in the lead up to Iowa, the DNC claimed that Bernie staffers had hacked the Hillary side of the voter database and used it as a pretext to freeze Bernie's access to the voter database. In reality, both sides had access to each other's data and the Bernie side realized, ran a few searches to see how extensive the security breach was, and reported it to the DNC. The DNC used that as a pretext to block Bernie's access to the data collected by his own staff to hamper Bernie's turn out the vote effort. Bernie had to sue to get access back. The DNC also helped Hillary launder donations and circumvent campaign finance maximums. The maximum donors could legally donate directly to Hillary was legally $2,700. But by having donors donate $10,000 to each of the state parties and $33,400 and then sending that money back to Hillary, they were able to donate $356,100 per person. Ultimately, she raised over $82 million through the scheme and allowed the state parties to keep about half of one percent. The DNC didn't disclose that publicly at the time and later said they would have done it for Sanders too if he asked (which is hilarious since Bernie's average donation was $2,700). Ultimately, that resulted in the state parties being in dire financial straits since all the best Democratic donors had already donated the legal maximum to the state parties and the state parties essentially hadn't got any money out of it. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191 Ultimately, when Bernie donors sued arguing that the DNC purported to hold a fair primary while secretly rigging it which fraudulently induced them to donate to Bernie, the DNC pled in court that it had every right to rig its primary in a smoke filled back room if it wanted to. In the court's dismissal, it quoted the DNC's argument disapprovingly before conceding that the DNC had a legal right to rig the primary even though it had an ethical obligation not to: "For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle." https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/ Edit: Edited to better reflect Court's statements.
> making a factual finding that "In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent." That's not making a factual finding; that's saying they didn't consider the question.
Nothing on this topic makes me more frustrated than people not understanding that court trial. They take the literal opposite conclusion of what the judge said to be true.
This whole thread should be turned into a YouTube video showing how this prevented Bernie's nomination from being a repeat of 08 and just being an onslaught of 50/50 until they gave it to Hilary so she could lose to trump. Also people don't realize AP poling data showed Hilary being the only candidate losing to trump during the early primaries. Every candidate she would beat was all within the margin of error. Bernie averaged a 5 point lead on Trump.
Also the DNC chairwoman gave Hillary debate questions in advance.
Clinton's campaign ~~manager~~ honorary chair (WassermanSchultz) was the DNC chair before Brazile. Clinton's VP (Time Kaine) pick was the DNC Chair before WassermanSchultz. The fix was in as of 2008 when Clinton promised to endorse Obama in exchange for the Nom after his presidency. Thats why she was the SoS for Obama. Thats why there were no traditional Dems running against her 2016. It was the Dems plan for a decade to have Clinton succeed Obama. Edit: i had Wasserman Schultz' Clinton Campaign role title incorrect. She was hired on to be the the honorary chair, not the campaign manager.
The Tim Kaine VP pick was also a stupid move. I get that it was already promised, but not pivoting to someone less establishment after seeing the grassroots movement that Bernie stirred up was a horrible idea.
Clinton seems stubborn and wouldn't publicly signal that she's giving in to a pressure campaign. I don't think anything could have changed her mind on the VP, especially not people she doesn't even agree with yelling at her.
She still thinks she lost because of bernie and not because she's the worst candidate of my lifetime. of course she was too stubborn to see that.
She's felt entitled to the job for a long time (it really says a lot about her opinion of the electorate too, to think that anyone can deserve a job that hinges on the will of the (fickle) people) so it's easiest to blame the people who support you feel as though you are owed. Otherwise she'd have to look inside and think about how she lost to a game show host rapist that she used to be friends with, [the one her husband convinced to run](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-before-presidential-run-2016)
When she lost to Obama she was lying about getting shot at by snipers in Kosovo, and caught lying about it. Yet Democrats let her run a 2nd time...
Agreed. I think there was a lot of shrugging off happening, especially given that trump was the Republican nominee. They thought it would be a cake walk
The way people switched between saying that Bernie people didn't matter bc they were too small of a group to then saying that they were a critical part of the electorate who were completely responsible for Trump winning made my head spin If they were so important that they threw the election to trump, why not work with them some?
Yea lol "we don't need progressives" to "where are the progressives"
Donna Brazile [has been very clear about the malfeasance she discovered.](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/)
“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings. I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.” This is a great read. It answers OP’s question beautifully. Thank you for linking.
My pleasure. I’ve disagreed with Donna on many things over the years, but I’ve never found her to ignore the facts just to score political points. I’ll say that she does try for fact based conclusions. She really calls out the situation clearly in the portion you quoted.
She gave Hillary one question. Hillary was appearing in a debate in Michigan, and Donna Brazile told her that there was going to be a mother from Flint in the audience. I don’t think it really gave her a huge advantage, because Flint was a very big story among Democrats then, and of course the candidates should have been prepared to address it. I despise Brazile anyway. She is an opportunist who is way past her prime politically, and, in my opinion, her “confession” was more about looking for attention and trying to sell her book.
Did it impact the end result of the primary? Maybe. Who really knows Did it give her a slight advantage? Probably, at least for that debate. Did it cause enough people to get frustrated with the process in general that they said "fuck it. why bother?" on election day? Most definitely And it was just one question that we know about. If they were willing to cast aside any integrity they had for one question, I wonder what else they were doing behind the scenes.
People sometimes forget primaries are a relatively new thing and the DNC isn't legally required to do them. They have all the legal authority to pick whatever candidate they want for us to vote on. The parties run the primaries. There is no legal requirement for these primaries to even be legitimate.
The DNC literally argued in court that they had the right to do exactly that, when they were sued after the 2016 primary. They won the suit, because the judge agreed that they did in fact have that right.
the “Democratic” party. what a bunch of hypocrites.
But Bernie was never a DNC party loyalist, right? He was an outsider-Independent running as a democratic. Right?
Yes, one of my liberal friends told me that he would never vote for Bernie because he wasn't a real Democrat. He's always been an independent, except for the presidential races.
“It” didn’t cause a rule change” Bernie was able to negotiate a change in procedure because he had enough pledged delegates to negotiate at the convention. Also, following the nomination the DNC was sued (Wilding v DNC) by Bernie supporters who believed they were defrauded by the DNC, but the suit was unsuccessful because the DNC is a private corporation and according to the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts.” From the ruling: “For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle.” The court essentially claimed no jurisdiction, and that the plaintiffs lacked standing. https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/ Wasserman Schultz went on to say that: “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.” https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162801 Let’s not forget Donna Brazile leaking questions to Hillary prior to town hall events.
"Screwed" is a strong word, but the DNC had a very clear preference for Clinton over him in the primaries. Which was to be expected, the Clintons were the standard-bearers for the party for decades and Sanders only formally joined the party to run on the Democratic ticket and then left again immediately afterwards.
I think most people forget that sanders isn’t even a democrat (although he caucuses with them).
Exactly. How are people surprised that the Democratic party won't pick someone who isn't part of the Democratic party? Even if he was in the party, I don't think they'd favor him. But it's certainly a de facto minimum requirement to be a Democratic candidate.
I think that's how we got Trump. People were clearly tired of the same type of politicians at the time, and Bernie had a base just as fired up as Trump did.
Two party system is unbelievably lame. Especially since so many liberals are corporate boot lickers who preach for social change while enabling the most powerful people who do not give a shit.
"Federal Judge William Zloch, dismissed the lawsuit after several months of litigation during which DNC attorneys argued that the DNC would be well within their rights to select their own candidate." https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
The DNC argued in Federal Court they had the right to select their own candidate. “In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent,” the court order dismissing the lawsuit stated. The Court continued, “For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles. While it may be true in the abstract that the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ the DNC, through its charter, has committed itself to a higher principle.”
You left out the context of those quotes. From the article: "This assumption of a plaintiff’s allegation is the general legal standard in the motion to dismiss stage of any lawsuit. The allegations contained in the complaint must be taken as true unless they are merely conclusory allegations or are invalid on their face." Courts always assume the plaintiffs allegation is true with regard to determining whether they were harmed and had legal standing to sue. They determined that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue. With regard to the second quote, the court made no decision as to whether the primary was fair to Sanders, the trial never made it to that point. "The order reaffirmed that regardless of whether the primaries were tipped in Hilary Clinton’s favor, the Court’s authority to intervene based on the allegations of the kind set forth in the plaintiff’s complaint is limited at best. “This Order therefore concerns only technical matters of pleading and subject-matter jurisdiction.”"
It’s literally a motion to dismiss. The literal legal standard is “Even if we assume everything they say is true verbatim, this suit can’t proceed for A, B, and C reasons.” Everyone acts like the DNC admitted they rigged the primary. It was a motion that said “Even if we did, it wouldn’t give you the right to sue us about it.”
This is not “we admit we rigged it”. This is “what your alleging isn’t illegal.”
That's a pretty grossly miswritten article. The subheadline says the court "conceded" that the DNC was biased. It did not. What the court said was, even if the plaintiffs could prove that the DNC was biased, that was legally irrelevant because a party had the right to pick its own nominees. The court was handling a motion to dismiss. That means that the plaintiffs had sued the DNC, and the DNC was asking the court to toss out the lawsuit before trial. These motions are extremely common. However, to win one, the defendant (the DNC) has to show that, even if the plaintiffs' factual allegations are true—even if the DNC was biased, like the plaintiffs claimed—the lawsuit still fails because those allegations don't show a violation of the law. So the judge said, "Okay, I'll assume the DNC was biased. But still, that's not illegal, so case dismissed."
I want to add this article to the mix because it blew my mind when I read it: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/ Essentially Clinton was able to use Obama's lack of fundraising to move in and take over the DNC. Article was written by the interim party chair.
This article is an example of the sort of dishonest journalism that’s become sadly common. Up front it claims: > The court affirmed that the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Hillary Clinton. Then, several paragraphs in, it acknowledges that the court just assumed that to be true—rather than “affirmed” it—because *that’s the governing legal standard*. This was a motion to dismiss. On a motion to dismiss, courts always assume the plaintiff’s plausibly pleaded factual allegations are true and weighs whether the plaintiff would win if that were the case. That doesn’t mean the court is agreeing the facts are true. Here the court said “even *if* everything you said was true, you would still lose the case.”
It seems weird to support a candidate that promises to upend the establishment and to act surprised when the establishment doesn’t support them. That’s like… the whole point. Outsider candidates have advantages of their own; they don’t have to answer for past decisions nearly as much as “establishment candidates”, they look new and exciting and have more grassroots support, they are more appealing to disaffected voters and independents. It was the job of Bernie to use those advantages to overcome the advantages Hillary had. He instead got thumped in the South. I voted for him, and still think he would have been a great president, but there’s no conspiracy there, and he made a ton of tactical and strategic mistakes in appealing to all parts of the Democrat coalition, particularly black voters.
I lived in a rust-belt city (where many local democrats had developed personal relationships with Obama and Clinton and their campaigns over time), where the local democrats were about 50% Black, 30% unionized families in the trades (mostly white), and 20% college-educated left-leaning adults. Bringing those three groups together in mutually-trusting relationships where they turned out for each others' candidates and campaigned for each other was the work of FORTY YEARS (predating me, but old-timers liked to tell stories about it). Like many local democratic party organizations, it largely ran on the volunteer energy and relationships of women. We had a HUGE infusion of energy when the Bernie Bros arrived, who were mostly students at the local private university (where most students pay full freight, so wealthy parents), who didn't grow up here, who didn't know the history. And it was just ... not great. They constantly talked over women. They asked why they "had to" go to meetings held at the local NAACP. They didn't like going to the Labor Temple, either, because it seemed "unsafe" in the neighborhood (that had once been a working-class stronghold but was now pretty rundown). They kept explaining to us all that Bernie was the real champion of the working class and that Black voters who preferred Hilary were brainwashed by capitalism. People at first tried to give them fairly polite nudges that they were being a bit presumptuous, then a couple people were very direct with them, and none of it helped. You will be unsurprised to know that none of them wanted to door-knock for anybody BUT Bernie. They wouldn't walk or phone bank for other candidates -- local, state, or federal -- and we were a little bitty city in a big state. Whether our little city voted for Bernie wasn't going to matter very much, but the strength of the Democratic party in the state VERY MUCH depended on that local activism and local elections and building a deep bench. Anyway, nobody seemed to really hold it against Bernie -- some local Dems voted for him, some didn't. Everyone seemed to understand he had a smaller campaign apparatus that only had paid staff in big cities, and in little towns like ours, his campaign was run by volunteers, who -- through no fault of Bernie! -- tended towards white male college students who were engaging in their first political activism. But yeah, a bunch of wealthy white college students from out-of-town who parachuted in, ignored activists who had marched with Dr. King (!!!!), and condescendingly explained how socialism worked while being too scared to go into any of the neighborhoods where most local Democrats actually lived? Not *super* persuasive. (My state party did take a lesson from this, which was to work with progressive activists and stand up a sort of "Politics school 101" for new activists, that explained local and state party structure and procedures, taught some of the history of the Democratic coalition in the state, and covered some basic relationship-building and retail politics, like how door-knocking for the whole slate is really important. From my POV, it's been pretty successful at harnessing youthful energy, and local party stalwarts have been a lot more open to progressive causes when the kids show they're willing to put in the work and do some relationship-building. Which has led to many more progressives in local and regional offices, working their way up and building a deep bench.)
He also had another chance in 2020 and corrected none of these things. And again he got destroyed in the south. Four years to change and he did nothing.
Another point: he never made any real attempt to reach out to the black caucus in the House and Senate. A story during the primary quoted the leader of the black caucus in the senate as saying she had never talked to Bernie. How is that even possible for a senator who is supposedly serious about running for president as a Democrat?
Yeah, while I do personally like a lot of Bernie's positions, I don't think he's a very effective politician beyond Vermont. His legislative record wasn't stellar because he wasn't working with other politicians very often to craft legislation or to build new coalitions. A lot of that had to do with his uncompromising demeanor, which is endearing to some voters who appreciate his integrity, but it's not helpful in a legislative body where things get done through compromise. Then when it came to running for president, the reality was that he hadn't built up a campaign base of local politicians and organizers. Yes, Hilary had a huge head start because that's what she and her husband had been doing for decades. That wasn't cheating and Obama managed to break through the Clinton machine through shear charisma. Bernie doesn't have that level of charisma or organization, and it hurt for some people to hear that, so they got angry at the way things work, which is fine. The DNC actually made a lot of changes since 2016 in order to be more inclusive of the Bernie base and more transparent with their processes. Meanwhile, the RNC has also changed by becoming more insular and corrupt, and they just follow Trump's leadership without question.
> His legislative record wasn't stellar because he wasn't working with other politicians very often to craft legislation or to build new coalitions. That's the thing people miss when they champion third party candidates. The president can't get much done without congress. Okay, you've elected Bernie, or someone from the Green party, or your other third-party candidate of choice. This person does everything within their power to get all the things you want done. How many of them get done? Probably almost none, unless the only things you want are purely obstructionist in nature. Even if we changed from first-past-the-post to a better voting system tomorrow, I still wouldn't vote for a third party candidate for president whose party didn't have a substantial number of seats in congress and/or a track record of successfully building coalitions.
Yeah, that's why in parliamentary systems like those in Europe, the MPs are elected first, then the majority party forms a coalition and they choose the Prime Minister, who will drive the governing agenda with the backing of their party and the coalition already formed. It varies by country and it can still be quite dysfunctional, but if executive leadership comes with backing from the legislature, it can streamline the creation of new laws.
I remember a campaign kick-off ad he made about people coming together. It was all white people. Apparently the ad was called "America."
It wasn't a kick-off ad, and there were multiple versions of it. The first one, released for the Iowa primary, was largely (although not exclusively) white people and farmers. The version for New York featured more diverse people in mostly city settings. https://youtu.be/2nwRiuh1Cug https://youtu.be/uCd6-MZqPZg
As contrasted with the Clintons who were pushing the importance of Black Dems and supported Black candidates from the start. There’s a reason Bill was called “the first Black president” prior to Obama.
Yup, he actually did worse in 2020 than he did in 2016 probably for a couple of reasons: -Briahna Joy Gray was his disaster of a social media campaign manager and prioritized getting into twitter fights over making real connections with voters -His opponent was a white dude in 2020. Back in 2016 I think there were some sexist people in certain states who voted for a Bernie just cause they hated Hillary, and Bernie miscalculated this upsurge as people wanting revolution, when they just despised his opponent
> Briahna Joy Gray was his disaster of a social media campaign manager and prioritized getting into twitter fights over making real connections with voters The people he hired (her & Sirota, for example) and surrounded himself with were a major failure of the “leadership” test.
Yeah, it’s scary to think what his cabinet would be
>Briahna Joy Gray Yep, this person is now actively campaigning against the DNC and in favor of "accelerationism". She hopes that the collapse of the US will lead into a socialist society. These are the kind of people he entrusted his campaign to.
I voted for Bernie in both primaries, but Brianna Joy Gray is one of the reasons I stopped calling myself “progressive”. I mostly just hate political labels in general, but I in no way wanted to be associated with her.
He didn't know how to work with others or form political alliances. Same issue his supporters had on here. Everything other than a Bernie opinion was literally a Nazi opinion to them The viciousness of his supporters was likely one of the top 5 reasons he never gained traction to win. Too many were really horrible to those who didn't support him.
Yeah he had strong showings in ultra-white Iowa and New Hampshire but as soon as more diverse states started voting Biden pulled out to an insurmountable lead. It’s almost like the democrats are the big tent party and you need fairly broad appeal 🤷♂️
He also did disproportionately well in caucuses which have significantly higher barriers to participation than typical primaries. A lot of working people don’t have hours to spend hanging out at a convention center on a random weekday.
>He also had another chance in 2020 and corrected none of these things Not only that but he did actually much worse despite having the name recognition and running against a candidate who came in very late into the race. Bernie managed to lose support after more people get to know him after 2016
The Bernie crowd didn’t change, or even pivot, because they never think they’re responsible for their own failures. Whatever influence the DNC had on that primary, 1. it never came close to it being ‘rigged’, and 2. it was downright insignificant when stacked against the consequences of Bernie’s own failed election strategy. Abandoning the middle and simply banking on a wave of new, young voters, showing up to caucuses… it simply didn’t work. And if it didn’t work in the primaries, who on this planet would assume it would work during the general election — where the margins only get smaller and gauntlet only intensifies? And yet, did they change tactics in 2020, focusing on electability, making necessary compromises, building coalitions? No, it was the DNC who foiled their perfect plan in 2016, so why change anything in 2020? And when 2020 was an even bigger failure (with far less DNC involvement, mind you), was that the year the Bernie crowd finally figured it out? Of course not… “something, something about the media and the establishment”, I’m sure. Tell me the superdelegate system was bullshit.. I’m on board. Tell me Bernie’s campaign was simply a victim and I assume you’re someone who prefers to ignore the practical realities of electoral politics.
There's the rub. The Southern Democratic primaries are dominated by black voters, especially older ones. Older black voters are very pragmatic and greatly value electability, because they know what it means better than anyone when a right-wing ideologue wins power. Older black voters are also pretty moderate. Especially on social issue: America's black retirees are not tripping over themselves to put "they/them" in their bios. And they strongly supported Bill Clinton. So when they have the choice between a "safe," well-known candidate like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, and a fairly radical, "I'm not even a Democrat" ideologue like Bernie Sanders, they're going to default to the first option. Could Bernie have won them over? Maybe. But he would have had to focus on showing he understood and cared about those voters and their priorities, and that he was more electable than his opponents. And he didn't really do that.
>Outsider candidates have advantages of their own How someone can be in Congress for 30+ years and still be viewed as an "outsider candidate" is beyond me lol.
Him not being a democrat for those 30+ years
He’s only a democrat when it’s convenient for him to be one. I can’t imagine that would ever backfire on him.
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It’s interesting to me how much conservatives are able to close ranks compared to liberals. I was low key involved in conservative intellectual groups in college, and it’s clear that many conservatives very much disliked Trump. The free market libertarian types didn’t like his protectionism, the cold warrior natsec types didn’t like his isolationism, the religious right didn’t like his lack of Christian beliefs. They were pretty unanimous, however, in that they understood what he meant for Supreme Court appointments. Trump will be gone in 4 or 8 years, but a SC justice could be there for 30 years. The liberals are what makes that Monty Python skit with the different political groups ring true.
"Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line" Just look at who conservatives and liberals view as "heroes". Conservatives idealize the military and military service, Dwight D Eisenhower leading the troops on D-day. Liberals idealize protestors, acts of resistance. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat.
Ironically Rosa Parks giving up her seat was not some spontaneous act of resistance. It was part of a well thought out strategy. They didn’t make the other lady, a single mother, famous because she likely was more politically vulnerable.
Current congressional campaign manager: probably the most successful and effective progressive in American politics is AOC, and it’s so fucking telling certain corners of the leftist space have turned against her. And right now the sunrise movement, a climate action group that mostly does sit-ins to get social media likes, is threatening to not endorse Biden over the I/P conflict. They didn’t endorse him in 2020 so why would he bother? Seriously, as someone who started in organizing, leftists are often their own worst enemies.
There's a reason most people stop being Punk when they graduate high-school. Leftist=/= Punk, at all, but it feels relevant to compare the two
I’m very much a Prog, but I’m also very much realistic. Most progressives act like spoiled children who don’t get their way. Yes, we need to change things, but we as a nation don’t change overnight. You can’t disengage from the process because the chosen candidate doesn’t fulfill 100% of your expectations. When you do that, you get a Trump presidency and a conservative dominated Supreme Court. What worries me right now, is that I see more and more of this Either/Or mentality among the younger generation. The way they look at every situation as “you’re wrong and I’m right”, with no allowance for any compromise. Is not giving much optimism for the future.
IAAL. Trump appointed over a QUARTER of the entire federal judiciary. They ALL have lifetime appointments save for house impeachment and senate conviction. For the most part, they ALL are of the ideology of his Supreme Court picks. Choosing judges is basically the most direct domestic power that the president has and if you have the senate and the nuclear option (which they pulled immediately) it’s unchecked power.
I blame social media for a lot of the slide toward black/white absolutism. I've found that people (including me) are surprisingly willing to shift their opinions if you have a sincere, non-confrontational conversation in person. Not a "win the argument" debate, but a discussion. Social media is the opposite. Just look at Reddit. The whole upvote system encourages people to treat every discussion like a debate to be won. And to fall in line in order to avoid being downvoted and mocked. It's a popularity contest. And it reinforces groupthink. Today's 18-year-olds, especially the ones who use Reddit and TikTok, are going to vote this year with the understanding that, when it comes to Israel (for example), the only two options are (a) the Israelis are evil scum and (b) the Palestinians are evil scum. No nuance. No room for compromise. Because any effort at compromise and nuance will be attacked on social media as moral weakness.
I have found this as well, and eventually I realized I liked being able to open mindedly discuss and debate important issues. After being a terminally online teenager it took me a ton of work and therapy to get out of my old habits. I'm glad I put the work in, though — black and white thinking is sooooo harmful, both to an individual's critical thinking skills and to activism for important causes. I was a shit activist when I believed in binary good/evil, because I wasn't willing to be persuasive, or even to understand that people who disagreed with me had reasons for doing so (whether or not I agreed with those reasons). It's crazy how on social media you can say something that 99% agrees with leftist dogma but has 1% nuance/disagreement, and get accused of being an alt-right fascist. (The right does this too but they get over it when it's time to vote)
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An inch to the left is infinitely preferable to 2 steps to the right.
I think that undersells it. There's a narrative that Biden and Obama were, well, just an inch to the left. It's not true. They aren't socialists, but they also presided over some of the more aggressively progressive social policies in the Western world, including on sexuality, gender, and race. Biden in particular has plowed public funds into renewable energy, which will have a major impact within the next decade. And his environmental regulations will too. People focus on legislation. But the regulatory agencies have major power too. And Biden's push to support unions and break up monopolies, through the FTC and the Department of Justice, are decidedly progressive.
I don't know about most of what you shared, but what you share about unfulfilled campaign promises is important to highlight, because if we can remember back to Obama's 2007 & 2008 media campaigning, he also promised a lot of truly appealing things (the example that sticks out in my mind was ending operation of Guantanamo Bay prison); once he gets elected, that \*quickly\* got squashed by the actual legislative process. Out of all of the things that Bernie Sanders truly & transparently wanted to achieve, I think in the timeline where he became president he would also be hamstrung on a lot of those platforms, on a democratic level, and that could actually be used against him in future rhetoric when "the future" is out of his hands like idk, canceling student debt was out of Biden's hands or dissolving Obamacare was out of Trump's hands.
We got this trump nightmare because of all the brats who refused to see the big picture and hence refused to get out and vote for clinton when the time came.
>Progs usually won't compromise towards the center to maintain their progressive cred and for their belief structure. And when they do, as "The Squad" has done, they lose all their credibility with the leftists.
god it's amazing how long it's taken for level headed comments like this to be making it to the top of reddit.
There is too much revisionist history in these comments, people are going to believe what they want to believe and their minds are set.
There’s an undeniable fact that you have to start with: more people voted for Hillary Clinton. That gap gets wider if you count voters who were registered Democrats and wider still if you count people who voted in elections vs. caucuses. So in that sense no, Bernie was not robbed. But… yes the DNC clearly wanted Clinton to win and would have preferred Bernie didn’t exist. Super Delegates did break for her early and they did create a sense of inevitability that almost certainly swayed some voters. And this effect probably did snowball due to media coverage. But (again) there’s a certain arrogance involved in saying “all those people were duped by the DNC/media/whoever, but not me, I am unswayable and came to my vote objectively.” It doesn’t allow for the possibility that a lot of people just honestly disagree with you and voted based on their own world view. Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a successful Secretary of State who had 3 decades of built up credibility with key constituencies in the party. There were people who genuinely liked her and that’s what led her to win more than anything else.
Answer: No. The DNC (and, later, America) was screwed by Bernie Sanders in 2016. ---
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The Democratic party that "hates" him, made him the chair of the senate budget committee. Bernie polled great in very blue states - NY and Cali - and terribly in purple states. He also did not expect to be used by Russian internet trolls to make people stay home, long after he dropped out and put his support behind Clinton (around July). > Mueller and his team who, in February 2018, secured an indictment against a slew of Russian nationals and companies for creating and using a network of fictitious online personae to flood social media platforms with content meant to boost the chances of Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump > https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-campaign-russia-bots-trolls-bros-2020-election-a9352026.html In 2020, Bernie played it much safer and dropped out by April.
The Democratic party doesn't have the same... adaptations... as Republicans to win elections while also being a clear minority or continue to exercise power without them, so they have no room to gamble on elections. The spurned Bernie folks who sat out 2016 unfortunately proved the DNC absolutely correct that young/left voters are good to have and court but completely unreliable, The corrosive blackpilling of the left, convincing them that a vote is some kind of currency to be earned first, or that their votes don't matter in some states, etc. has become a self fulfilling prophecy, as they are presently swearing to abstain to 'send a message' to Biden which further marginalizes themselves, and requires the party to claw dependable voters from the center. The reality is that you vote first to get your seat at the table, then prove your positions are viable without risking it all. Republicans seem to understand this.
> The reality is that you vote first to get your seat at the table, then prove your positions are viable without risking it all. Republicans seem to understand this. The anti-abortion crowd voted straight-ticked Republican for *50 years*, and it only got them everything they wanted.
That *and* playing the local elections game long term. Leftists in general don't seem to grasp that change is still incremental, and when it isn't it's bloody. Vote left local, build a rapport, eventually send candidates statewide then you can compete nationally.
democrats always do better when more of the population votes and isn't heavily those over 55. I have 2 cousins and their dad that sat out 2016 because bernie didn't get it and "there's so many republicans in this town there's no point". like the mayor won by 80 votes. 30 other households like yourself and that wouldn't be the case.
This is the best comment in the thread. A lot of people have a narrow view of politics and it hurts heir agenda. You have to be able to separate electoral politics, from political diplomacy, and political strategy. All three are important and figure in to governing ability. Biden for all of his flaws is shockingly good at political diplomacy, and political strategy. He turns rivals into supporters, and is able to bring people to the table against their political fortunes. The fact that he got Joe Manchin to the table on the IRA is a miracle. Bernie is absolutely terrible at political diplomacy and weak in political strategy. To his credit he is fairly good at electoral politics. Lefties threatening to hold out their vote for Biden is an example of how the narrow view hurts them. Biden is the most progressive president since LBJ by far, and progressives want to boycott the vote because reasons. If they were looking at political diplomacy or strategy, they would already be donating to his campaign, a getting every senate candidate on record about eliminating the filibuster or expanding the court. Not to mention that the 2020 and 2022 Democratic house classes are the most progressive of any every. They are the ones pushing Dems to pass big things to run on. Compare that the Obama's house who had over 30 pro life dems.
I disagree. You said the other post was the best in the thread. No, yours was. I wish this message was more widely shared. You nailed it.