I know most people aren’t #BernieOrBust. The vast majority of Democrats are more than willing to accept Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. It’s just that I spend my days in the online world, where the extreme people congregate, and you can’t believe how many Bernie supporters I run across who say they “don’t care” if Trump wins.
Read this transcript of Trump’s interview with the New York Times editorial board and see if you agree.
Seems to me that the simple answer to this problem is for Clinton to take stronger progressive positions on key issues and to demonstrate real commitment to those positions. I would gladly support Clinton if she would put forward a serious plan to counter climate change and get end our use of fossil fuels on a pace that’s fast enough to save us. I’d gladly support the Clinton who will push for real reform of the financial industry and for transparent renegotiation of corporate-friendly trade treaties. Problem is, that’s not the Clinton who’s currently running.
Clinton’s supporters would gain much more ground if they focused on getting her to be a better candidate instead of trying to convince the rest of us to vote for her because Trump.
Clinton (Hillary) had a single-payer-ish health care proposal. In 1993. Was Bernie supporting it? No, for some reason. When the Repubs pulled out all the stops to torpedo her and the proposal, she just picked herself right back up and got children’s health insurance through the legislative process. Plus a whole bunch of other programs (helping foster teens transition to independent living, anti-violence against women programs, the list is as long as your arm). Bernie, meanwhile, authored and brought to successful passage three bills in his 30-year career, and two of those were to rename Vermont post offices.
He’s not pulling her leftward. She’s been active there a lot more than he has. And there’s a 93% overlap in their voting records when they were both Senators. So as far as just voting on other people’s bills goes, there’s hardly any difference. He just promises bigger things. That’s not the same as being more progressive.
And as for gaining ground by having Clinton talk more left-like, yeah, that would be great. It worked great for McGovern and it’s been working real well for Jill Stein (who I voted for in 2012, since making a statement then would have zero real world repercussions). Honestly, given what the Repubs look to be pushing on us, this is not the election to be ignoring how too many US voters see things.
As an “extreme” Bernie supporter, it’s getting rather tiresome to here BS portrayed as either a hate-filled left-version of Dick Cheney or Leon Trotsky incarnate. I don’t prefer HRC because she’s only more of the same ol’ DLC (any claim to the contrary is specious, just don’t go there). But to imply that because I don’t support Clinton means that I’d give Drumpf a pass in the general election is ridiculous. Staying home from the polls in November is just another vote for the cretin.
If the … ahhh … Clinton Supports, to be polite, weren’t such bullying, belittling, condensending, down talking … ahhh … jerks about it we might actually talk about the issues. But no, it’s the same old boogyman bullshit we’ve been hearing for fifteen years. The lesser of evils is never the less evil.
When I encouraged the democrats to take a page from the Retard playbook, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Whenever someone says that, I have to wonder: Don’t you read any of her proposals? You don’t think this is a good climate plan? Sounds pretty ambitious to me…
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/26/3684585/hillary-clintons-climate-plan-released/
And a lot of people, including Paul Krugman and Elizabeth Warren, like her Wall Street reforms:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-hillary-clinton-wall-street_us_5665ca68e4b079b2818f556c
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factchecks/2016/01/17/experts-clintons-wall-street-plan-is-the-toughest/
So far the talk is all cheap. I support Bernie to the bitter expected end. I vote for Hillary for the same reason I voted Obama in his first term. Then if she triangulates to more idiot warfare, bloated defense budgets, corporate tax breaks, entitlement cuts and a host of other evils that I expect of DLC Democrats, I am totally out of reach for a second term. I have zero tolerance for lesser evilism in governing.
Your assertion that the vast majority of Democrats are more than willing to accept Hillary as the candidate is false and has no basis in fact. Right now, Sanders is the more favored candidate of Democrats, as recent headlines (which you apparentlty do not read) proclaim.
Moreover, the largest political party in the US is….the Independent party. And they are emphatically not for Hillary by huge margins. This constant condescension toward the millions of voters who do not think Hillary is a good candidate is really tiring. It is also a false narrative.
And as for quixote’s spurious comment up there regarding McGovern: McGovern’s loss was due to 2 factors, neither having to do with his talking left-like: his weak and incompetent response to his VP, Eagleton’s mental health history, and the fact that the Democratic elite of that time hated his guts and the guts of most of his followers. The Party of that time also had substantial blocks of pro-war union workers and union leadership that was more right-wing than New Deal left.
We have a different situation in 2016. The only thing that is the same is that Democratic elites who write on this blog and comment on it are still hating on any real hope or change coming from their Party. No wonder Independents are in the majority.
Yes, I have read her climate plan. I really don’t believe it calls for enough investment on a pace that will solve the problem. As an example, her plan sets forth a goal of having slightly fewer than two solar panels per citizen after eight years of her presidency. That’s not ambitious.
Calling for the U.S. to get off fossil fuels by the end of her presidency would be ambitious, and it’s probably closer to the level of effort that’s needed.
I admit I’m not expert enough to give a comprehensive critique of her reform plans for the financial industry, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear trigger that would cause a break-up of the huge institutions. (At least I don’t believe there is.)
Dodd-Frank’s capital requirements are already breaking up the biggest banks.