Split: Sanders impact on Abortion Laws

[Elixir]

Only a banana republic tries to change the election process after the fact in order to help their candidate.

I wouldn't call the USA a "banana republic" yet.
The 1/6/21 insurrection failed. Ask me again in 14 months.

 

[TomC]

Same reason Biden getting more votes and the White House weren't democratic. Because the staunchest supporters of Trump didn't get what they wanted.
Tom

Trump won the states he got the most votes in.

Bernie did not.

There is a difference between primary and general elections. In West Virginia, the unpledged delegates went for Clinton.

Even if Sanders had won all the delegates in West Virginia, he still would have lost by a substantial number of votes.

Here's what the nomination and general elections have in common.
Both processes are undemocratic rigged systems. In neither case do the eligible people vote and the top vote getter wins. This is not news. These rules have been in place for a long time, long before the 2016 election cycle.

Tom

 

[untermensche]

There is a difference between primary and general elections. In West Virginia, the unpledged delegates went for Clinton.

Even if Sanders had won all the delegates in West Virginia, he still would have lost by a substantial number of votes.

Here's what the nomination and general elections have in common.
Both processes are undemocratic rigged systems. In neither case do the eligible people vote and the top vote getter wins. This is not news. These rules have been in place for a long time, long before the 2016 election cycle.

Tom

Yes. The Electoral College is an anti-democratic scheme.

Which is why I oppose it and don't gladly accept it like a child.

 

[TomC]

There is a difference between primary and general elections. In West Virginia, the unpledged delegates went for Clinton.

Even if Sanders had won all the delegates in West Virginia, he still would have lost by a substantial number of votes.

Here's what the nomination and general elections have in common.
Both processes are undemocratic rigged systems. In neither case do the eligible people vote and the top vote getter wins. This is not news. These rules have been in place for a long time, long before the 2016 election cycle.

Tom

Yes. The Electoral College is an anti-democratic scheme.

Which is why I oppose it and don't gladly accept it like a child.

I don't gladly accept it either.
I posted a link to an organization trying to democratize the election.
Tom

 

[untermensche]

Yes. The Electoral College is an anti-democratic scheme.

Which is why I oppose it and don't gladly accept it like a child.

I don't gladly accept it either.
I posted a link to an organization trying to democratize the election.
Tom

Then you are not a silly sausage of a child.

 

[Toni]

How is Bernie winning every county in West Virginia but Hillary getting more delegates not anti-democratic?

How is Hillary winning more votes and securing the nomination not democratic?

Sanders lost the nomination for a party he wasn't a member of, and as a result of that loss, managed to get a permanent seat at the table to help push his platform. Sanders was never going to win the nomination in 2016, yet managed to influence the platform of the Democrats. That people are still whining about Sanders losing, while in essence, he won tremendous influence, is evidence that some people just can't see the bigger picture. Nor notice how some of the "Sanders supporters" who wouldn't vote for Clinton were actually bots or foreign national fakes trying to incite a mini-coup against Clinton.

Exactly.

 

[Swammerdami]

I'm not competent to adjudicate the mysterious charge that the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie. (Though I know which side I would bet on were an objective arbiter found.) But Sanders would not have beaten Trump.

Why not? During the primary the Kremlin-Koch axis was eager to have Bernie be the nominee. They coddled him while directing lies and hatred at Hillary. But if he had become the nominee, the airwaves and Internet would have been suddenly deluged with clips of Bernie honeymooning in the Soviet Union and singing "La Internationale." It matters not whether the charges were true or not; the Bullshit Machine would have been ramped up to make Benghazi-Gate™ or Email-Gate™ look like bipartisan cuddling. Even relatively sober and rational Americans wouldn't want a Stalin-lookalike in the Oval Office — and the GOP has proved that they can win without any sober or rational support at all.

And suppose that Sanders were elected, against all odds. What then?

And if he did. Then what? President Sanders wouldn't have a magic wand to overcome the opposition he would face, from both sides of the aisle. And he would have opposition from many, maybe most, Democrats on Capitol Hill. They weren't elected by leftists and they don't support Sanders' platform.
Tom

Yes. A moderate like Biden actually has a MUCH better chance of passing a progressive agenda than Sanders would have had.

 

[untermensche]

Sanders lost the nomination for a party he wasn't a member of, and as a result of that loss, managed to get a permanent seat at the table to help push his platform. Sanders was never going to win the nomination in 2016, yet managed to influence the platform of the Democrats. That people are still whining about Sanders losing, while in essence, he won tremendous influence, is evidence that some people just can't see the bigger picture. Nor notice how some of the "Sanders supporters" who wouldn't vote for Clinton were actually bots or foreign national fakes trying to incite a mini-coup against Clinton.

Exactly.

You don't care about democracy.

You don't care if the process is undemocratic.

Because Hillary won.

Then lost to Trump in an undemocratic process.

 

[TomC]

Yes. The Electoral College is an anti-democratic scheme.

Which is why I oppose it and don't gladly accept it like a child.

I don't gladly accept it either.
I posted a link to an organization trying to democratize the election.
Tom

Then you are not a silly sausage of a child.

Thanks,
I think...

Tom

 

[untermensche]

Then you are not a silly sausage of a child.

Thanks,
I think...

Tom

That's a phrase I take from James O'Brien. Maybe it's a common British phrase. He is my new favorite human.

 

[Rhea]

Unter, I continue to e surprised by your inability to recognize your allies and your insistence on insulting and alienating them as fast as you can. I don’t think a single person here likes the electoral college. But not liking it and having a plan to overcome it do not automatically translate into hating Hillary Clinton and trying to destroy the Democratic Party.

Many people have thought through what this change looks like without having to travel through 50 years of conservative taliban. You make your position sound like you dream that the way to a socialist democracy lies through destroying the Democratic Party first, and not worrying about the Republican Party.

I find that to be dangerously wrong.

 

[TomC]

Sanders lost the nomination for a party he wasn't a member of, and as a result of that loss, managed to get a permanent seat at the table to help push his platform. Sanders was never going to win the nomination in 2016, yet managed to influence the platform of the Democrats. That people are still whining about Sanders losing, while in essence, he won tremendous influence, is evidence that some people just can't see the bigger picture. Nor notice how some of the "Sanders supporters" who wouldn't vote for Clinton were actually bots or foreign national fakes trying to incite a mini-coup against Clinton.

Exactly.

You don't care about democracy.

You don't care if the process is undemocratic.

Because Hillary won.

Then lost to Trump in an undemocratic process.

Your mind reading skills aren't impressive.
Yes, I believe that Clinton was far more able to accomplish Sanders' goals than Sanders. That's why I supported her.

But as for democracy, I'm just being a realist. Americans, as a whole, like to talk about democracy. But not implement it. This goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. When push comes to shove, they consistently choose whatever gets them what they want. If democracy gets in the way they just ignore it.

Kinda like you're doing, refusing to acknowledge that Clinton got the most votes in the primaries.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Unter, I continue to e surprised by your inability to recognize your allies and your insistence on insulting and alienating them as fast as you can. I don’t think a single person here likes the electoral college. But not liking it and having a plan to overcome it do not automatically translate into hating Hillary Clinton and trying to destroy the Democratic Party.

Many people have thought through what this change looks like without having to travel through 50 years of conservative taliban. You make your position sound like you dream that the way to a socialist democracy lies through destroying the Democratic Party first, and not worrying about the Republican Party.

I find that to be dangerously wrong.

Honestly, I think the correct path lies in any mechanism that dismantles FPTP. The problem is that FPTP is built into the foundtion itself. To dismantle it would be to expose the foundation while there is an active group slavering for the sight of exposed concrete as they fondle their jackhammers in anticipation not for the power to reinforce but rather the power to completely obliterate the whole thing and replace it with an internment camp.

 

[untermensche]

Unter, I continue to e surprised by your inability to recognize your allies and your insistence on insulting and alienating them as fast as you can. I don’t think a single person here likes the electoral college. But not liking it and having a plan to overcome it do not automatically translate into hating Hillary Clinton and trying to destroy the Democratic Party.

Many people have thought through what this change looks like without having to travel through 50 years of conservative taliban. You make your position sound like you dream that the way to a socialist democracy lies through destroying the Democratic Party first, and not worrying about the Republican Party.

I find that to be dangerously wrong.

My allies are those who saw what a horrible corrupt candidate Hillary was.

 

[untermensche]

You don't care about democracy.

You don't care if the process is undemocratic.

Because Hillary won.

Then lost to Trump in an undemocratic process.

Your mind reading skills aren't impressive.
Yes, I believe that Clinton was far more able to accomplish Sanders' goals than Sanders. That's why I supported her.

But as for democracy, I'm just being a realist. Americans, as a whole, like to talk about democracy. But not implement it. This goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. When push comes to shove, they consistently choose whatever gets them what they want. If democracy gets in the way they just ignore it.

Kinda like you're doing, refusing to acknowledge that Clinton got the most votes in the primaries.
Tom

Bill Clinton turned the Democratic party into Republican-lite.

Hillary would have made things worse.

I have yet to hear one reasonable criticism of Bernie's policies.

They were not Hillary's corporate supporting policies.

A realist is somebody who sees the many problems inherent to authoritarian systems and is appalled by them and totally opposed to them and not an apologist for them.

 

[Elixir]

Unter, I continue to e surprised by your inability to recognize your allies and your insistence on insulting and alienating them as fast as you can. I don’t think a single person here likes the electoral college. But not liking it and having a plan to overcome it do not automatically translate into hating Hillary Clinton and trying to destroy the Democratic Party.

Many people have thought through what this change looks like without having to travel through 50 years of conservative taliban. You make your position sound like you dream that the way to a socialist democracy lies through destroying the Democratic Party first, and not worrying about the Republican Party.

I find that to be dangerously wrong.

Honestly, I think the correct path lies in any mechanism that dismantles FPTP. The problem is that FPTP is built into the foundtion itself. To dismantle it would be to expose the foundation while there is an active group slavering for the sight of exposed concrete as they fondle their jackhammers in anticipation not for the power to reinforce but rather the power to completely obliterate the whole thing and replace it with an internment camp.

The first step toward ranked choice voting, would be to circumvent the EC by getting a few more States to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That would at least prevent another populist conman like Trump from "winning" the Whitehouse and further corrupting the executive branch and SCOTUS.
But with the filibuster still in place, it will be decades (if ever) before foundational changes can be made.

Right now I feel like there's a great opportunity for Democrats to probably squander; Republicans have laid bare their antipathy toward science, democratic process and the common good. This would translate into huge wins in 2022, if only we had candidates who could translate all that into inspirational messaging campaigns. But most likely, Dems will field a bunch of pragmatic panderers who will run on the benefits they think their districts want. And they'll get trounced by the terrible fears and lofty false promises offered by Nazi ideologues.

This is it. If the right gets the Senate and/or the House in '22, it's all over. History says that is what will happen. You can take your Bernie-ism, your Clinton hatred, your Biden frustration and your "squad" and consign them all to the garbage bin of history. This country will briefly be able to lay claim to being the world's second biggest and least competent autocracy, until it splinters into loosely connected fiefdoms lorded over by billionaire oligarchs.

If, OTOH, by some miracle Dems gain a seat or two in the Senate and hold the House, the sky is the limit. The corrupt SCOTUS can be countered and a truly progressive overhaul of the electoral system could be in reach.

 

[Jarhyn]

You don't care about democracy.

You don't care if the process is undemocratic.

Because Hillary won.

Then lost to Trump in an undemocratic process.

Your mind reading skills aren't impressive.
Yes, I believe that Clinton was far more able to accomplish Sanders' goals than Sanders. That's why I supported her.

But as for democracy, I'm just being a realist. Americans, as a whole, like to talk about democracy. But not implement it. This goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. When push comes to shove, they consistently choose whatever gets them what they want. If democracy gets in the way they just ignore it.

Kinda like you're doing, refusing to acknowledge that Clinton got the most votes in the primaries.
Tom

Bill Clinton turned the Democratic party into Republican-lite.

Hillary would have made things worse.

I have yet to hear one reasonable criticism of Bernie's policies.

They were not Hillary's corporate supporting policies.

A realist is somebody who sees the many problems inherent to authoritarian systems and is appalled by them and totally opposed to them and not an apologist for them.

Spoken by someone who cannot be mistaken here as someone who dislikes Bernie...

Bernie's policies have problems, and we shouldn't pretend they don't. The fact is that while the system we have is fucked up and broken, we can't just step cleanly to "not fucked up and broken".

If the problem space is metaphorically seen as a piece of land, we are firmly within the borders of "not where we want to be", deep in the country of "doing it wrong".

We can't step out of that region without stepping through it.

This is the fundamental problem with Bernie Sanders. He wants to be living in the land of Correct without stepping through Wrong, without navigating around all the barriers and walls and hedges placed in the land of Wrong to prevent anyone from escaping. It also ignores the chains those of the land of Wrong have anchored us down with. It ignores the negotiations (largely held in bad faith by the Wrongese because they don't want to let society leave their domain, and in bad faith by the Correctese because 'who would argue in good faith with the devil?').

The reality is, what Bernie wants for the US, the US cannot ever have. It would take a constitutional convention, and that would open us up to far worse given the minority rule we currently see happening.

 

[untermensche]

Bill Clinton turned the Democratic party into Republican-lite.

Hillary would have made things worse.

I have yet to hear one reasonable criticism of Bernie's policies.

They were not Hillary's corporate supporting policies.

A realist is somebody who sees the many problems inherent to authoritarian systems and is appalled by them and totally opposed to them and not an apologist for them.

Spoken by someone who cannot be mistaken here as someone who dislikes Bernie...

Bernie's policies have problems, and we shouldn't pretend they don't. The fact is that while the system we have is fucked up and broken, we can't just step cleanly to "not fucked up and broken".

If the problem space is metaphorically seen as a piece of land, we are firmly within the borders of "not where we want to be", deep in the country of "doing it wrong".

We can't step out of that region without stepping through it.

This is the fundamental problem with Bernie Sanders. He wants to be living in the land of Correct without stepping through Wrong, without navigating around all the barriers and walls and hedges placed in the land of Wrong to prevent anyone from escaping. It also ignores the chains those of the land of Wrong have anchored us down with. It ignores the negotiations (largely held in bad faith by the Wrongese because they don't want to let society leave their domain, and in bad faith by the Correctese because 'who would argue in good faith with the devil?').

The reality is, what Bernie wants for the US, the US cannot ever have. It would take a constitutional convention, and that would open us up to far worse given the minority rule we currently see happening.

What Bernie policy are you opposed to?

 

[Jarhyn]

Bill Clinton turned the Democratic party into Republican-lite.

Hillary would have made things worse.

I have yet to hear one reasonable criticism of Bernie's policies.

They were not Hillary's corporate supporting policies.

A realist is somebody who sees the many problems inherent to authoritarian systems and is appalled by them and totally opposed to them and not an apologist for them.

Spoken by someone who cannot be mistaken here as someone who dislikes Bernie...

Bernie's policies have problems, and we shouldn't pretend they don't. The fact is that while the system we have is fucked up and broken, we can't just step cleanly to "not fucked up and broken".

If the problem space is metaphorically seen as a piece of land, we are firmly within the borders of "not where we want to be", deep in the country of "doing it wrong".

We can't step out of that region without stepping through it.

This is the fundamental problem with Bernie Sanders. He wants to be living in the land of Correct without stepping through Wrong, without navigating around all the barriers and walls and hedges placed in the land of Wrong to prevent anyone from escaping. It also ignores the chains those of the land of Wrong have anchored us down with. It ignores the negotiations (largely held in bad faith by the Wrongese because they don't want to let society leave their domain, and in bad faith by the Correctese because 'who would argue in good faith with the devil?').

The reality is, what Bernie wants for the US, the US cannot ever have. It would take a constitutional convention, and that would open us up to far worse given the minority rule we currently see happening.

What Bernie policy are you opposed to?

So, we can't just end military defense spending, for one.

Like it or not a lot of tooling in the economy is around the defense sphere. As many have recognized, almost every constituency has defense contracts. Bernie wants to reapportion that money directly to education. It SHOULD be apportioned to education. It cannot immediately, and perhaps cannot ever, be reapportioned.

In many ways such a policy is akin to someone campaigning in Minneapolis that they will get the endless road construction projects coordinated and complete all at once.

The citizens would love this, for a year or maybe two.

Then, the chaos would start... Because in the mean time, the fleet of road construction contractors would be entirely out of work for a prolonged period of time, and people would leave the road construction economic space.

As soon as spring came, all those contractors who had been out of work and found new jobs will not be around for fixing all the winter potholes.

By staggering the construction, there's always a detour on every trip, but without the detours, the infrastructure that is the road fixing machine will get lot rot.

Similarly, we don't want are warfighting infrastructure to get lot rot. Never mind that it's BAD infrastructure. It's the only infrastructure we have. Of course, along the same policies that would hollow out that infrastructure, there are no policies to build better cyber-warfare mechanisms in the pivot. The issue with Bernie's policies is that he wants to change direction without accounting for momentum. When you do that with a train as heavy as society, you don't end up where you want to be, you end up flying off the tracks altogether and become a destroyed mess.

 

[TomC]

You don't care about democracy.

You don't care if the process is undemocratic.

Because Hillary won.

Then lost to Trump in an undemocratic process.

Your mind reading skills aren't impressive.
Yes, I believe that Clinton was far more able to accomplish Sanders' goals than Sanders. That's why I supported her.

But as for democracy, I'm just being a realist. Americans, as a whole, like to talk about democracy. But not implement it. This goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. When push comes to shove, they consistently choose whatever gets them what they want. If democracy gets in the way they just ignore it.

Kinda like you're doing, refusing to acknowledge that Clinton got the most votes in the primaries.
Tom

Bill Clinton turned the Democratic party into Republican-lite.

Not by himself, but yeah.
Slick Willy pulled the Democrats out of the weeds that Jimmy "The Christian" Carter left them in back in 80.

He did that by pushing hard to the right. "Neo-Liberalism" He did that by throwing a bunch of people, like queers and blue collars, under the bus.

Hillary would have made things worse.

I don't think that's true. I think she was figuring out which of Sanders proposals had enough support to be politically viable. The big difference between Clinton and Sanders was that Clinton had clout, and Sanders didn't. She could have accomplished more of Sanders' goals, because she could cut backroom deals and credibly threaten people's political career and lie credibly on camera when necessary and various skills like that. Skills Sanders doesn't have. Clinton was a cutthroat politician, Sanders was nowhere close to her league.

I have yet to hear one reasonable criticism of Bernie's policies.

Here's one. They aren't supported by the American people as a whole. Like it or not, Sanders is way to the left of the American people as a whole.

They were not Hillary's corporate supporting policies.

It's more than a bit naive to believe that what a candidate says during the campaign is what they'll do after election, or even what they're intending to do after election.

A realist is somebody who sees the many problems inherent to authoritarian systems and is appalled by them and totally opposed to them and not an apologist for them.

Nope.
A realist is somebody who actually understands the reality. Indulging oneself in sturmandrang, without actually doing anything, is just self indulgence.
Tom