The Democratic Party (and media) are going after Bernie

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It should be obvious now to anyone paying close attention just how much the Democrats and corporate media do not want Bernie to be the nominee. Forces are really going strong after him. It's all coming together at the same time once he took the lead in polls.

Biden campaign goes after him. Warren goes after him. CNN and MSNBC constantly go after him, but especially CNN. The Daily Beast goes after him. News talks about anecdotes of a drunk crazy person in his campaign to scare everyone.

Now the latest thing?

Hillary Clinton goes after him.

CNN: Clinton says 'nobody likes' Sanders and won't commit to backing him if he's the Democratic nominee

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton blasts Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new documentary, saying "nobody likes him" and declining in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to say whether she would endorse and campaign for him if he's the Democratic 2020 nominee.

"He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done," Clinton says in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

The comments in the documentary are aimed directly at his core campaign appeal -- that he's a political outsider pitching revolutionary change.

The new round of lacerating attacks come less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which Clinton narrowly won in 2016 and where Sanders is locked in a tight four-way race this year. They also have the potential to reignite a divisive, four-year-old fight that has never fully faded from Democrats' minds. More recently, and in comments since her loss to President Donald Trump, Clinton has blamed Sanders for damaging her campaign.

Sanders brought in people from the Left outside of the Democratic Party to support Clinton. I am sure some of those people refused to vote for her, but also some of them voted for her. My cousin, a socialist, and his socialist friends voted for her, for example.

But now, it seems Clinton is blaming Bernie for her campaign loss.

The establishment will continue to bash Bernie until his poll numbers drop way below a danger line.

What's more is that Trump is using this division against the Democrats.

 

[PyramidHead]

The Democratic Party (and media) and exasperated liberal wonks who live in Talk Freethought all day are going after Bernie

 

[ronburgundy]

It should be obvious now to anyone paying close attention just how much the Democrats and corporate media do not want Bernie to be the nominee. Forces are really going strong after him. It's all coming together at the same time once he took the lead in polls.

Biden campaign goes after him. Warren goes after him. CNN and MSNBC constantly go after him, but especially CNN. The Daily Beast goes after him. News talks about anecdotes of a drunk crazy person in his campaign to scare everyone.

Now the latest thing?

Hillary Clinton goes after him.

CNN: Clinton says 'nobody likes' Sanders and won't commit to backing him if he's the Democratic nominee

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton blasts Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new documentary, saying "nobody likes him" and declining in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to say whether she would endorse and campaign for him if he's the Democratic 2020 nominee.

"He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done," Clinton says in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

The comments in the documentary are aimed directly at his core campaign appeal -- that he's a political outsider pitching revolutionary change.

The new round of lacerating attacks come less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which Clinton narrowly won in 2016 and where Sanders is locked in a tight four-way race this year. They also have the potential to reignite a divisive, four-year-old fight that has never fully faded from Democrats' minds. More recently, and in comments since her loss to President Donald Trump, Clinton has blamed Sanders for damaging her campaign.

Sanders brought in people from the Left outside of the Democratic Party to support Clinton. I am sure some of those people refused to vote for her, but also some of them voted for her. My cousin, a socialist, and his socialist friends voted for her, for example.

Bernie led more leftists and registered Dems to not vote in 2016 than to vote for Hillary who otherwise would not have.

The evidence is clear that leftists who voted Dem in 2008 stayed home in 2016, moreso than the reverse. In fact, 12% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump and most of them were Democrats and Independents. This was in large part b/c of the moronic false equivalence made by Bern victims between the Dems and GOP and Hillary and Trump. A false equivalence that many of his supporters continue to make.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The Dem party insiders have been biased against Bernie since he first decided to run in 2015. Nothing has changed there. They oppose and act against anyone who isn't an insider. That also includes Yang (the list especially for NBC is epic) and Tuslsi (the "Russian asset") It also included Williamson, and would more have had she made any progress whatsoever.

Mainstream media is their tool. Just as Fox is a tool of the Republicans.

As for Hillary, I am surprised she went with "nobody likes him" instead of calling him a Russian asset.

The truth of course is that Bernie inspired and ignited political awareness and activity on the left more than Hillary or most insider Democrats ever did. Only Obama comes to mind as an exception.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There seems so much mud flinging. Personally, Sanders would get crucified in 2020. He has a terrible amount of baggage that elevated liberal turnout will not be able to handle the independents flipping away from the 'Communist'. We saw it in 2000 with the Draft Dodger beating out the Vietnam Vet who had an illicit affair with a black woman as evidenced by his black child... I mean yes, the affair wasn't true, but it was a big reason why W overcame McCain. In '04... Kerry was absolutely sandbagged by the Swift Boat Vets who took whatever support or payment to change their opinion of Sen. Kerry. And those people were lied about. Sanders... has said too many things that can be spun to turn him into a guy more communist than Lenin. It'll be exaggeration, but if this stuff worked with McCain and Kerry, Sanders doesn't have a prayer.

It should be obvious now to anyone paying close attention just how much the Democrats and corporate media do not want Bernie to be the nominee. Forces are really going strong after him. It's all coming together at the same time once he took the lead in polls.

Biden campaign goes after him. Warren goes after him. CNN and MSNBC constantly go after him, but especially CNN. The Daily Beast goes after him. News talks about anecdotes of a drunk crazy person in his campaign to scare everyone.

Now the latest thing?

Hillary Clinton goes after him.

CNN: Clinton says 'nobody likes' Sanders and won't commit to backing him if he's the Democratic nominee

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton blasts Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new documentary, saying "nobody likes him" and declining in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to say whether she would endorse and campaign for him if he's the Democratic 2020 nominee.

"He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done," Clinton says in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

The comments in the documentary are aimed directly at his core campaign appeal -- that he's a political outsider pitching revolutionary change.

The new round of lacerating attacks come less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which Clinton narrowly won in 2016 and where Sanders is locked in a tight four-way race this year. They also have the potential to reignite a divisive, four-year-old fight that has never fully faded from Democrats' minds. More recently, and in comments since her loss to President Donald Trump, Clinton has blamed Sanders for damaging her campaign.

Sanders brought in people from the Left outside of the Democratic Party to support Clinton. I am sure some of those people refused to vote for her, but also some of them voted for her. My cousin, a socialist, and his socialist friends voted for her, for example.

Bernie led more leftists and registered Dems to not vote in 2016 than to vote for Hillary who otherwise would not have.

BUT!!! Is this really true? Hillary got more votes in Florida in 2016 than Obama did. Hillary got fewer votes in Wisconsin that Obama did... Trump got fewer votes than Obama did in 2016!

I'm not certain a proper postmortem was done for 2016. The numbers were all over the place. Hillary Clinton even won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes... did Sanders hurt her so much that she could have won the popular vote by that much?

I think Clinton lost in the rust belt with massive turnaround to Trump and deflated turnout in some urban areas, as a reminder that Sanders lost to Clinton in Urban areas, so that isn't the source of that deflation caused by Sanders. For instance, Trump received about as many votes in Cuyahoga County in 2016 as Romney did in 2012... but Clinton received 50,000 fewer votes than Obama. Additionally, in the counties that flopped to Trump from Obama (Warren and Trumbull), they voted for Clinton in the primary, not Sanders.

The attached link really shows the issue of the rust belt. Clinton outperformed Obama in several liberal states (and Texas). But it was the midwest that completely sucked ass for Clinton. Additionally, Trump was able to rake votes one by one in the most rural counties. Every vote mattered and Trump was able to access that support.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It should be obvious now to anyone paying close attention just how much the Democrats and corporate media do not want Bernie to be the nominee.

The reason why Dems don't want him is clear and noncontroversial. He's (a) NOT a Democrat, (b) can't beat Trump and (c) gave us Trump in the first place.

We can end this nonsense instantly by pointing out he's really a third party candidate glomming onto the DNC like a parasite. So it's little wonder that the DNC would want to get rid of him, but even the most rabid Dems are alpha-pussies, so anyone that's a bully (like Sanders and Republicans) get to just bulldoze their way through.

As to "corporate media" it appears what you really mean from that is CNN and MSNBC. I have yet to see any specific editorial bias against Sanders. The examples that have most often been provided in other threads have pretty much all fallen apart when closer examined and/or do not necessarily reflect an official editorial mindset.

MSNBC was formed deliberately as a counter-point to Fox News and is essentially the DNC's propaganda outfit, but only then its still about 60/40 (left/right), because in the end it's a for-profit outfit that has to face the fact that it is limited to what the market will bring and in regard to broadcast TV, that's centrists/moderates and Independents who also lean center/right.

Regardless, you've only indicted, at best, two networks; one without any clear editorial bias and one that started out as a fundamentally DNC party centric outlet.

Even if both stations showed a demonstrable editorial bias against him, however, so what? We are several decades past the notion of an unbiased fourth estate, unfortunately and no matter what, Fox is unabashedly biased toward the Republicans on the order of 95/5 bias (i.e., 90% propaganda; 5% "legitimate" news) and is consistently the top ratings dog in the fight.

In the days when mainstream media set the pace, the reporters would simply ignore--for the most part--any radical fringe on either side of the political spectrum and rightly so. Now, however, broadcast news must follow google searches and social media (which are notoriously "radical fringe" centric), so they have to play second-fiddle to the radical fringe.

That doesn't make the radical fringe any more relevant; it simply means that what goes viral online is even more vapid than the old "if it bleeds, it ledes" maxim of "yellow" journalism.

Iow, when technology is presenting false positives, it is up to responsible journalists to correct for that mistake, not blindly follow it. In the past, that meant trusting newscasters like Walter Cronkite (and the editorial staff of CBS news) to be smarter than the average bear so that facts and figures outweighed gossip and influence peddling.

But, that's where we are now and we all know it. We all know not to trust the internet and yet, here some are, arguing that the news media in this country should just pay attention only to the google searches and what goes viral. Which is, ironically, exactly what Trumputin banked on and used to their advantage to outweigh the clear and overwhelming preference of the largest numbers of American voters (i.e, for Hillary).

So some get to jump up and down in righteous indignation at perceived unfair treatment--like Lyndon LaRouche and Ralph Nader before them--but it doesn't necessary mean there aren't valid/legitimate reasons for not paying such contenders equal consideration.

Again, not that this is particulary the case; only that, it's not just some monolithic Illuminati decision on high that may be behind any such perceived omissions or slights.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It should be obvious now to anyone paying close attention just how much the Democrats and corporate media do not want Bernie to be the nominee. Forces are really going strong after him. It's all coming together at the same time once he took the lead in polls.

Biden campaign goes after him. Warren goes after him. CNN and MSNBC constantly go after him, but especially CNN. The Daily Beast goes after him. News talks about anecdotes of a drunk crazy person in his campaign to scare everyone.

Now the latest thing?

Hillary Clinton goes after him.

CNN: Clinton says 'nobody likes' Sanders and won't commit to backing him if he's the Democratic nominee

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton blasts Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new documentary, saying "nobody likes him" and declining in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to say whether she would endorse and campaign for him if he's the Democratic 2020 nominee.

"He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done," Clinton says in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

The comments in the documentary are aimed directly at his core campaign appeal -- that he's a political outsider pitching revolutionary change.

The new round of lacerating attacks come less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which Clinton narrowly won in 2016 and where Sanders is locked in a tight four-way race this year. They also have the potential to reignite a divisive, four-year-old fight that has never fully faded from Democrats' minds. More recently, and in comments since her loss to President Donald Trump, Clinton has blamed Sanders for damaging her campaign.

Sanders brought in people from the Left outside of the Democratic Party to support Clinton. I am sure some of those people refused to vote for her, but also some of them voted for her. My cousin, a socialist, and his socialist friends voted for her, for example.

Bernie led more leftists and registered Dems to not vote in 2016 than to vote for Hillary who otherwise would not have.

Evidence? Also, this seems a contorted, tortured statement...

The evidence is clear that leftists who voted Dem in 2008 stayed home in 2016, moreso than the reverse. In fact, 12% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump and most of them were Democrats and Independents. This was in large part b/c of the moronic false equivalence made by Bern victims between the Dems and GOP and Hillary and Trump. A false equivalence that many of his supporters continue to make.

Yes, Bernie appealed to independents. He focused on economic issues that mattered to Independents in swing states. Some of those independents would not support Hillary even when Bernie endorsed her. She failed to support them by not showing up to campaign in those areas. Her strategists saw it as low risk. They were wrong.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Trump: Make America Great Again

Hillary: America's Already Great

And she lost because of Bernie? Riiiiight.

And so what if Bernie wasn't a life long Democrat? If more Democrat voters now support him more than other Democrat candidates, then guess what? That would make him more of a Democrat than his detractors are.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

She failed to support them by not showing up to campaign in those areas.

This is an oft-asserted claim that is not only false, it isn't even logical. If this were true, then any states she did show up to campaign in she should have won, just as any states Trump showed up to campaign in, he should have won.

Not the case.

And she DID campaign in ALL states throughout the primaries, just not necessarily returning to only one state in the general, where she sent both Obama AND Sanders (who had beaten her in that state) to campaign in her stead and primarily because that state was a total lock from all polling metrics, so why waste the resources?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

And she lost because of Bernie?

Yep as I have exhaustively argued dozens of times and you have never been able to counter except with vapid crap like "Riiiiiiight."

And so what if Bernie wasn't a life long Democrat?

He shouldn't have been running as a Democrat.

If more Democrat voters now support him

Emphasis on "now." So if only 5% supported him before?

more than other Democrat candidates, then guess what? That would make him more of a Democrat than his detractors are.

No, that would only make him a better contender this time--and then only due to the same false positive narrative that was never quelled and only grew by design over time--than he was last time, but still doesn't make him a Democrat and still doesn't excuse his previous attacks on the DNC and his pointlessly divisive primary challenge that should have ended in March, etc., etc., etc., already discussed dozens of times before.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

How dare anyone seek to criticize and improve the DNC? What horror.

And for the Nth time, Hillary was a shit candidate who ran a shit campaign that actually managed to lose the presidency to Donald fucking Trump. That remains a fact and no amount of twisting yourself or herself into a pretzel will change that fact. Yes, Bernie ran against her, just as she ran against Obama. Yes, he hasn't always marched in lock step with the Democrat whip. Doesn't matter.

If you set up a two party system and then whine about somebody using that system as best they can, you'll get no sympathy from me for it.

 

[PyramidHead]

"Hi, Hillary Clinton here, to talk about likeability and winning elections" lol

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

How dare anyone seek to criticize and improve the DNC?

Bernie never did. In fact, his subsequent arguments were that we should abandon women (i.e. pro-choice) and minorities (i.e., focus on white working class, when in fact it was white middle class that voted Trump).

What horror.

Indeed.

And for the Nth time,

Your vapid opinions on Hillary's campaign are invalidated by the fact that she won the election. That will never change and is the only metric of voter preference. Trump became President NOT because he won the election, but in spite of it. That, too, will never change.

In short, she did, in fact, beat such a shit candidate as Donald Trump in the only metric that actually measures candidate preferences: the popular vote. The fact that your binary brain can't comprehend the idea that someone can win and still lose (and conversely, lose and yet still win) is not relevant.

Yes, Bernie ran against her, just as she ran against Obama.

In that primary, they were not only equally matched, but she was actually--once again--on top in regard to raw votes. At no point was Sanders ahead and certainly could not possibly have won by March when he should have left the race gracefully and then started to work for Hillary.

It was the fact that he refused to leave--when it was mathematically impossible for him to win--that caused the biggest problem and fractured the party at a time when everyone should have been focused on Trump.

Yes, he hasn't always marched in lock step with the Democrat whip. Doesn't matter.

It does to Democrats.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yep as I have exhaustively argued dozens of times and you have never been able to counter except with vapid crap like "Riiiiiiight."

Have you? In looking at the stats, Michigan was lost in a few counties: Wayne (Clinton lost 76,000 votes), Macomb (Clinton lost 32,000 votes), Genesee (Clinton lost 26,000 votes). These numbers compared to those Obama had in 2012. Macomb and Wayne Counties are part of Detroit. Genesee is Flint. Wayne county was much more loss of turnout that vote swapping. Macomb appeared to be vote swapping. Wayne County... could have single handedly given Clinton the state, but the turnout was lower. So one county you could say might have been Sanders, but Wayne county wasn't likely about Sanders.

PA is a mess. Trump v Romney against Clinton v Obama shows gains of 15,000 or more votes in 8 counties for Trump and 3 counties Clinton. In a suburb counties of Philly (Montgomery and Chester), Clinton had swings of 33,000 and 26,000... and even won Chester County (Obama lost that) . But then out in Wilkes Barre (Luzerne and Lackawanna counties), Trump swings 31,000 and 24,000 votes his way and Northampton (Allenton), 12,000 Trump swing. Philadelphia County was a 17,000 vote swing for Trump, but Pittsburgh swapped nearly the same way for Clinton. PA seemed to be more about the small counties, where Trump consistently picked up 2,000 or 3,000 votes and Clinton lose 1,000 or 2,000 votes. It appeared that Clinton did something right in PA here and there, but Trump was able to do more right. Generally, Trump was gaining a good deal in Rust Belt cities and the Alabama counties he was nickel and diming his way up. To make matters more confusing, Erie, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Westmoreland counties? They went Clinton in the primary.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yep as I have exhaustively argued dozens of times and you have never been able to counter except with vapid crap like "Riiiiiiight."

Have you?

Yes.

In looking at the stats...

One would need to first undo everything that transpired after March of 2016 (when Sanders should have bowed out, accepting for the fact that he should have bowed out much earlier, but that's the last point of "You Know You Have NO Real Chance").

Without the relentless and pointless and escalating attacks from the Sanders camp--fueled by the Russians, as well as the GOP--the hundred or so million that Clinton had to waste (and the millions that Sanders could have transferred to Clinton) on countering a zombie onslaught from what was misperceived as within her own party, the focus would have been entirely on attacking Trump directly from March forward (when it mattered the most).

Just put it this way, while Clinton was pointlessly dealing with a manufactured schism--a mole hill turned into a mountain by social media--Trump was pretty much free to go from rally to rally while the DNC was in a civil war.

If there never was such division, Sanders and Clinton would have been a unified front along with everyone in the Dem party--and focused exclusively on attacking Trump and revealing his bullshit for what it was in every state and every county.

There would still have been the influence of Russia's meddling, but in terms of people saying things like, "She didn't campaign in this particular state and that's why she lost it" that would have never been the case, as having those six or so months of focus taken off of the primary civil war and placed instead on countering Trump would have meant better focus and better analytics and more time to focus on deconstructing his strategy and countering it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

All you needed to say was "I don't care about statistics, I just want to blame Sanders even if metrics regarding this might vary from state to state, explaining why Clinton actually lost." That would have saved you time. Sanders campaigned a lot for Clinton. Clinton added a good deal of Sanders planks to the DNC platform. It was working. Whether Sanders supporters didn't bother to show up is definitely under the "debatable" category, not in the proven science category. If Sanders was all that responsible, Clinton couldn't possibly have carried the popular vote plurality.

There is a lot of black and white people are seeing, when there is a boatload more gray out there.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

All you needed to say was

Exactly what I said, because that was the important part that the stats would not accurately reflect.

Sanders campaigned a lot for Clinton.

Half-assed and after the damage was already done in an attempt to heal the rift that he caused.

 

[Ford]

"He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done," Clinton says in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

The comments in the documentary are aimed directly at his core campaign appeal -- that he's a political outsider pitching revolutionary change.

She's right. At least about the fact that he's a career politician who got nothing done.

"Oh, but Clinton is the establishment! She's a creature of Washington!" Sorry, but Bernie has been in Washington since Hillary Clinton was still First Lady. Of Arkansas.

What has he accomplished in all that time? Precious little. Of the seven Bernie-sponsored bills that were enacted, two were to designate the names of post offices in Vermont, one was to declare Vermont's bicentennial. He's not exactly lighting the world on fire in Congress.

As far as him being a career politician, step back and watch/listen to his words objectively. Like every other career politician, Bernie speaks in talking points. He also does that thing where he takes a question and turns it into an opportunity to repeat his talking points. "That's a great question! People are angry about (topic) and what we really need to focus on is (fiery rhetoric) and I have a (plan to address something else)!" He tells people what they want to hear, not what will actually work. Classic politician.

Is "the media" attacking him? It is and has always been the job of the press to shine a bright light on our politicians. That light is meant to expose the bullshit artists, con men, and hypocrites. It is merciless, and necessarily so. Trump thinks "the media" is attacking him, when all they're really doing is shining a light in places he doesn't want people to see. Hillary Clinton endured that light - along with numerous Congressional investigations - for decades, and has come out on the other end a little worse for wear, but intact. Sorry, Bernie, but if you're going to run for President, you have to expect the press to dig into every corner of your life and career. That's their purpose. Do they always pursue everything equally and fairly? No, but that comes with the territory as well. If it leads people to understand the truth - that you're a creature of Washington, not an "outsider" - then so be it.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Bernie never did. In fact, his subsequent arguments were that we should abandon women (i.e. pro-choice) and minorities (i.e., focus on white working class, when in fact it was white middle class that voted Trump).

Grade A Bullshit right there.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Bernie never did. In fact, his subsequent arguments were that we should abandon women (i.e. pro-choice) and minorities (i.e., focus on white working class, when in fact it was white middle class that voted Trump).

Grade A Bullshit right there.

Bernie Sanders Defends Campaigning For Anti-Abortion Rights Democrat

What’s Wrong With Bernie Sanders’s Strategy
Building a Democratic coalition out of white, working-class voters won’t succeed. Just ask Hillary Clinton circa 2008.

Survey: the poor white working class was, if anything, more likely than the rich to vote for Clinton

And WaPo has an excellent article on the myth of the white working class vote (it was the white middle class vote that mattered most to Trump), but it's behind a pay wall. Google: "It's 'time To Bust the Myth: Most Trump Voters Were Not Working Class."