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Bernie Haters for Bernie (1 Viewer)

zftcg

Footballguy
[FYI I totally stole this topic title from a Meetup group someone set up in 2004 called "Kerry Haters for Kerry". They had slogans like "Why not the long face?" and "He'll do."]

There are tons of threads already in here talking about Bernie, and socialism, what a disaster he'll be, etc. This one is for something different.

This thread is for people like me, who not only don't view Bernie as their first choice, but view him as pretty much their last choice among all the Democrats who have run this cycle. But we also recognize that a) he looks increasingly likely to win the nomination, and b) we swore to ourselves that we would do whatever was necessary to beat Trump, and well, it looks like supporting Bernie is what will be necessary.

So take your doom and gloom and anti-socialism jeremiads and stick them in another thread. This is for those of us who have reached the final Kubler-Ross stage and are preparing themselves to accept Bernie as the Democratic nominee.

A few questions:

  • How are you reconciling yourself to this development? For me, it's mostly been a function of a) hoping he can really stir up enthusiasm among younger voters, b) hoping he can win back those Obama-Trump voters in the Rust Belt, and c) falling back on, "Well, no one thought Trump could win, either." Also, blogger Jonathan Chait, no fan of Bernie, forced himself to write a piece titled "Here’s What I Do Like About Bernie Sanders" and I mostly agree with it.
  • What do you want to see the other Democratic candidates do? I gotta say, I still hope that Bloomberg turns his barrels on Bernie for awhile, not because I want to see him weakened, but because the one weakness I perceive in Bernie that he could still reassure me on is the fact that he's never really been vetted. I want to see how he deals with a sustained attack, and I"d much rather see him deal with it now than from Trump in the fall. So let's see it all: the honeymoon in the USSR; the speeches praising Castro, Noriega and other leftists; the scandal with his wife and Burlington College. I want to see his response.
  • What will you do this fall to help him win? I have a friend here in Florida who is a huge political junkie, a flaming liberal, and who can't stand Bernie. He swears that if Bernie is nominated, he will draw the line at voting for him. No canvassing, no online activism, and he will put his focus on down-ballot races (honestly, that may be the best use of his resources regardless). I haven't decided yet what I'll do, but as I reminded my friend, no matter who the Democratic nominee is, it won't lessen the existential threat Trump poses to our democracy.
 
If it becomes necessary,  I’m all in. 

I don’t think of myself as a Bernie hater though. I oppose him but I don’t hate him, or anyone in American politics. I despise Trump but don’t hate him either. 

I actually have a soft spot for Bernie, solely because he reminds me strongly of my great-Uncle Herman, also from Brooklyn, whom I loved as a young kid. He was a gambler (he secretly taught me poker, blackjack, and sports betting and made me promise never to tell my folks) and a Communist (he once worked for the Daily Worker!) He was an all around great guy and he looked and sounded like Bernie. I miss you Uncle Herman! 

 
Yeah, I'm not a hater either. My biggest thing with Bernie has always just been that he doesn't really do anything for me. I get that he inspires lots of people, and I think that's to be applauded, but he doesn't inspire me. 

That's funny that he reminds you of your great-uncle, because he actually reminds me of my late aunt. Not in terms of personality, but in their approach to politics. Aunt Jeanne brought an earnestness to her liberalism that was as admirable as it was naive. She would get outraged because she simply couldn't imagine how anyone could fail to see the obviousness of her point of view. When her son came out of the closet, she became very involved in PFLAG and once drove all the way to Liberty University to try to get a private meeting with Jerry Falwell (spoiler alert: he refused). She died on the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, which is exactly the kind of event that would have left her bereft and bewildered by the GOP's refusal to support gun control. Part of me wishes I could go through life with so little cynicism. I miss her, too.

 
I’ll vote for Bernie over Trump for two main reasons:

1. The most important issue to me is preserving our democracy rather than falling into a dictatorship. I don’t think Bernie will use the DOJ to harass his opponents and protect his allies. I don’t think he’ll attack the media by calling them the enemy of the people. I don’t think he’ll appoint family members to positions of power. I don’t think he’ll politicize our intelligence agencies.

2. Even if I’m wrong and Bernie does try to do those kinds of things, he’ll have to start from scratch. It takes time to replace all Senate-confirmed positions with Acting lackeys. It takes time to weed out all executive-branch personnel who are loyal to the Constitution. Trump has a huge head start in damaging our democratic norms and institutions while Bernie is years away, at best, from getting to a similar place.

Trump and Bernie are both terrible candidates, IMO, but Bernie is far less terrible. It’s not really close. I’ll vote for him if no third-party candidate attracts me.

 
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Maurile's point #1 pretty much sums things up.  It's the reason that I don't understand why anyone opposed to Trump wouldn't support any opponent.  This has nothing to do with political policies.  If you want to preserve a system that (at least theoretically) gives us some say in guiding our country's future political policies, there shouldn't be any hesitation about what to do.

 
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~~~▄▄██▌▌             BERNIE SANDERS
JUST CAST
▄▄▄▌▐██▌.▌                     NEVADA KEDAVRA
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▀(O)▀▀▀▀▀▀▀(O)(O)▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀(@)(@)▀▀▘
WELCOME ABOARD!

There’s Cubans in the back.  Cigars.*
 

*That’s some light socialist humor we like to make around here 

 
This is where I'm at too.  Way to go those of you on the radical right.  You turned this mild mannered politically apathetic disinterested non-voter in 2016...into someone who is enthusiastically  excited to vote for anyone but Trump or any republican for any elected office. And I'll reconcile voting for Bernie by adopting the republican mantra..."sometimes God brings us an imperfect messenger to do his work".

 
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Id like to add one thing to this ...

Should Bernie win I think it’s critical that we hold him to the same standards we are holding Trump to, maybe even a higher standard. I think this is the only way we can start breaking down the divisiveness of our 2-party political system. I’m all for trying to bring the GOP closer to the negotiation table instead of farther. We need to figure out how to roll back this Gingrich divided political system.

Only the top 1%-rich benefit from a divided population. 

 
I'll keep myself to this thread for ranting. I mostly stay quiet on my feelings about Bernie because I just really don't want to get into and/or offend his ardent supporters.

So despite all the accusations that get thrown around by Bernie supporters about liberal elites losing power and being afraid he's going to take all my money and whatnot, at least for me, my dislike is all centered around one predominant factor - I abhor his populist and negative messaging. And I think it is really bad for the country, especially now when we need a whole lot of healing. I don't believe the most effective way to get people on your side is by standing up an elusive enemy that we are all supposed to be mad at. You can bring people along on a road to universal health care, which is a road I am fully on board with, without framing that journey as a war against billionaires, or corporations, or the pharmaceutical industrial complex. Those things are people and are made up of people who we also need to come along on this journey with us if we are ever going to get out of this situation. His messaging is divisive and I don't believe in it and think it is the worst possible way to go about squashing Trumpism. We're now coming in from the other side with the same approach and I find it distasteful. Trump stands up immigrants as the reason for the common man's problems; with Bernie it is rich people and corporations. 

Pete touched on this a little during the debate but kept getting cut off. They were talking about all the negative social media posts by some of Bernie's supporters. And he was trying to say that if this is happening you should do some self-reflection and wonder why your message seems to be stirring up so much anger in people that they would behave that way. 

Either way, I am resigned that Bernie will be the nominee. I don't think he will win the majority of delegates, but I think he will have a plurality in a contested convention and they have to give him the nomination. And I will do whatever I can to help get him elected. But man is this scary to me because  another 4 years of Trump will be catastrophic.  I'm not fear mongering; I honestly don't think Bernie will win the general in Pennsylvania. But I'm going to do whatever I can to try to make sure he does and I will probably vote for him in the primary depending how the next month goes with the races. I love Pete and have donated to his campaign, but if the field is looking like it will be a contested convention but with Bernie far ahead of the others, I will vote for him in the primary.

 
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Wow. This truly scares me. Youre obviously Ignorant of what communism has done to people are the world. Please read Gulag archipelago. That’s your communism
You, my friend, are not ignorant about Communism. It truly is a great evil, the greatest evil mankind has probably ever produced other than Nazism. 

But both you and the person you replied to ARE ignorant about Bernie Sanders when you conflate his beliefs with communism. That’s plain wrong, lazy and simplistic thinking. Bernie has a lot of ideas which I don’t approve of but he’s not close to a Communist. 

 
By the way I’m not at all convinced yet this is inevitable. It looks more likely than not at the moment but it’s certainly not a sure thing. 

 
By the way I’m not at all convinced yet this is inevitable. It looks more likely than not at the moment but it’s certainly not a sure thing. 
I agree, as dominant as he's looked so far I still don't think he gets over 50% unless a lot of them drop before Super Tuesday

 
By the way I’m not at all convinced yet this is inevitable. It looks more likely than not at the moment but it’s certainly not a sure thing. 
Bernie is going to consistently have a floor of about 20-30% of the voters in the primaries. Bloomberg coming in and spreading all his money around is going to lead to the rest of the field being all over the place. And Bloomberg won't drop out because he doesn't have to. And the "moderate" field who has accumulated delegates will know that a contested convention is likely and they won't drop out even if they have no money and aren't campaigning. And Bernie will end up with the plurality of delegates going into the convention. This is my prediction of course but what I see as very likely happening. Bloomberg is messing this whole thing up because the "moderate" wing isn't going to coalesce around one candidate such that we get down to Bernie vs [x moderate]. Because just by the nature of his ad spending Bloomberg is going to pick up a bunch of delegates that would otherwise go to Biden, Pete, or Amy. All IMO. We'll know for sure after Super Tuesday.

 
You guys should make “Vote for the Socialist, it’s important” merchandise like they did in Louisiana when the corrupt governor ran against David Duke and there were “vote for the crook, it’s important” signs.

 
You guys should make “Vote for the Socialist, it’s important” merchandise like they did in Louisiana when the corrupt governor ran against David Duke and there were “vote for the crook, it’s important” signs.
Or when the Alabama GOP printed up that “Vote for the pedophile, it’s important” merchandise for Roy Moore.

 Wait, sorry, they only did that metaphorically.

 
Bernie is going to consistently have a floor of about 20-30% of the voters in the primaries. Bloomberg coming in and spreading all his money around is going to lead to the rest of the field being all over the place. And Bloomberg won't drop out because he doesn't have to. And the "moderate" field who has accumulated delegates will know that a contested convention is likely and they won't drop out even if they have no money and aren't campaigning. And Bernie will end up with the plurality of delegates going into the convention. This is my prediction of course but what I see as very likely happening. Bloomberg is messing this whole thing up because the "moderate" wing isn't going to coalesce around one candidate such that we get down to Bernie vs [x moderate]. Because just by the nature of his ad spending Bloomberg is going to pick up a bunch of delegates that would otherwise go to Biden, Pete, or Amy. All IMO. We'll know for sure after Super Tuesday.
Right, I agree with all of that. 

But here’s another possibility that I just stated in another thread: Biden wins South Carolina by the skin of his teeth. A victory is a victory. A lot of voters that are for Bloomberg or Buttigieg or Klobuchar hear this and think “I don’t love Joe but I gotta vote for him because Bernie can’t be the nominee.” 

 
The Florida primary is March 17. I will vote for whatever I judge to be the option that maximizes Democrats’ chances in November. If Biden still seems like he has a shot, I’ll probably vote for him. If I think Bernie will benefit from a resounding victory, I’ll vote for him. And if I think he will benefit from a reality check regarding just how hard Florida will be for him in the fall, I’ll cast a protest vote to send a message. 

 
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You, my friend, are not ignorant about Communism. It truly is a great evil, the greatest evil mankind has probably ever produced other than Nazism. 

But both you and the person you replied to ARE ignorant about Bernie Sanders when you conflate his beliefs with communism. That’s plain wrong, lazy and simplistic thinking. Bernie has a lot of ideas which I don’t approve of but he’s not close to a Communist. 
This is hilarious in a forum who compared Trump to Hitler 

 
I'm still hoping that Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg come to their senses and throw their support behind Biden before it's too late; all nice and above board to lessen the blow to Sanders' supporters that he legit lost. I don't think that's going to happen.

That being said, if Sanders wins.... I'm 100% behind him.  I'm not entirely comfortable with his laser focus agenda.  He's a little too little of a politician and more simply just a policy robot than I'm comfortable.  I don't know how he'll play the politics game and whether he has any interest in making "halfway happy" compromises with even his allies in D.C. to better the lives of Americans.  But......I think he's a better person than Donald Trump.  

 
Any chance we see Gabbard/Yang as a VP?
In a perfect world I would like to see Gabbard because I think she'd pull votes from Trump, but at the same time I think the media and Hillary have worked their magic and made her too toxic to those on the left.

 
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Any chance we see Gabbard/Yang as a VP?
I would think either of those would be extremely unlikely, but who knows.

If Sanders is decent at speaking to America's history he will have time to ease concerns for some people. If anything, what he is suggesting is more similar to the "golden age" of the 1950's economy in the minds of many conservative voters than any other candidate.

https://boingboing.net/2019/03/13/they-were-socialist-invader.html

 
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I do not like him but he is better than Trump so would vote for him and giving my money to beat a menace. 

 
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I’m still hoping for Stacy Abrams - a Sanders/Abrams ticket will give me a semi and I’ll be hearing this until Election Day - I hope
This would be by far his best choice IMO.  Not only does she help him in GA and at the margin in some other battleground states (FL, MI, PA, OH), having a serious person and an actual Democrat on the ticket addresses both my worries about his health.

 
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Am I the only one that does not see FL and OH as battleground states anymore? They are pretty solidly red at this point, and the demographics are not really changing in any direction to help. 

 
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Am I the only one that does not see FL and OH as battleground states anymore? They are pretty solidly red at this point, and the demographics are not really changing in any direction to help. 
  FL is much more of a "Lucy pulling the football away at the last second" state than OH. I think OH is pretty solidly red.  FL is a weird one....that just always SEEMS to break Right at the proper time.

 
Bernie Sanders is no more nfw a presidential candidate than Reagan was in 1980, taking advantage of an unlikely & unliked presidency with what had recently been considered an extremist agenda. That was the beginning of the end for me, but that was the doing of Atwater/Gingrich/arbitrage/media, not the figurehead who kicked it off. He just made it all possible.

 
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I am a big Bloomberg supporter, but if Bernie is the candidate i will vote Trump.  I feel Bernie will destroy our economy with his social programs.
Have you been to Vermont?  Do you believe it is a destroyed state?  What about MA?  Romney started Obamacare here and it worked. 

 
Bernie Sanders is no more nfw a presidential candidate than Reagan was in 1980, taking advantage of an unlikely & unliked presidency with what had recently been considered an extremist agenda. That was the beginning of the end for me, but that was the doing of Atwater/Gingrich/arbitrage/media, not the figurehead who kicked it off. He just made it all possible.
Gingrich could be nominated as the largest single contributing factor to ruining our political system. 

 
I’m not sold on Abrams. What does she really bring to the table. She feels like a flash in the pan to me. 
Female, AA, inspirational voice and seems competent.  That combo of AA/females ticks both boxes for the VP choice.  And she ran a fantastic campaign in GA and pushed Kemp to the limit in the governor race.  

 
Does Bernie golf? I've scoured the web but cannot find a definitive answer.

I can see him being more of a pickleball guy. Think of the tax dollar savings!

 
Gingrich could be nominated as the largest single contributing factor to ruining our political system. 
easily - he (and the Heritage Foundation) set about to fulfill the late Lee Atwater's dream (i've told the story many times here of Atwater & Roger Ailes drunkenly crashing the Carter suite @ the 1980 Convention to announce the end of liberal hegemony) of legitimizing Goldwater/Reagan conservatism and did a masterful, if hellish, job.

you're dead wrong on Stacey Abrams, tho - smarter & tougher than any candidate presently on the scene and, though she may end up misunderstood at times, she will never wear the 'strident' label other female candidates have. a future President, if we don't crash first.

ETA: btw, i live in VT - which Sanders has never run - and the Bern is roundly hated by almost everyone who had dealings with him before 2016. I believe gaining legitimacy changed him some, but he will always be seen outside Burlington as an over-loaded bag of empty promises

 
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I am a big Bloomberg supporter, but if Bernie is the candidate i will vote Trump.  I feel Bernie will destroy our economy with his social programs.
Why do you feel this?  Seriously. We live in the same state. Life is good. Albeit cold for a few more months.

What makes you think Trump has anything to do with the economy other than cost at least 100 high paying engineering and project mgmt jobs and about $1B sales at my firm alone, directly related to Trump's stupidity on tarrifs?  

 

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