Hillary the Populist

Steve said:

mfpark said:

Sad but true. What is the alternative? Bernie Sanders is spot on, from my point of view, and I would love to see him win the White House and use it as a bully pulpit. But the odds of him winning are long, and odds of him being able to actually pass legislation or enact orders that start fixing things, should he win, are even longer still.

If everyone who says that voting for Bernie is a wasted vote actually voted for him, we'd likely see some change and he might actually pull it off. I'm going to contribute and vote.

I'm not a Sanders guy by any stretch, but this is very true. I don't see the point in voting for Hillary unless you are a big supporter of Crony Capitalism.

I agree, and I am not advocating voting otherwise in the primary. But a Bernie Sanders presidency, should it actually happen, is going to get Mau Maued by both Democrats and Republicans. I just wish that he was part of a groundswell of activism that is coming from within the party, or even that his campaign was the result of a large and organized dissident movement from outside the party (not unlike Tea Party). Unfortunately, there is no infrastructure around him to help elect like-minded candidates to other positions.

And I also will gladly vote for Hillary in the general should she be the nominee.

Call it the RBG factor. The Supremes just took up another case that could undermine One Person, One Vote and allow legislatures (mostly controlled by the GOP) to gerrymander even more blatantly. The thought of having a GOP controlled House, possibly GOP controlled Senate, and a President Rubio appointing new Supreme Court justices to sit in cahoots with Alito, Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas is too scary to contemplate.

Steve said:

mfpark said:

Sad but true. What is the alternative? Bernie Sanders is spot on, from my point of view, and I would love to see him win the White House and use it as a bully pulpit. But the odds of him winning are long, and odds of him being able to actually pass legislation or enact orders that start fixing things, should he win, are even longer still.

If everyone who says that voting for Bernie is a wasted vote actually voted for him, we'd likely see some change and he might actually pull it off. I'm going to contribute and vote.

In what way is it wasted? If you are eligible to vote in the Democratic Primary why not vote for the candidate you favor even if he has no chance of winning the nomination? Of course the NJ Primary may be too late to actually influence the nomination but that to me is not the point of Bernie's candidacy. To me it's about moving the Party left and making Socialism or, at least, Social Democracy more acceptable.

Maybe Sanders will build the needed infrastructure. One can hope.

Tom_Reingold said:
Maybe Sanders will build the needed infrastructure. One can hope.

I am not sure it is in his political nature to do so.

I think the election of someone like Bernie Sanders, even to the Dem Nomination, could really have a big effect on Washington. It could serve as somewhat of a wakeup call. Would his initiatives get blocked by Congress? Probably, but there would be 2 likely outcomes of that. The most likely outcome is that a President Sanders continues the expansion of Executive Powers and tells Congress to "Shove it!" or Congress actually lives up to their charge and acts as a check on Executive Power.

I think most here would be elated with the former. Of course, I'd prefer the latter.

Or, three, different folks getting elected to Congress in 2018.

A Sanders election would definitely create opportunities for Congressional Candidates further to "the left". And quite possibly to candidates further on "the right".

If Sanders starts to become a threat, I expect he will be assassinated, possibly Paul Wellstone style.

Tom_Reingold said:
If Sanders starts to become a threat, I expect he will be assassinated, possibly Paul Wellstone style.

Tom - take the tinfoil hat off, it may start lightning soon.

Tom_Reingold said:
If Sanders starts to become a threat, I expect he will be assassinated, possibly Paul Wellstone style.

You need to change your picture, Tom. To the one with the tinfoil hat.

How conspiratorial of you! The mass character assassinations will come way before that. I look forward to learning how egregiously late the Senator was returning a movie to blockbuster.

Steve said:

mfpark said:

Sad but true. What is the alternative? Bernie Sanders is spot on, from my point of view, and I would love to see him win the White House and use it as a bully pulpit. But the odds of him winning are long, and odds of him being able to actually pass legislation or enact orders that start fixing things, should he win, are even longer still.

If everyone who says that voting for Bernie is a wasted vote actually voted for him, we'd likely see some change and he might actually pull it off. I'm going to contribute and vote.

don't forget the bumper stickers and t-shirts. I've got mine.

There hasn't been a single character accusation. Is it possible he returned all of his VHS's on time? I don't know why I'm so nervous about this, but the economic and political climate is so bitter, and Sanders is speaking unusually plainly.

no one would ever be so crude as to assassinate Sanders. The corporate tools in cable news would just make him appear to be insane. He would be described as delusional, and pathological, and unstable. The talking points would be repeated over and over and over, with still photos of him looking wild-eyed. Until most Americans started parroting back the approved script.

That is the playbook. I'd add that you should expect to see many, many, many guilt by association attacks.

Of course, this won't happen until he is considered a threat. I think many will be surprised at how well timed some of these "revelations" will be.

Ya mean????

Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?

"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

Sure. Bernie is saying that there are too many hungry children in the US.

And what does that have to do with deodorants?

I mean you could make the statement "There are too many hungry children in the US". It's an interesting statement. Why the non-sequitur? And I don't think that is a slip. That sounded like a talking point. A really, really stupid talking point.

It makes me fear his acceptance speech will go something like this.

He is comparing an overabundance of limited use items with a scarcity of food for children.

I do not draw the conclusion that he will limit the number of deoderants to only 300 per drug store aisle from this comparison.

TylerDurden said:
Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?


"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

misplaced societal priorities

TylerDurden said:
How conspiratorial of you! The mass character assassinations will come way before that. I look forward to learning how egregiously late the Senator was returning a movie to blockbuster.

It's worse than that. He's a Socialist!!!

Scary... except most people in this country have no idea what that actually means.

TylerDurden said:
Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?


"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

Simple. If the "Free Market" can provide that choice of commodities but cannot prevent childhood hunger there is something wrong with the "Free Market".

May I assume that you would contend that government interference with the Free Market is the cause of childhood hunger and other societal problems?

Everybody knows that countries that have small, weak governments have more healthy, happy children!

ParticleMan said:

TylerDurden said:
How conspiratorial of you! The mass character assassinations will come way before that. I look forward to learning how egregiously late the Senator was returning a movie to blockbuster.

It's worse than that. He's a Socialist!!!
Scary... except most people in this country have no idea what that actually means.

I think he's actually a Democratic Socialist. I must admit that I don't have a firm grasp on it, except that I think its less top-down than Leninism. Anyhoo, I can't really rip the guy. He has some good points & I think his heart is in the right place. I don't see some of his solutions as beneficial, but he is an enemy of the status quo. The enemy of the enemy is my friend as the say.

drummerboy said:

TylerDurden said:
Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?


"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

misplaced societal priorities

Perhaps. I think my problem with this type of pablum is that it is actually the exact opposite of the truth. If we want to feed people, what we need is precisely the same creativity, and effort that goes into making these various products. There are so many varieties of these products because people demand them. Just like people demand food. Providing various types of products is filling a demand. If people don't have food and need food, they need people who strive to fill that need.

If he wanted to say something like, "we have more prisons, or more military spending, etc" while its still a non-sequitur(it's not like cutting these programs would actually result in people getting fed) at least it has some level of plausibility where this is a social choice and let's face it he wants to use "societies(read tax payer) $$".

LOST said:

TylerDurden said:
Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?


"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

Simple. If the "Free Market" can provide that choice of commodities but cannot prevent childhood hunger there is something wrong with the "Free Market".
May I assume that you would contend that government interference with the Free Market is the cause of childhood hunger and other societal problems?

It's already been covered here. The introduction of free markets has lifted more people out of poverty than literally any other phenomenon in the history of man. It's not even close.

TylerDurden said:
Would one of the Bernie Sanders supporters please explain this logic to me?


"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country." - Sen. Bernie Sanders

Here's an explanation:

http://www.demos.org/blog/5/27/15/bernie-sanders-deodorant-argument-one-most-substantive-campaign-so-far

If the candidates for President were Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul (or better still, Ron Paul) we might actually have this debate in public not just on MOL.