gerrymandering and stealing elections left and right with broken voting machines in POC districts, Interstate Crosscheck and voter ID laws designed to diminish Dem votes and all he wants to talk about is how bad the Democratic Party needs fixing.

What needs fixing is how to stop repugs from stealing elections.

Look around Mr. Outreach Chairman, that other party deserves some of your criticism.

Dems require collaboration, consolidation and a tune-up.

This guy is losing it. I think the election took a serious toll on him.

divide while they gleefully rub their hand$ together.

For the most part, M$M in the US is a disgusting lot. And look what they bestowed on the US. tRump and his cohorts. M$M cheer-leaded him all the way to the presidency knowing they could make money by airing him constantly.

Relative to Bernie, IMO, he's going to end up splitting the vote and we'll end up with tRump again in 2020.

the time.. it's BACKFIRING.

They named him Chair of Outreach. That means something. They did that for a good reason.

If he trashes the Democratic Party enough, he might be able to run as an independent and win (at least that may be his thinking). Millenials seem to love the guy. Otherwise, he'll re-register as a Democrat again and try to win the party's nomination for the 2020 election. I hope we have some strong Democratic contenders by then. I support a lot of Bernie's economic message, but he does not inspire me as a future president.

I'd questioned why he went back to Independent after the primary, and was given a rather satisfactory (for me at least)answer that his constituency elected him as an independent, so he returned in the role for which he was elected.

So, in 2018, he has the ability to run as a Democrat. If he does, I will give him every bit of consideration that I'd give any Democrat running for office. If he chooses to remain Independent, he won't be my choice.

Maybe the direction that the Party needs to go is forward...

Those pesky women are just gonna persist on this.

economic front, yes.

There's no reason the Party can not be all in on women's rights, the rights of POC and LGBT, etc., and economic justice too.

At all. He has said for years that those issues are "optional" to a "progressive."

http://www.rawstory.com/2013/10/bernie-sanders-tells-ed-schultz-southern-democrats-are-tired-of-being-abandoned-by-the-party/

I won't say that you are absolutely wrong about that. But I will say that Bernie himself is not ambivalent in the least about his personal support for social justice for all.

It comes down to, do we want to win elections or not? The majority of Americans are with us already on social issues, as are nearly all younger people/the millenials.

So, what's it going to be? Are we going build on the majority re: social justice issues that we already have or not?

We are prevailing long run on social issues and I believe we will continue to do so regardless of how many nefarious attempts the GOP makes to turn back the clock on those issues. The future is bright if you observe younger cohorts.

As a Party, we should never accept laws that do not respect the rights of women, POC or LGBT. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to win over votes around economic issues.

I just don't buy the either or stance. It's a false premise in my mind -- and a losing one so far.

The party lost the vote of the white 45-65 y/o middle class voters because it did not address economic issues. All that group wanted to hear in the DNC platform was about good jobs and job security. Our platform addressed everything else except that. Trump did, and that is who the non-racist voters in that group voted for.

Those Democratic voters I mentioned would never stand back and allow the issues you mentioned to be pushed back to where they used to be. BUT they will also not allow their wants and needs, which benefit everybody, to go unaddressed.

you and I are in largely in agreement regarding the importance of economic issues and FDR Democratic principles.

Please tell me what position(s) of the Democratic Party is "out of touch" with the American people.

States that 67% of "those polled" thought the Democratic party was "out of touch."

I think that Bernie might do well to check out his own constituents' approval ratings of him. He's down 12% in approval, and up 9% in disapproval. Leahy is up, and may well surpass Sanders in approval by constituents.

What positions? Actually, the Party platform was pretty darned good. I'm not sure it's so much about current positions -- like the Party platform -- as it is past performance and public expectations about follow through based on that past performance.

There's a 35 year history of middle/working class erosion. It strikes me that a majority of Americans are skeptical about both parties in this regard.

two years in, both times we actually had an opportunity to do something to help them.

As much as some progressives love to blather on about Democrats not doing enough, both times we have actually had the power, voters immediately punished us for doing "too much".

to win the votes, no?

I'm not sure we got punished for doing "too much" so much as not making our case well enough, not countering GOP attacks effectively, on both of those occasions. Plus there's always the ying and the yang for the party in power at the time.

In the end, we're gonna win. Keep the faith.

learned expectations regarding follow through. No to mention that most voters don't vote for a platform and never really have. Hell, most voters don't read them. ... So ... I respectfully disagree -- no false narrative.

Strategy is different from substance. Bernie knows the difference.

And even that strategy critique is debatable. Dems lost because of gerrymandering and Citizens United opening up dark money floodgates.

As far as why Hillary lost, it is unquestionably the Comey letter, not some "out of touch strategy," let alone out of touch policy positions as Bernie incorrectly implies.

There's no question gerrymandering, voter suppression, Comey and even Russian influence played major roles in us losing the WH. Without those, we would have won. I'm not debating that.

I am debating the fact that with a hate-mongering corrupt bastard like Trump as the GOP nominee, we should have been able to win even with those nefarious assaults. This should have been a vast landslide and it wasn't. ... Now I know you may take exception to that, so I'll even concede on this point regarding the Presidential election.

But that doesn't address any of the other losses we've incurred at State, local and Congressional levels over the past 6 years. Unless we turn that dynamic around, we are doomed to repeat this failure in the future. We can never right gerrymandering, Citizens United, voter suppression or even legitimately investigate the Russia-Trump collusion without that. And if we can't do those things, how are we ever going to achieve real social justice in America? It's not going to happen in my view until we make significant strides toward leveling the economic playing field that affects all people.

If he meant to say we should concentrate on income inequality to the exclusion of all else, why didn't Bernie just say that instead of maligning the Democratic Party?

didn't mean "to say we should concentrate on income inequality to the exclusion of all else" at all. That's clearly not what he said. If criticizing the Democratic Party's past performance (calling the Party "out of touch with the working class" is nothing more than a colloquialism meaning the same thing) is maligning the Party then so be it I guess. I don't see it as maligning at all. To me, it's no different than frankly calling out one's child for poor behavior -- it gets their attention and puts them on notice that they are being held accountable. Progressives in the Party have been saying this for 30 years. There's nothing new in any of this other than a heightened awareness of the economic issue -- i.e., populism. Bernie just happens to be one of the most popular people say,ing these things, ergo the attention he gets.

It is essentially a Trump tweet.

The Democratic Party is not a misbehaving child. And it does not need to be lied about to "be held accountable." That makes absolutely no sense. I can't believe you said that.

not to mention the millions of Independents who were formerly or lean Dem. The Party establishment (old school Dems, New Dems, Third Way, Neo-Libs -- whatever one chooses to call it) promoted globalism, free markets and essentially chose to favor corporations over people on the economic front the past 30 years and it's coming back to haunt them. It's real and needs to be addressed -- aggressively. Doing otherwise will only result in the same, well, result.

I really have to wonder why so many Dems seem defensive about this particular self-critique. I don't get that ... and I can already hear the "It's not self-critique. It's Bernie -- he's not a Democrat. Says so himself." That's not the point. The concern is a legitimate one. Why would we not pay heed to it -- especially when economic and social justice issues are so inextricably intertwined as many of the Bernie bashers themselves point out. Why is that?

You've lapped up the GOP propaganda. Let me guess, you also believe we're trying to force everyone to use the Amero, as some Ron Paul acolytes believe.



SMH

You'll have to put some work into convincing me I'm wrong. This is an issue that I have paid close attention to for the past 35 years -- maybe a couple of years longer. Not because I've been personally hurt by the Party's rightward shift, but -- probably -- because I came from a family of 9 kids whose Dad was a local truck driver while Mom stayed at home with the kids. The change in the Party, the economy and the security of the middle/working class over that time have been palpable -- at least to me.

ps -- in no way am I making a case here that mothers should stay at home with the kids. Just wanted to give context to my perspective.

Blaming Dems for the erosion of the middle class is wrong and this is not the website for it. Read some Paul Krugman for fuck's sake.

I'm not blaming Dems. All I'm saying is the Democratic Party hasn't done a good job supporting the middle and working class the past 30 years. The proof is in the pudding. Dems have been complicit if by inaction alone -- but they have also supported numerous things that contributed to todays economic situation.

The Dems have not adequately supported unions, they supported (or some of them including the Dem President at the time) NAFTA, 38 Dem Senators voted in favor of repealing Glass-Steagall/Dem President signed it, pushed the TPP for fuck's sake, supported the concept of chained CPI initially (until AARP and others loudly protested). That's just off the top of my frigging head for crying out loud. ... How did any of those things benefit the middle or working class?

Re the GOP is responsible alone, give me some specifics. How did the GOP make the Democratic Party do those things? How did the GOP make Bill Clinton promote globalization and retraining of America's workforce for the technology-based economy as opposed to keeping regulations in place that inhibited off-shoring and outsourcing?

How about some substantiation?

If you read "lots" of Paul Krugman you'd know that. The Glass-Steagall Act was established in 1933 as the 1933 Banking Act. This act had been gutted so much by the time it was repealed in 1999 that it was a skeleton of it's old self. I agreed with Hillary Clinton that a new law needed to be written to address today's problems and trading systems. Paul Krugman agreed with Hillary. He said her plan was better.

Thanks to gerrymandering, the GOP has outsized control over our government, further fueled by Citizens United. That is why they are able to out-message Dems and convince people that they should vote for them over Dems. They've even managed to convince so-called progressives to vote against Dems and blame Dems for their economic plight. And thus we have the situation we are in now.

Before the Republican Great Recession, wages were not great and had been stagnating for a decade, but only 20 percent of American jobs were considered “low-wage poverty work.” Since their Great Recession, over 60 percent of “recovery jobs are poverty-wage employment” and it has been very profitable for business. Democrats unsucessfully tried to get Republicans to raise wages and create real middle class jobs with infrastructure spending, but the GOP would have none of it and filibustered such attempts. Obama only had a filibuster proof majority for 24 working days. It is simply wrong to claim Dems did not try hard enough or were complicit.

The Great Recession was the result of a lot of things, but it's massiveness, and the need for taxpayers to bail out the banks, was without question the final result of the 3 decades long neutering of and eventual repeal of Glass-Steagall. Granted, lobbyists and and the GOP initiated the slow demise of Glass-Steagall's effectiveness via initial deregulatory changes in 1974 that served to undermine the act, but there's no question that Dems contributed to that deregulation and were complicit. Not only did Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton continued the deregulation that started way back under Ford, but then they actually took the position that Glass-Steagall was obsolete! Did they replace it with something better? No! they simply repealed it. Was it obsolete? Well yeah, but no frigging no wonder! It's teeth had been removed including by them.

Dodd-Frank is another example of inadequacy and failure in my view. It hasn't fixed the too big to fail problem at all -- and whatever teeth it had have already been watered down by lobbyists -- under Obama's watch.

You can't blame everything on the GOP. Sure gerrymandering weakened our and Obama's hand significantly. But this has been long in the making and involves more than just the Great Recession ... and many of us have been saying so -- well before the GOP fired up the Tea Party or Faux News became the largest source of evening "news" for America.

Again, I really have to wonder why some can't accept and/or object to the notion that maybe the Party needs to do some rethinking on some things. Why is that? As a lifelong Democrat, I just have to wonder about that. It doesn't make sense to me.

How did you expect Obama to get a stronger law than Dodd-Frank? Dodd-Frank is NOT a "failure." It is an amazing success, especially considering the GOP opposition to it. It gave us the Volcker Rule, which banned proprietary trading by commercial banks, whereby deposits are used to trade on the bank's own accounts, the sort of speculative investing that helped fuel the financial crisis. Dodd-Frank also gave us the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the nation’s first federal agency with a mission of focusing solely on consumer financial protection. As the CFPB reported, "During FY 2016, the Bureau’s supervisory actions resulted in financial institutions providing more than $58 million in redress to over 516,000 consumers, and the Bureau has also announced orders through enforcement efforts for approximately $247 million in total relief for consumers who fell victim to various violations of consumer financial protection laws, along with over $83.7 million in civil money penalties. The Bureau has also continued to develop and refine its nationwide supervisory program for depository and nondepository financial
institutions, through which those institutions are examined for compliance with Federal consumer financial protection law."
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/report-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-pursuant-section-1017e4-dodd-frank-act-2016/

The financial collapse of 2008 was not caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall. It was caused by fraud. Banks gave out "liar loans" to people they knew had no way of repaying them. Then they sold off the loans as mortgage backed securities aided and abetted by unscrupulous ratings agencies Moody's and Standards & Poors who fraudulently gave the worthless securities A+ ratings. The entitles holding those worthless mortgage backed securities then collapsed, causing a domino effect. As mad as we were at the banks, we had to bail them out or we would have had another Great Recession and world financial collapse, which would have hurt the middle class and poor the most.

Your animosity to Obama, and Dems in general, is not justified by the facts.

Critical thought/view is now "animosity" regardless of the fact that a person has voted Dem every single election in the past 45 years. Vote but don't criticize, is that it?

The trend -- the decline of middle America/growth in poverty in America -- has been 35 years lo-o-o-o-ong. That's pretty clear. That's a problem. If we want to be the winning party if the future, we need to be conspicuously persistent in addressing that. We haven't in the past. That has hurt us.

Suggesting that Dodd-Frank was a "failure" and that lobbyists wrote it "under Obama's watch" is not critique. It is bashing and demonstrates animosity to Obama and Dems.

when you read what I write. You misquote me again. I never said lobbyists wrote Dodd-Frank. If you've paid attention, you would know that "lobbyists" declawed it via influencing the regulations that were required to put the law (and are often required to put a law) into practice -- the Executive Branch administers the law and authors regulations in order to do that.

Your hyperbole (animosity to Obama and Dems) is counter productive, not to mention off-base and incorrect. If your goal is to alienate me or drive me out of the Party or DU, its probably a reasonable tactic. But it isn't going to work. I've been a registered Dem for 45 years. Have held a local elected office for 11 years, and am active in my local Democratic Party/member of its central committee. Ain't gonna happen.

We disagree. And I really do wonder why some Dems are defensive about what a lot of us see as constructive criticism, especially in light of the Party's decline over the past 7 years. ... I'll just say goodbye now -- or you can have the last word if you like.

hemorrhaging elected positions at every level over the past 6 or so years. There's also a reason the Tea Party successfully took over the GOP and Trump is now in the White House.

And if we aren't careful, our own Tea Party could take over.

The Kremlin and Comey put DT in the White House, not the voters. The voters chose Hillary.

Not sure what or who you are referring to when you say "our own Tea Party"? White males? If so, no way. We outnumber them, and there are quite a few -- actually many white -- enlightened males who support social justice.

Yes, voters chose Hillary -- but that didn't matter because of their geographic distribution. The electoral college is definitely an artifact that needs to be changed. How are we going to do that without gaining a majority at every level?

Even one of them would have given her the EC,

And we don't even know if she lost in Michigan:

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8489128/michigan-recount-first-hand-account/

"How are we going to do that without gaining a majority at every level?"

Address the gerrymandering.

Stop listening to the carefully crafted fake news that so many on the left fell for, and I saw all over DU.

Our own tea party - extremists with very narrow definitions on what it means to be a true messenger of what the party stands for, with no dissent tolerated for their particular priorities. And yes, there is a far larger percentage of white men in that group than in the party at large.

I agree about MI -- my sister lives there and believes that is true from up close.

So how do we address the gerrymandering unless we take State legislatures, Secretary's of State, etc.?

This isn't fake news -- it's old news. The decline of the middle class became conspicuous first under Reagan and has continued downward since. There are many current and former Democrats who have been concerned about this exactly since then. The party has payed lip service to this issue but that's about it. Obama's support of TPP and chained CPI are recent examples.

I disagree about Democrats who hold my view on this being "extremists" and resent that labeling. Economic justice and social justice are inextricably intertwined. Saying one is more important than the other is just wrong. They are equally important.

Far larger % of white men in what group? So-called Democratic extremists?

that concern white straight working class men, while all others are "identity politics" and are a distraction.

Is that clearer?

Well, I hope you will believe me when I say I'm not one of them. As far as I'm concerned, the only universal issue is justice for all -- and that definitely includes social justice for all.

Perhaps where we disagree is that I believe Bernie feels the same way as I do about that, and you maybe don't (well, I'm pretty sure you don't). I do think the two (social and economic justice) are inextricably intertwined and we can't really have one fully without the other. I think Bernie believes that as well.

When he dismisses abortion as a "social issue" and LGBTQ and POC issues as "identity politics" I don't see that he does.

A republican was elected to one for the first time in our history. The fact that long time Democratic party activists (including a former Dem legislator and primary candidate in that race) endorsed the republican. He's not just any republican. They helped elect a loudmouth conservative radio host who sounds like a mix of Rush Limbaugh and 45.
They were spiteful that a young, very liberal woman won the primary. The long standing political operative, who always followed the lead of the party lost.

This was less about their positions than it was about the state party trying to maintain control.

over and over and over and over, 67% of people will believe it.

If certain high-profile people would start yelling that the Republican Party is colluding with Russians,

gerrymandering and stealing elections left and right with broken voting machines in POC districts,

Interstate Crosscheck and voter ID laws designed to diminish Dem votes and what needs fixing is how

to stop repugs from stealing elections, 67% of people will get the real picture instead of the divisive

one about how screwed up the Democratic Party is.

We're not the ones colluding with Russians, gerrymandering and stealing elections left and right with

broken voting machines in POC districts, Interstate Crosscheck and voter ID laws designed to diminish

Dem votes.

not yelling it out for the opposition to use those words against you.

This guy is only hurting us.

Sorry, cant look past the pitting Perez against Ellison tactic to see any responsiveness to internal discussions. Progressives are marginalized at every level and every turn.

One hundred times might be an exaggeration. Still not far off.

Actually, not far off if one is also considering accomplishments. Considering he is one of the longest standing career politicians one hundred times might have been putting it mildly. His greatest success to this date was blocking tens of millions from a pathway to citizenship. Amazing that is his greatest accomplishment. Entrenching oppression even further.

And you're not a Democrat.

i went to hear Bernie speak last Thursday here in DFW, and it was same old same old. He small legion of young groupies were there supporting him with loud chants, but Bernie's message was the same old stump he delivered while he was running as a candidate under the Democratic ticket. A bit duplicitous isn't it?
Nope you're not helping Bernie. Put up or shut up - either you're with us or against us. No need to disguise yourself under the Democratic banner then go and say you're not a Democrat and complain about what's wrong with the party. I for one didn't vote for you, and will not be voting for you if you run again in 2020.

in the party. If he thinks there is something wrong, he should shut up, roll up his sleeves and fix it.

This trite posturing made little sense when he positioned himself as a pure outsider and it makes zero sense now.

Shut up and get to work Bernie.

Sanders said he wasn't the guy for the "unity tour" Actually I could have told her before the Unity Tour.

"In retrospect, she said, Maybe Bernie Sanders isnt the guy for the unity tour."

Why Bernie Sanders’s Unity Tour Failed

snip//

The independent senator hit the road with Democratic national chairman Tom Perez—and highlighted everything that's tearing the party apart.

https://newrepublic.com/article/142152/bernie-sanderss-unity-tour-failed

The next Unity Tour.. Send People on it who Want to Unify!

Put a friggin' (D) next to your name to transform yourself! That's all it takes to have these folks all embrace you.

Secondly Bernie.... sayin' stuff like this can get you PERMANENTLY BANNED from DU. Matter o' fact, you wouldn't be here now if it weren't for these fine folks draggin' you back into the room for yet another round of pummeling!

if he joined the party.

Otherwise, how is he different from the Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, and the GOP?

And how often to they caucas and vote with the Dems???

and stop being a hypocrite

with us.

What has he actually done recently except for having Weaver set up a 501c/3?

gone over the line now. Enough is enough.

this isn't consciously intentional. And I'm really beginning to wonder about his purpose.

Or maybe those of us sick of this crap really ARE "Russian trolls". (sarcasm).

strategy.

we need to ask the admins to take away Bernie's protected status if he makes such comments about the Democratic party.

on DU. We should be able to refute his words without worrying about breaking site rules.

about supporting Democrats. Is Bernie still an ally of the Democratic party after some of the stuff he has said publicly about the Democratic Party? I am not sure.

I mean, is it worse over on JPR?

Back when this place was at its most divided and people were alerting on every other post, I heard about JPR and was interested by a pro-Bernie forum where people could discuss without all the bickering. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that some of the stuff being posted there was unpleasant and too reminiscent of right wing hate sites for my liking.

I imagine a majority of people who went there did the same. Despite what some of you appear to think, most Bernie supports are actually reasonable, decent people and not a cabal of evil reptile cultists.

Persecution complexes are very outre.

We've already infiltrated all levels of government to carry out our evil plans for world domination.

He is not a democrat, he said so himself. Each time I am on a jury where somebody alerted on a post with the reason "don't bash democrats" and Bernie is the target, I vote against it.