Democrats are still very fractured. Hillary is not running again but it's clear Bernie is He is not a democrat. I won't vote for him for many reasons and I know a lot of people just like me who will not vote for him. I think Trump will be done by then but I don't think we have a chance to win in 2020. Bernie has alienated democrats by bashing them any chance he gets.

everything is Bernie's fault. This Democrat likes Senator Sanders a lot better than many who carry a D after their name. I don't want to see him run for president in 2020, but I hope he stays Senator for a long time.

Check their registration and help people to vote.
We have to make people aware that they are trying to stop them- and our lives hang in the balance.

is not a bad idea. I've always felt you should act confident even if concerned our side will los, but "We will stop this junk with your vote" might just work. Like you suggest, getting people registered, verified, using early voting where available, etc., helps too.

The cynical "all the same" could not be proven more wrong. The "my vote doesn't matter" is proven untrue by the lengths they are going to in order to stop voters. We have to remind people that they're votes DO matter.

We have to make policy important again.

"And it can't be built, if anyone is thinking that, from trying to prevent debate and settle the nomination before the primaries even happen"

I know my people. Gen X and baby boomer black men and woman won't vote for Bernie. I know this for a fact. That is the Dem base

Not wanting to vote for a specific politician doesn’t directly point to defined political ideology.

I know Bernie is indeed prepping to run. I'm a liberal globalist. I believe USA needs a seat at the table on the global stage or we will be left out. Globalism is here to stay and it will go on without us. Every time I heard people say 'free trade" it actually means no trade. I don't know ONE trade agreement the fair trade people have ever endorsed. Bernie's policies are not much different than "America first"
That's. not what I am into.

Also, he doesn't seem to be courting democrats. I hear him bashing us nearly every chance he gets.........

I like people like Emmanuel Macron

As I've said before, I don't think Bernie should run and don't think he will run.

My point is simply that there shouldn't be pressure to get behind any one candidate until the primaries play out.

Let there be a real contest on and a real debate, on civil terms and with no progressive ideas being ruled off-limits.

That's all I meant.

If I was supporting Bernie, I'd SAY that openly.

I'll vote for anyone on the dem ticket that wins the primary. Except Bernie. If he is not a Dem now he is not one for the election.

It can't be liberal to try to weaken labor laws and to make massive cuts in the welfare state.

We can't ever again nominate somebody who is willing to make any further cuts to the pathetic, tattered remnants of our social welfare services. The levels those are at now are already below minimum. Nothing progressive, nothing for the greater good can be done in any future presidency in which more is taken away from the poor.

It would be different if anybody was proposing jobs programs, but the consensus is to tell people to just try to get a McDonald's job-as if the poor hadn't been trying to get those jobs for decades.

We would die of pleasure to have a guy like Macron as our president. I just returned yesterday from 3 weeks in France. They have soured on him. But they are French. They expect more. Compared to Trump or any American politician the would pick Macron.

It would not be worth doing that if we were to agree to continuing any significant number of his policies, or to being just as tightfisted on social spending and on protections for workers against bosses.

Macron kept Le Pen out. For that, he gets credit. But all of the things you liked about France were won by the struggles of working people in the past. He's trying to gut unions(that's what "labor market flexibility" means-the right to screw the workers. It has no positive or progressive meaning). No one but the wealthy can ever benefit from Macron's proposals to make it easier to fire people, or kill the 35-hour week, or any of the other economic royalist proposals he brought in.

The people of France soured on him because all his proposals can do is harm them and massively increase economic inequality. He has no progressive policies on anything.

All this shit has gotten old. Stop relitigating the damn primaries.

into getting behind one candidate right NOW. Everytime the party pushes for that(like it did for Mondale in the run-up to '84 and Dukakis in '88, and Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04) it does damage.

We had a fairly good debate in '16. The one thing that shouldn't have happened was the questioning of anybody's commitment to opposing all forms of social oppression, since it was clear we were all on the same page on that, no matter who we supported, but that was a good basically healthy debate.

I'm talking about our party's post-1980 tendency to try to sort of pre-nominate a nominee. That was what was tried with Mondale in '84, with Dukakis in '88, with Gore in '00 and with Kerry in '08. The last time we took the White House from the GOP,, in 2008, was after a nominating contest that went right down to the wire, so we should actually encourage a tough but civil primary process.

They aren't saying do that at the convention, which is the appropriate moment to expect unity, they're saying we have to do that NOW.

And they're saying that at a time when the next presidential campaign is far from the most important thing on our minds.

I will back the person we nominate...that's what I do...but it's heavy-handed and pointless to try to anoint anybody before the primaries.

Let's just let the primary voters in 2020 decide who we nominate. It's enough that they do it at the time.

You confuse an already existing support for a candidate as pressure on you.

And I have no real objection to any of the possible candidates.

We never need to go to the right of where we were in '16...nothing to the right of that is still Democratic at all.

We can win by actually trying to win the argument on the issues. There's little support for Trump's policies, and the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" voter doesn't exist anymore(if that voter ever did exist).

We can only have a real shot at winning if each primary process gives all parts of the party a say.

1984 1988. 2000 and 2004 prove that it doesn't work to try to just bring in one person we are told we simply HAVE to nominate and to nominate on their terms.

The only people that can do that are the admins. DU doesn't set the debate schedule or set even talking points.

This basically sounds like a whole made up issue of an OP.

Still very unhappy about the primary (from the years you listed and the "preordained" crap) and should discuss that elsewhere.

I endorsed HRC a week before the convention...which is as early as I could do so and still remain true to my convictions.

I think the platform was good and worked to persuade all manner of progressives to back her in the fall.

And I campaigned for her throughout the fall, without reservation and without hesistation.

All of that proves that I've put the primaries to rest.

What I was talking about is a long-term problem in the party.

The only thing I do harbor bad feelings about from 2016 were the relentless insinuations that only people who supported the person who eventually won the nomination FROM THE GET-GO could be considered reliably antiracist and anti-social oppression. Since EVERYONE on the progressive side of the spectrum is a committed opponent of all forms of bigotry, any insinuations about lack of antiracist, antisexist, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, or anti-xenophobia were out of line. All rank-and-file progressive people were in full agreement on all of these issues and that should simply have been accepted from the start.

Would you agree that, from now on, it should simply be taken as a given that, if you are in any way left of center, you are in full support of the entire anti-oppression agenda, no matter WHO you support for in the Democratic primaries?

Baiting people into discussing the primaries with you. That's so fucked up.

Pointing out that false accusations were made against one group of supporters(something even Walter Sobchak believes was the case)is not the same thing as questioning the result.

HRC would have won the nomination just as easily without that.

Who exactly is arguing there should be pressure to get behind any one candidate before the primaries play out.

The only exception I can really think of is Gore in 2000; other than that, things played out in primaries (they did with Gore, too, but I think that he obviously had an advantage having been in a popular administration).

All this bloviating about people thinking it was someone's turn or that any candidate entered the field after having been "anointed" is nonsense.

It's looking like trump 2020.

But, you know, PURITY. 😠

What are people trying to achieve by insisting that he will be reelected?

But the incumbent always has an advantage, even if they're unpopular. And if there's a long, dirty primary process and it ends with a weak candidate, advantage Trump.

I underestimated Trump and thought Hillary would roll him. I’m not going to make that mistake again.

And figuring out ways to stop it.

No one should be trying to lock it up for any candidate BEFORE the primaries.

We've got several electable possibilities...at this point, while they are all highly competent and qualified and worthwhile people, nobody stands totally head and shoulders above all others.

Let the unity emerge organically.

I think you might have more than I do.

The way to win is to give all progressive Dem voices a say, have a debate where no one and no idea is treated dismissively and unity in passion behind whichever nominee the process gives us.

One thing we do know, though-the "center" doesn't exist anymore, so there are no votes tp be gained from tempering our ideas and our passion.

Like MOST of America is CENTER!

I say this with deep sadness...but it would be way worse to get a Republican. I do think Sherrod Brown although quit liberal might be OK-he has cred with 'working people'. Also, the far far left who voted for Stein...have hurt themselves with POC and women by using the term identity politics in a negative fashion. None of their candidates would be acceptable in terms of being able to beat Republicans...I will vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is.

Even with vote suppression, Trump's vote share was essentially identical to Romney's.

And the current polls, even without the party presenting a particularly cohesive message, have us twenty points up on the GOP for the mid-term congressional voting.

I'll vote for whoever we nominate, but we DON'T need to ever again nominate anyone who makes "I'm not one of those damned liberals" an organizing principle of the campaign. And the 2000 and 2016 results prove for the rest of eternity that running a "you HAVE to vote for us" campaign can never be effective in turning nonvoters into Dem voters OR in stopping people from voting for people like Stein.

I'd argue the country is moving towards us, that we are winning the post election argument, and that we need to speak out for progressive change with strength and without apology.

first of all. You know I disagree completely and given the level of cheating and Russian interference...and the Stein asswipes...no other candidate would have won ...she won the popular vote...very doubtful any other candidate could have done as well...secondly regardless of how you feel about the candidate. Hillary won the primary. The person who wins a primary will be our candidate. Democrats will have chosen that person...some may have voted for others, but when all is said and done...we come together and vote for the Democratic candidate. If that doesn't happen then we get Gorsuch and a loss of women's right to even birth control as just happened as well as all the other shit that has gone down since Trump and the Republicans were elected...Also, no one can explain to me how if a more liberal candidate would have won-blah,blah...how exactly did Feingold lose? Hillary is way more progressive than people think and would have been an awesome president. We as Democrats and even Stein fools (when they leave the land of denial) will rue the day she lost. It will be a tough climb to win in 20...when the GOP has four years and all the power needed to rig the vote...and make it even more difficult.

I worked as hard as I could to get people to unify for HRC in the fall.

Yes, moderate GOP types are retiring...but that's because moderate GOP voters don't exist anymore.

The RIGHT is moving further right, but is losing support massively in the polls for doing so.

There is no potential electability for a Dem presidential candidate who makes a big show of not being liberal.

We can win by winning the argument...we don't need to reduce ourselves to trying to win by default, and then accepting the GOP narrative that it didn't count that we won and we have no right to set the agenda.

I respect you, but I have to say that your post there is the kind of thing that causes fear...it sounds-I know this isn't your intent but it sounds as htough it's a set up for an argument that we have no choice but to lower ourselves to running again on something like the '92 or '96 platforms-which were the platforms that ended up turning our party, even though it held the White House,, into kind of a dead zone in the Nineties. It was a different era, but there can't be anything in that era for the party ever to emulate again. We need to move totally beyond that.

Rep Joe Kennedy III

All other candidates are about tribal feels.

I could back the guy, but it would be entirely understandable if, given family history, he were to sit it out.

Don't mean to be morbid, but that factor will always be there.

I think it will be a hard sell but not impossible

run in 20. Whoever, wins is our only avenue to stop Trump...not matter what. Thus you vote for them or you support Trump...and I for one am sick of the primarying of Democrats at the moment for any reason...and have crossed off any organization that does this including Our Revolution or Move On from my list- for money or time. I want nothing to do with them.

It needs to be someone from the next generation-which is also why Joe Biden, much as he is a deeply liked and respected person, should also not run.

We need to stay with the basic idea of a unity platform, in which the ideas of everyone from Bernie to Hillary, in addition to ideas from the young and the newly involved, are all included. In fact, my argument has always been that we should draft the platform first and simply expect whoever we nominated to fight the fall campaign on it.

We don't need to put any ideas or proposals "off-limits". Who knows which idea might make the difference?

For example, it's likely that Trump will have us in a war or several wars by 2020, and they will all be pointless and unwinnable, so we're going to need to run a "bring the troops home" campaign to be credible. "We can do it better" is not going to work if that scenario actually occurs.

chance to be president. He would have been great...but the time has passed. we need a new face as you say from the next generation. There are some things which the GOP will use against us if we run on them...they can demonize single payer quite easily...the ACA not so much. Run on repairing the ACA. Most everyone agrees about raising the minimum wage...but don't run on the minimum income plan. The courts are huge...and one of the reasons I despise Sarandon, Turner, Stein and that ilk is their stupidity in not recognizing the courts as being all important...too important to demonize and take votes from the 2016 Democratic nominee...I will never forgive them. No matter who we elect a rightwing court will hurt the progressive movement. We should run on the do nothing congress, the fact they are on record as wanting to destroy Medicare, Social security and Medicaid...the terrible response to the hurricanes...and the fact they will lead us back into a war if elected again.

Right now, we do NOT need to figure out who or candidate is for 2020. We need to focus on getting behind our people (e.g. Pelosi) because they HAVE a huge job to do right now. This concern over a 2020 candidate is partially due to backlash against our current reps and congresspeople. It's a symptom of distrust of our party, where every minor thing someone mentions in passing is taken as a major talking point and right to bash one of our own. And where do you suppose that distrust for our party comes from? It comes from RUSSIA and the BS Dotard continues to tweet everyday. We NEED a counter messaging campaign to inform this country that our party is fine and no one should believe a thing the right wingers say about us.

2018 comes before 2020...and there are special elections this fall that come before THAT.

stop primarying Democrats and turn their attention to the real problem...Republicans. I say boycott such groups...not one dime for any of them... Lets stop with the circular firing squad and turn our attention to the Republicans...beat them like a drum in next election and all that follow.

He can get 30-40% of the primary vote right off the bat. It will be a crowded field without Clinton in the mix, it's going to be nuts especially if they are all fighting over the remaining 60% of the votes and splitting them 10 different ways. Then factor in their home state advantage, like Harris would likely do very well in California. It going to be exciting and chaotic.

If Bernie doesn't run it's wide open, will be interesting to see if any celebrities or billionaires try to run as Democrats too.

And by making the party a place in which people were welcome to work for the kinds of things his campaign was about.

MY own theory was that he never actually wanted to be president in 2016, he just saw the need for his message to be part of the 2016 agenda and that, once Warren committed to not running, there was no other way to get that message out there and have it have a place in the Democratic message for that year.

That's why he hadn't established the contacts in the African-American, Latinx-American, LGBTQ and women's sections of the Democratic base-not disinterest, simply the fact that his campaign was late-starting, improvisational effort that simply hadn't had the time to do the groundwork a normal Democratic candidate would have had in place at the declaration.

What he had was mainly young people, with some older Left activists-this included much greater supporter among younger members of all the factions of the Democratic base.

Had HRC's campaign taken the ideas the Sanders movement presented seriously from the start, and had it acknowledged that there was a real and broad-based level of support for those ideas, and incorporated them from the start to go alongside the best of her own campaign's ideas, I truly think Bernie would have withdrawn much earlier and that much of the toxicity of the '16 process-toxicity produced on both sides, to be fair-would have been avoided and HRC's fall campaign would have generated a much greater level of support and enthusiasm and been able to withstand much of the Trump-Russian trickery.