2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumCurrent Affairs: Unless the Dems Nominate Sanders, A Trump Nom Means A Trump Presidency
Democrats need to seriously and pragmatically assess their strategy for defeating Trump. A Clinton run would be disastrous; Bernie Sanders is their only hope.
by Nathan J. Robinson
With Donald Trump looking increasingly likely to actually be the Republican nominee for President, its long past time for the Democrats to start working on a pragmatic strategy to defeat him. Months of complacent, wishful insistences that Trump will disappear have proven false, and with a firm commanding lead in polls and several major primary victories, predictions are increasingly favoring Trump to win the nomination.
If Democrats honestly believe, as they say they do, that Trump poses a serious threat to the wellbeing of the country and the lives of minority citizens, that means doing everything possible to keep him out of office. To do that will require them to very quickly unite around a single goal, albeit a counter-intuitive one: they must make absolutely sure that Bernie Sanders is the Democratic nominee for President.
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a Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clintons (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trumps strengths, whereas every one of Trumps (few) weaknesses plays to every one of Sanderss strengths. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.
Sanders supporters have lately been arguing that their candidate is more electable than people think, and they have some support from the available polling. In a number of hypotheticals, Sanders does better than Clinton at beating Trump, and his unfavorable ratings among voters are a good deal lower than Clintons. ....
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http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Every Repub I know, and that is a lot, would either hold their nose and vote for HRC, or not vote at all for President if it is HRC and Trump. Especially the women. Rep women hate Trump.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511548533
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511527852
and the longest article of them all, from Frank Rich, linked and discussed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027701342
Baobab
(4,667 posts)I think Sanders will win by a landslide if he runs.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)I'd like a landslide win. Swingstate Louisiana sounds awesome.
amborin
(16,631 posts)Rebkeh
(2,450 posts)Whether I know them or not. They hate her more than they fear Trump. It's messed up but true.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Who can imagine what the numbers will be after the debates between Bernie and the insane NAZI?
sufrommich
(22,871 posts)Some of these "OMG,Trumps going to win!" OPs seem to ignore that the vote isn't reserved for white men.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)It was an awkward session on Saturday. I like Bernie, she likes Trump. We found common ground in Hillary bashing.
Wow.
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)Anyone who thinks Trump would win with women and minority voters isn't paying attention.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Her supporters insist that she has already been tried and tested against all the attacks that can be thrown at her. But this is not the case; she has never been subjected to the full brunt of attacks that come in a general presidential election. Bernie Sanders has ignored most tabloid dirt, treating it as a sensationalist distraction from real issues (Enough with the damned emails!) But for Donald Trump, sensationalist distractions are the whole game. He will attempt to crucify her. And it is very, very likely that he will succeed.
Trumps political dominance is highly dependent on his idiosyncratic, audacious method of campaigning. He deals almost entirely in amusing, outrageous, below-the-belt personal attacks, and is skilled at turning public discussions away from the issues and toward personalities (He/shes a loser, phony, nervous, hypocrite, incompetent.) If Trump does have to speak about the issues, he makes himself sound foolish, because he doesnt know very much. Thus he requires the media not to ask him difficult questions, and depends on his opponents having personal weaknesses and scandals that he can merrily, mercilessly exploit.
This campaigning style makes Hillary Clinton Donald Trumps dream opponent. She gives him an endless amount to work with. The emails, Benghazi, Whitewater, Iraq, the Lewinsky scandal, Chinagate, Travelgate, the missing law firm records, Jeffrey Epstein, Kissinger, Marc Rich, Haiti, Clinton Foundation tax errors, Clinton Foundation conflicts of interest, We were broke when we left the White House, Goldman Sachs
There is enough material in Hillary Clintons background for Donald Trump to run with six times over.
The defense offered by Clinton supporters is that none of these issues actually amount to anything once you look at them carefully. But this is completely irrelevant; all that matters is the fodder they would provide for the Trump machine. Who is going to be looking carefully? In the time you spend trying to clear up the basic facts of Whitewater, Trump will have made five more allegations.
amborin
(16,631 posts)started in on her; as far as women are concerned, she is on record saying some pretty awful things about vicitims of Bill's predation;
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)............... I do not want to relive the 90's no matter how much it was better than the horrors of the 2000's. We all know the negatives of Bill's presidency as far as policy.
I hate to see the dirt that will be dug and flung if it's Hill vs Trump.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)AzDar
(14,023 posts)LexVegas
(6,031 posts)DanTex
(20,709 posts)calguy
(5,292 posts)Republicans would have a hay day running false ads about Bernie's "communist past" and how Bernie would transform America into another Venezuela or Cuba. Of course they would be false, but believable to the masses of uninformed and easily swayed masses. Don't let Bernie's high poll numbers against Trump fool you. GOP would never attack their dream opponent until the nomination is in his hand.
Baobab
(4,667 posts)Development is a big issue, people see real-estate developers as waging war on current residents in order to make money on the churning.
Obama with his past of real estate development and Clinton with her neoliberalism are part of that group so I think people see Sanders will likely be the only candidate that doesn't create some big disaster for them to funnel profits to real estate moguls.
the TTIP contains a energy bill that will irreversibly export energy and that could mean much higher heating and electricity prices, leading to loss of affordable housing in large amounts in cities.
If that happens the Democrats will be blamed. Maybe thats their goal, but if so, its suicide for this party.
quickesst
(6,280 posts)Okay, so you have two teams, and the members of each team compete with each other to determine who will compete for the overall championship. One team has already finished their final match and picked their champion. The other team has one final contest to choose their champion. Competitor A and competitor B engage in their match. Competitor A handily beats competitor B. Due to some kind of logic that is difficult to understand, the outcome is overridden and competitor B, the loser of the final round is chosen over the winner of the fiinal round to represent their team for the championship. WTF!!!!