pretty much every other election cycle. (Well, except for the current repub primary, which has been way over the top).

The difference in the last couple of presidential elections is that the internet is widely available and used in full force, so everyone is constantly subjected to others' opinions. When I read these anti-candidate rants on either side here on DU, I think of it more as trying to convince people how to vote than delegitimizing. And honestly, how many people are going to switch sides once they come to a very divided place such as this? If anything, DU further polarizes people.

Isn't saying that the other side is delegitimizing just another way to complain that you are right and they are wrong?

like Hillary Clinton well enough in spite of her incrementalist approach but prefer to tilt straight at the dragon with Sanders. Neither they nor liberals like me who support her directly are trying to "delegitimize" people farther to the left.

No need for that. What "delegitimization" that may have occurred can be laid squarely at the feet of

1, 2 and 3: Sanders for being shockingly unable to explain HOW he would fulfill his promises.

4: The questionable behavior of Sanders' more extreme supporters, who cause others to wonder in turn about their leader's character and judgement. Just what are these people drawn to? Wise voters always want to know.

Btw, has it? I haven't read about it. Are some Sanders supporters starting to wonder themselves? Given that many are liberals, and therefore presumably capable of some honest insight on average, that would make sense at this point. If so, those have my sympathy.

needed and compromised from there, and was willing, on appropriate issues to use the bully pulpit and the veto to stand up to opponents. The last two Democratic presidents have mostly triangulated to the center or to the center-right, and then negotiated with Republicans from there. I think we could have gotten a better health care system of Obama has been willing stand up to the special interests who profit from the status quo, instead of devising a system in which they make even more. I think we could have handled the banking crisis very differently, and Obama is still has the authority to break up certain banks, but won't.

We need someone who is actually going to fight for his ordinary people. Hillary does not have a record that leads me to think she is that person. She has does not seem to have deep commitment to any cause but women's rights, which happens to coincide with her own interests, but she seems to have been willing to make compromises even with this for the sake of her career. Sanders is not perfect and has made compromises, but there are core values reflected in his record that do not appear to have evolved much and which he has stood by. Consider his unwillingness to use attack ads, for example, which would have probably resulted in him winning the primary, given all of Hillary Clinton's vulnerabilities.

I see it as the best they and battalions of allies in congress and private life, as well as the best experts available just about anywhere, were able to do under the conditions they faced, especially including crippling opposition.

Note that often many things MUST be addressed somehow, not just let go for another time, meaning that available assets normally have to be shared between several critical goals, accepting that further progress must take place in future.

This is reality. The ability to make maximize possible progress is proof of strength, not weakness.

Presidents in this extremely polarized environment couldn't possibly achieve the changes Bernie promised he would. He really did need a tsunami of support, a giant one so big it could have swept opposition away. And America didn't give it to him. As it is, virtually all experts agree that even if we win the Senate most would still not be doable, and nothing without that. That's reality too.

they triangulated to conservative ones; that was what distinguished the "New Democrats" of the south of which the Clintons were prominent, used "dog whistle" politics on social issues and neoliberal foreign policies to advance their political careers. Welfare reform, mandatory prison sentences, NAFTA, the Iraq War, Libya, Sryia, Haiti, Honduras--there is a theme that runs through all of these decisions and isn't seeking out the common good. It's now come out that Gingrich and Clinton had an agreement to seek the privatisation of social security, but the Monica Lewisnky scandle ended the alliance.

This was not the best that could acheived under the circumstances; in most cases, doing nothing would been a better option.

yes we are liberals and progressives who lean toward socialism. But most of all we are tired of the establishment and all the things we see getting worse as each year goes by and more and more money is wasted in campaigns...money that could be used to far better purpose in this country of many needs, as our middle class disappears and our education and health systems get more impossibly expensive. We are also tired of the MIC and our foreign policies.

Those reasons are why we do not support Hillary. It's not just incrementalism, but outright wrongheadedness and wrong direction that sees our country slowly slipping away from what it used to be and what it could be.

I don't viscerally hate Hillary, but because of her policy issues and her nasty ways of campaigning, I dislike her very much as a person and as a potential leader, and I really don't think she can or will be the kind of President this country needs. I dread the thought of having to vote for her if she wins the primary, but I will if I have to.

Your one two and three are shockingly wrong.

And, your four is matched if not outpaced by the behavior of many extreme Hillary supporters here on DU toward Sanders supporters. Supporters who started the war here, by attacking sanders as being racist and misogynist from day one.

I know we each see it through different glasses, but those glasses are tinted, not clear.

One thing I do see very clearly. You do not understand Sanders' supporters at all. And maybe you haven't, but many here have tried to delegitimize us.

I agree that too many nasty things are said about Hillary here that have no substance and should not be posted here, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have some pretty heavy baggage, all of which is fair to bring out in a campaign. But the outright lies about Bernie have been truly enlightening about the people who drive them. That is a delegitimization of Bernie by the Hillary camp.

Every single one of them.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/

https://berniesanders.com/issues/how-bernie-pays-for-his-proposals/

So how dare you accuse him of "being shockingly unable to explain HOW he would fulfill his promises?"

That's GARBAGE, Hortensis. It's either a deliberate LIE or the product of woeful IGNORANCE.

It does nothing for your credibility.

Sanders hasn't said. What's the highest marginal tax rate he wants? He couldn't say in a previous debate.

If he can't provide those details he hasn't provided enough to call it a well thought out plan.

Too big to fail means you cannot survive on your own. Now once that is shown, it is time to break up the banks, etc.

I don't like the fact that the big banks are able to gamble with my money, and I hope at some point a bill passes that says "investment banks" are different from "savings and loan banks."

You're wrong there.

I had decided well before Bernie threw his hat in the ring that if Clinton were the nominee, I was, for the first time in 28 years, not voting for the nominee and would go Green.

Too bad you missed 2000 and had voted for Ralph Nader
We got W. You will give us Cruz.

Republicans will never vote for in the GE.

I prefer one over the other but will support the party choice. I think you will vote Green if Bernie loses. I support your right to do this. Ralph Nader still believes he wasn.t a spoiler. We got the dumb Bush.

Re: democrats who support Hillary.

Her favorable rating within the party is over 80 %.

across the nation who are glad to have Hillary Clinton as a second choice. Plus, the remaining 20%+ includes all those who will vote for her anyway.

DU is a weird little place in that it does not resemble what is happening "out there" in the slightest.

If I read you correctly.

I don't see Hillary as a Liberal. I'm pretty sure I'm not in the minority in that respect. So there's that problem.

Seriously, they believe they do not need us. And they can pick up just enough of us to make the scorched earth approach work.

and a lot of us won't be there for her in November. I'm done with corporatist DINOs.

What do bernies supporters hope to gain by all the false accusations of corruption and so on

Check out Hillary speaking on YouTube... Then maybe you'll understand from whence this comes... Here is a pretty fair example for those who have not done their due diligence on Youtube...

Just more delegitimizing, thinking it's a good strategy

then what you're really saying is that your candidate is horrible, but no one should point it out.

and remain overly enthusiastic about voting for her.

Not 100% by any stretch, but that is the general pattern.

I'm not too fond of it, but the Hillary supporters do claim that she's vetted and can handle a rough general election, so attacks on her should theoretically be fair game. Attacking voters (can't do math, sexist, want ponies, etc.), on the other hand, is never fair game. Between that and reveling in the fact that so many new voters are getting shut out by primary laws that even the SOS offices agree are stupid, I'm left wondering if they want to lose the general or expect some kind of miracle.

What you see here are people for the most part expressing opinions anonymously. At times I have seen opinions from advocates of the other candidate that give me pause. It is good to know other people's objections even when their message makes you uncomfortable. This time even though I have seen and heard Clinton's many times over the last 30 years I will not be voting for Hillary in the Primaries. I will spare you my reasons other than saying I am a liberal and they are not based on right wing Clinton hate. If Hillary gets the nomination there is a shit coming of monumental proportions and I will vote for her in spite of that. Much of what will be said are half true and will come from the real world. As for myself there is one simple test; any charge that she is too liberal know that is pure BS.

I'm getting tired of these veiled threats from Sanders supporters and extremely high percentage who aren't real Democrats in the first place. Sanders has come up short. If you want to vote for Donald Trump or Ted Cruz you have that right but Bernie Sanders will not be on the ballot. The game is over in 9 days

And you have no good reason to belittle it. It has brought nothing but good to this debate.

Browbeating people into line has never worked for this party.

And nothing will be over until California.

You are not entitled to your arrogance.

you don't see Clinton Supporters doing that-and that's because we are real Democrats and many Sanders supporters aren't. I'll be voting for the Democrat

Sanders is not popular among mainstream Democrats. She is blowing him out of the water with actual registered Democrats-perhaps you are the one who is not a Democrat

I am a Democrat, and I've been registered for a long time. There's a good statistical chance that I've been a Democrat longer than you've been alive--you tell me. But I am seriously considering switching to independent status after the general election.

I'll be voting for the Democrat and not pouting because my candidate lost. My candidate lost in 2008 but I still voted for the Democrat. I didn't vote for Nader because I'm a Democrat

nm

Honestly, I am not that interested in having your support because you come off as an extremely immature rude person. That sort of thing is amusing in kids but seriously lame in adults.

of 33 State Democratic Parties.

The more the Third Way cheats the less we want them.

And BTW Al From and Bill Clinton took over the real Democratic Party of FDR in 1992 just like the T-Party took over the Rs. They took it into the big money camp and moved it right. So exactly who is the Real Democrat?

A lot of us were committee men and women, precinct captains and other rank and file supporters of the Party.

You left us. We didn't leave you.

the Bernie Sanders wing hasn't won an election in a Century and that took the worst financial crisis in US History

That's grand.

nm

They won in 2006 and 2011.

And you think that's a passable reason to submit to corporate shafting? Unsat, completely unsat.

before that. In 1968 the youth were treated in the same way Hillary supporters like you are trying to treat Bernie supporters now. How did that work out for you?

You all have tried to make it very clear that we are not wanted here. If you really think that will work for you then remember 1968 and maybe 1972 also.

You are tired of us saying we are not going to vote for her. Did it ever occur to you that we are tired of being told that we have to? Especially by a part of the party that is very willing to cheat their way into the WH? Read "How Hillary Clinton Bought the Loyalty of 33 State Democratic Parties". No one is giving us proof that it is not true.

if she's the nominee. Why do you want to twist his words to make it sound like he wouldn't vote for her?

There are no differences between either candidate on the need to fight racism or defend choice(other than our candidate being MORE pro-choice).

The so-called 'bros aren't Sanders supporters. Most of them are Ron Paul/Rand Paul people coming in to be wreckers...the rest were probably recruited by David Brock, the Donald Segretti of the HRC campaign.

Your campaign could have engaged the issues we were talking about, could have embraced most of them, without losing anything that made it distinctive. Instead, you went ugly when there was no good reason to go ugly.

Why the hell did you choose the same ugly path all Democratic frontrunners have chosen in the path? the path that usually gets us defeated in the fall?

It's not as though any Democratic nominee ever gets rewarded by the voters for telling progressives and activists to go to hell.

have been willing to put aside the pettiness, lies, and exaggerations to show any camaraderie.

Many of the older DUers who share my support for Sanders in the primary have sent messages that they won't come back here till after the primary because they are seeing too much hatefulness and division from both sides. Yes, some of us are honest and fair enough to admit chagrin at those we 'supposedly' share a goal. (straight up - I think the worst actors here are GOP operatives).

Ken, you know how I am about RW propaganda and exposing its use - how do you think it makes someone like me feel to see it being constantly posted and referenced here at DU from certain members who are claiming to be on the same side as me?

This battle. Will he help rebuild the Democratic Party to win back the House and Senate? We'll see if it's a movement. I have my doubts.

I am a real Democrat and have voted that way for 28 years. It is Hillary who isn't the real Democrat.

BTW, my "threat" isn't veiled. It's not a threat: it is what it is. I won't be voting for her if she's the nominee. If I wanted a Republican, you're right, I could vote for her or Trump or Cruz. On the issues that concern me, there's not much daylight between her and Trump (Cruz is insane, so I do see the difference there).

not a Democrat.

FDR Democrats are now labeled Green Party supporters? Really?

Sure looks like H.R.Clinton is a DINO as we always know.

What is H.R.Clintons stance on LGBT, abortion, fracking, foreign wars, bank bailout, unregulated banks, etc? Sure doesn't look like a Social Democrat, nor an Economic Democrat. So what kind of Democrat is she?

This has been happening since the very beginning of Bernie's campaign. Not by him, but by many supporters. I wasn't certain at first who to support, and went through a couple debates still uncertain. But I DID know that so many attacks against Hillary were so unfair. And the more I defended her from unfair attacks, the more I realized that she had ALWAYS been subject to these lies, and that's why this kind of cloud hung around her -- but that it would be directed against ANY candidate we ran in the general. Just as it was against Bill, and John Kerry, and Barack Obama.
So the attacks actually helped win me over -- to Hillary.

They start by telling us what a "real" democrat" would support, or not support, and use straw-men and innuendo to make their moralistic case.

Then, they threaten to not vote for the Dem nominee, or vote for some 3rd party, if their preferred nominee does not win. So much for the democracy they claim to desire.

The more of those threats I have to hear ... the more dismissive I'm going to become.

Its simply not worth the effort.

I'll focus my efforts on folks who are not holding their breath and stomping their feet.

The bomb throwing breath holders aren't likely to vote for Hillary but
it's not like she lost anything they weren.t ever going to vote for her anyway.

They're a small vocal perpetually disgruntled dempgraphic.

who grew up believing there was a difference between republicans and democrats.
the republicans support a failing economic policy, and it seems third way democrats are following the same theory.

I consider the TPP a way to consolidate the stranglehold of corporations being a level above people. Anyone supporting it is basically supporting a way to enslave people. When I think how Keystone Pipeline company is going to sue the US for not allowing it to build and interfering with the will of the people, I don't see democracy. This company wants the right to seize the property of voting Americans. Obama supports it and that bothers me a lot, Without a doubt in the GE, Hillary Clinton would support it, turning on a dime. She thinks it only needs tweaks. the obliteration of democracy needs tweaks. I would like to get rid of the WTO - I want to know where my meat comes from, but we are not allowed to know anymore. Shh it is a secret. People don't need to know, hardly anyof it gets inspected anymore with all the cuts over the years to the Ag dept, but trust companies,they would never hurt you, unless you interfere with their profit that is.

makes you a Democrat.
There should be an expectation of party loyalty.
Not blind party loyalty.
Bernie wasn't a Democrat until very recently.
He's been in the senate 25 years pointing out how much both parties suck.
Now he wants to be president but that requires belonging to one of the major parties.
So Bernie is a Democrat, except he won't fundraise for down ticket Democrats.

And Bernies supporters, many of whom are posting tired old anti-Clinton talking points from Fox News and Rush
continue to scream that Hillary can't win without their votes and they'll never vote for her.

Bernie ran as a Democrat. Bernie is losing.
Hillary will be our nominee. No amount of teeth gnashing or tantrums is going
to put Bernie over the top.

I just do not believe in anyone having the right that I stop using my mind and blindly vote for someone, If that is true I might as well be a republican, that is what they do. I do not always feel like a democrat, it seems to me that both political parties have been going to the right, this is not what I want. I try and vote for what I want, but do not vote for blue dogs. isn't the saying why vote for a fake republican if I can vote for a real one? I do not march in lock step.

As I posted somewhere else, I was laid off and did not work again after I was 58 and replaced by an H1B - Hillary supports increasing H1B visas without increasing the oversight. don't we always wonder why republicans vote against their self interest? Seems to me voting for Hillary is voting against my self interest.

See where I am going. No one has the right to demand my vote, no matter if it is a party or another person. it is mine to give and as is the right to vote in my self interest. So please do not use the same arguments republicans use. Party loyalty has me working for and contributing to candidates I believe in, and for driving people to vote on election day who call the democratic headquarters. Except this year I am sick, ugh.

It seems to me that many HRC fans here would like top purge the party of anyone who does not support her, Just like republicans make the tent smaller. don't accept independent, don't treat them with respect, "they won't vote the way I tell them to, so they must die" heh. "they don't pass the loyalty test" Such a good way to shrink the party. Just who is gnashing their teeth?

use however you see fit.
But the OPs claiming they'll not vote or vote 3rd party are throwing a tantrum.
Their guy is Bernie. Bernies is losing.

I remember in 2000 when lots of progressives didn't see a difference between Gore and Bush
how'd that work out.

I don't think Hillary is going to miss the small amount of the perpeually disgruntled who
won't vote for her.

where is that you get more flies with honey attitude?
I am not talking about people who throw bombs, but there are people who can be massaged. I doubt she will change her opinion about H1B visas because she does not talk to real people, she should consider it. I find she talks at real people, telling them what to think rather than listening. this is an issue that will hurt her in the election. I am sure it is good for the corporations though. more profit at the top.

In fact ... I suspect that even if Bernie won, they'd toss him under the bus minutes after his first compromise.

Did you know that most of the electorate don't care abour party branding/affiliation? If Hillary wants to win, she would be well served if her supporters were less hung up on identity, and more worried about liberal policies.

I get that people on the far left don't like her.
She'll do fine with a majority of Democrats and Indies.

Contrary to what DUers think, most people only pay a small bit of attention to this.
Given the choice between Hillary and Trump or Cruz well I don't see which swing state they the GOP
can win.

People of the center left don't like her. She's conservative, more conservative than Obama. We don't even agree on terms, because you think her label as a Democrat makes her a de facto liberal. It doesn't.
I think that she'll lose Colorado, where I live, if she's the nominee. She lost all of the Denver Metro; hell, all of the state except for desolate very rural counties that are conservative. If Hillary is the nominee, Cruz or Trump are POTUS.
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/colorado

she's beating Bernie.
She polls ahead of Trump. I haven't seen how
she polls against Cruz.

Unless Bernie can pull off a series of miracles she's going to be the nominee.

Have a good afternoon.

You stated you thought she'd lose to Trump or Cruz.
I pointed out that she's polling ahead of Trump and don't know
how she does against Cruz.

You have that same good afternoon

And it is never strength to treat "compromise" as the defining characteristic of a supposedly progressive party.

We are all WILLING to compromise, but it's only worth it when you get at least 50% of what you want. It's never worth getting less than half a loaf.

Your candidate can't use crushing tactics in the primaries and still retain any right to expect unity later.

Why couldn't your side have run a positive campaign instead? A campaign that, even if it opposed Bernie as a candidate, essentially admitted that the issues our campaign raised were and are right?

Why not run a campaign that embraces the spirit of OUR campaign?

Your side never had any reason NOT to do that. People who hate what Bernie is saying don't hold any progressive views on anything important, and there isn't any huge block of voters to be had in the fall by dismissing activism and idealism.

There isn't any excuse for them treating Sanders supporters the way they do. HRC, if nominated, can only win if everyone comes out of Philly feeling like what they have done for all these months is validated and was worth it. Why should any of you object to that?

There are millions of new votes to get gained...and none to lose.

Secretary Clinton and her supporters like crap around here for a long time and there doesn't seem to be a right wing screed that is low enough for them not to repeat around here. Respect is earned, not given ... and the BS cheerleaders haven't earned any around here, not that I can see.

And yeah, your OP is temper tantrum, just in nicer words than a lot of them ... let me summarize the OP:

Secretary Clinton needs us. Why are her supporters being mean to us. They're being ugly, arrogant and dismissive. Why are you making it difficult for us to support Secretary Clinton. Why are you taking us for granted.

Sorry, it's nothing but a tempter tantrum ... call the waaaaaambulance.

Being informed?
Being better prepared?

It's really not Hillarys fault that Bernie can't answer direct questions about
his own proposed policies.

Maybe if he'd have spent the last 25 years in the senate building alliances
and working to improve the Democratic party he'd be doing much better now
instead of sounding like a 2 note piano.

Hillary spent the last 25 years strengthening the party campaigning for
Democrats and now she has earned a lot of party loyalty.

Bernies is running on bumper sticker slogans. They sound great but
unless they can get thru congress and become law then they don't mean anything.

It's easy to be pure if your main goal is to act as a social critic.

Your OP is a bunch of whining. Your side has filled GD: P, with so many right-wing talking points against Hillary. Now u want respect, I don't care if your side don't vote for Hillary. Some weren't going to vote for her anyway. Bernie Sanders has not done anything special or remarkable that I can recall that will cause me to change my mind. Whatever his supporters see in him, I just don't see it.

Pro-Tip: When it comes from liberals, it's not.

Liberals really do not like her flip-flops on TPP and Keystone. We don't like her ties to Wall Street. We don't like that she said she would put choice on the table. The right likes her position (or what probably will be her position after she runs back to the right) on all these things. Liberals don't.

"The right likes her position". The right hates the Clinton period. Let's talk flipflops: Sanders complain about money in politics but he spends over $600,000 to go Vatican City for nothing. I'm a liberal and politicians flipflop including Bernie. I am not looking for a purist. All that crap in GD: P, most if not all are right wing talking points. Sad

n/t

real Democrat is.

For my part, I want to see policy planks that excoriate lies and the compulsive liars who tell them. Lying is extremely common in politics, but it shouldn't be. I put it right up top for a reason--continuing with the lying will destroy the Democratic Party. It needs to stop now.

Next, we need to overturn Citizens United and more generally, work to get big money out of politics. NO candidate who uses CU for financial advantage and claims they'll work to overturn it later should be accepted by the party, because anyone who makes such claims is a corrupt candidate.

Minimum wage, $15/hr nationally. Now.

Marijuana legalization. Now.

Those are bedrock for me. I'll negotiate on some (not all) other points; not on these. Those who disagree are not on my side.

But it is possible that they see it as a win-win.

Sure, they want Hillary to win BUT if she were to lose they would still retain their power in a political system where big money calls the shots because no Republican is going to take that away. What's more, they would be able to blame it on liberals just like they are trying to blame liberals for the Wisconsin Supreme Court fiasco.

We never belittled the issues HRC supporters say they prioritize(we are all just as feminist and antibigotry as your side is, for example), and we never treated any of the groups that supported your candidate as if they should not have had a say in this process.

You never needed to try to delegitimize.

Yours

but why they want their candidate thought as an evil, I have no idea.
You would think they would be trying to convince people or her wonderance, rather than bullying people to get them to support her.

splayed all over the internet, and it is not wonderful at all.

I'll vote - maybe. I won't work or contribute.

The candidates are fair game.

Seems we all get in the mud towards each other at times. Some more than others.
We all need to remind ourselves it's not about us it's about the issues our candidates represent.

We will need each other in November.

Most of these angry Bernie supporters will remember they are democrats when this is over

as HRC and her supporters are treating Sanders and the massive peoples' movement we are building.

HRC's supporters were never treated as though they had no place in the party or the process.

And there was never anything HRC stood for that the Obama campaign actually dismissed.

Supporting HRC would have meant backing the most conservative candidate in the race, something I can never do with a clear conscience.

We never treated the HRC supporters as though they shouldn't have a say in the party.

The more people act like jerks towards other the less likely those people being insulted will feel like joining.

I can't believe any of them are delusional enough to think that their internet shit-slinging has any effect on either campaign, but there might be a few. Mostly though, people just enjoy being assholes on the internet.

... that the elites who are pushing Clinton can coronate her.

Anyone recognize the logical flaw in the alienate as many young people as possible approach?

We have fought on the merits of the issues, and in defense of the powerless.

And we have been more committed to progressive change on every issue(including LGBTQ issues)than anyone else in the Democratic race).

We think it's possible to win a Democratic victory on the issues in the fall, to win a sweeping victory with major gains in both houses of Congress.

But that can only happen if our nominee, whoever it may be, fights exclusively for those on the bottom, rather than those on the top.

The path to victory is firing up the base, expanding the base with people who would always naturally have been part of it if only the party had included them, and making it clear that we are a party that sees activism and mobilization as being equally important to cutting deals.

Do you actually object to anything I've said in this post?

An election in order to "win" an election.

The big deals take place in those smoke-filled rooms, that most voters have no idea even exist. (Well, probably no longer smoke-filled; more on the order of Pellegrino and organic carrot juice, these days.)

Ask Senator Di Feinstein what she received as her Quid Pro Quo when picking Bustamante to run
against Schwartzennegger, handing the election over to Ahnold and letting him call the shots as
governor for 8 years.

.

It is true that as in 08 there is a lot of meanness on both sides of a bitter divide on DU. As an Obama supporter then and a Bernie supporter now I (obviously w/bias) get a strong sense of a massive imbalance of meanness --- much more coming from the Hillary supporters than Bernie. Obviously the Hillary supporters would insist otherwise.

But the absolutely ridiculous attacks on every aspect of Bernie's visit to the Vatican since it was first made public that he was going -- w/never any apologies or serious acknowledgement as one sneering meme after another turned out to be bogus, and as of now what appears to be a consensus among at least the vocal Hillary supporters that the whole thing is somehow scandalous about Bernie or his campaign -- is very much a case in point. I cannot think of anything remotely as bogus at any stage of the primary campaign on the part of such a collectivity of Bernie supporters on DU. And "VaticanGate" (also "TaxGate", which similarly has fizzled, but w/o anything remotely approaching the lingering poutage of "VaticanGate) is NOT a singular example on DU.

There are many things -- especially the reported harassment of superdelegates by Bernie supporters, which for me is all second and third hand reportage but very dismaying, that I would criticize Bernie supporters for doing, including many things said or implied on DU, but the balance of venom on DU remains quite clear to me.

I have always been opposed to "Bernie-or-Bust" politics, especially for voters in states in play in the general. (If you're voting in MA, where I live, or CA, or for that matter in Wyoming or Tennessee on the other hand, fine, vote for Jill Stein if that makes you feel better.) But anything that remotely risks putting someone like Trump or Cruz in the White House is unconscionable, and that includes all the Bernie-bashing on DU.

But everything was hunky-dory in 08, right? Well this year is very different from 08 for at least several reasons. First, Hillary at her best is no Barack Obama. He was a uniquely attractive candidate, moreso than any Democratic Party presidential nominee since I've been voting (1976 election, every one). I have never felt that Hillary was the monster that many paint her (including unfortunately on DU sometimes) but she isn't remotely as attractive as Obama, or even as her husband was -- and he had LOTS of resistance back in 92, before the internet/social media era, when TIME ran a cover of a negative-foto of Clinton blazing the headline "Why Voters Don't Trust Clinton":

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A second major difference is that the GOP was in a totally weak position in 2008. It may seem that way to some observers now, but the GOP brand was toxic and the Democratic brand untarnished by any of the disappointment and resistance inevitable after 8 years of largely successful obstructionism and the almost certain prospect that the GOP will control at least one House of Congress after this election. McCain suggested that even Lincoln couldn't have won in 08 on the GOP ticket. Sure the GOP is divided, but they have also fired up their base, with much larger turnouts in primary elections this cycle than the Democrats, an ominous sign. I am not predicting a GOP victory in November for either the presidency or the Senate, but they are ABSOLUTELY not in the position for the general that they faced, with an awful war sponsored by their president and the economy tanking after two terms of W. Unifying the Democrats will NOT be the same as in 08 for that reason

A third reason, continuing on the second, is that there was no significant ideological divide going AGAINST Obama that militated against voting for him except for many of my personal colleagues on the Left who would NEVER vote for a Democrat, not even Bernie. But this election has starkly divided the (relatively) progressive wing of the party from the neoliberals, especially though by no means exclusively white progressives. In the 80s, there was an organization (the Rainbow Coalition) that had a very much more balanced representation of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which also was an excellent vehicle making SURE that in 84 and 88 the Party unified behind the Democratic nominee (who lost in both 84 and 88 anyway). Bernie's campaign at its grassroots openly has a YUUUUUGE number of disaffected voters and supporters who are reluctant to support the Party's nominee, and there is a lot of disgust and apathy, some of which has fueled Trump's hideous and at the same time remarkable success. That alienation, and that ideological division is a problem that was NOT faced in 08, and as I said, we don't have an Obama or a Republican-bred massive recession to drive to the strongest Congressional victory for Democrats since Reagan first won in 80.

All in all, the trashing of Bernie's supporters can help ONLY Trump or Cruz, or whoever the nominee ends up being (Ryan?). And you all watch -- sure if Trump is the nominee there will be principled voters who will stay home or support a purer 'conservative' candidate or whatever. But the massive grassroots of the RW will easily unite, perhaps moreso than the Democrats after a much more ordiary and civil primary campaign. And the trashing and pooh-poohing of Sanderistas, including on the part of those like Tom Hayden who should know better, could overall in that instance be a decisive negative

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