territory.

I guess most voters don't think Bernie is worth the risk.

laid out within.

be honest I have a feeling this time is different for a number of reasons I do not wish to enumerate at this time.

Forget Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate, Vince Foster, Lincoln bedroom, Lewinsky, Benghazi, etc. THIS IS THE ONE!

proud 50-year Union household and extended family.

to call myself, a Democrat. I do not consider The Third Way to be Democrats because they aren't.

or how would I evaluate his performance or something?

and sorry, I just replied to you about this same thing on a different thread. But basically, since we are the incumbent party, and since many of us voted for Obama, and Clinton is a member of his administration and not really so different from him policy wise, how can we run an anti-establishment candidate? I mean from the point of view of an overall "narrative" and in terms of appearances for the average low-information voter, etc. How can we say "give us four more years, but not like that last guy we elected."

It's not that I think he and his supporters are wrong, but I just don't see how it can possibly work. I don't see how the party in power can turn against itself and hope to stay in power. I can't think of any examples of that happening in recent history, but I don't know much about earlier political history, so I was genuinely asking if there was a precedent for that kind of thing.

and questions like yours don't deserve much to be answered either.

So many people are making the "safe" choice that they will discover is anything but, and anything one does or says to point this out to them is just met with epithets and derision.

Frankly, I'm tired of it. I will work for Bernie, just as long as he is in it, and when and if he is gone, I will decide what to do then based on what Hillary and "The Party" decide to do. Chances are I might even vote for Hillary, if she's the nominee. But my heart will not be in it, unless she somehow stays true to the Progressive values that so many have been shouting for this whole long year. And lack of heart, and a lot of pure enmity, plus who know what other skeleton or scandal to boot, will almost surely doom her candidacy and/or her presidency.

Dire times.

I would suggest a vote for Bernie.

It's pretty weird and unprecedented right? Either DU has been overrun by trolls and outsiders, or plenty of Democrats who voted for Obama twice are now suddenly turning against his administration and supporting a candidate from outside the party. It might be more convincing if Sanders were running purely as an anti-war candidate, but he voted for the war in Afghanistan and his primary issues are economic. How can he run against the Democratic establishment that totally turned around Bush's economy over the past 8 years, and the first lady of a popular Democratic president who presided over a historically strong economy?

Mind you, I'm not even saying he's wrong! Just that it's not possibly going to work.

thought he would govern as a Progressive. The second time because there was not other choice on the Democratic side. Like Bernie, I would have welcomed a Progressive primary of his presidency, because he clearly, clearly, clearly by that time was not the Democrat he had portrayed himself to be.

People can go on and on and on about how they weren't fooled and he didn't say this or that, but I admit that I was fooled, and I am quite convinced at the same time that he implied heavily Progressive values that simply weren't there. He confused me in office, because I could imagine him appointing the people he did in a million years. I mean, Rahm Emanuel, that stinking piece of shit. Timothy Geitner, the others from Wall Street. No prosecution of Wall Street criminals, nothing at all. Turning his back on the public option, caving on the the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, negotiating always by giving away half our position before the talks had ever begun.

So, if it's surprising to you that people are pissed, i wonder where you have been. I wonder if you thought that all those protesting Obama's actions, not the man himself, not the fact that he was the first Black President, but the Regressive crap including TPP that he continues to peddle, were just fooling around. That they had nothing to protest or complain about, even on a site that often calls itself Progressive.

And F you, if you think we are trolls. We would call you the troll, or wonder what Democratic heritage you claim as your own.

No, it is no great surprise that we are delighted that someone like Bernie speaks our language. We, or at least I, would follow him just about anywhere, because of his guts to state what to us has been obvious for so long. That this country has been a disaster for the average person, getting worse all the time, from the days of Ronald Reagan onwards. And we see so many seemingly well-intentioned folks, including Democrats, simply acting like they have been hypnotized by the bullshit, with no other action or place to go.

No, Bernie gives us a place to go, and I imagine we will go there for anybody who brandishes this sword. That would have been Elizabeth Warren, if she had chosen to get in the ring, but she didn't. And the distance between Elizabeth Warren and Hillary is just huge, just as it is with Bernie Sanders.

I figured out that Bill Clinton and the supposed benefit of his presidency was an illusion long ago. He created the conditions that created the mass media that we have today, a joke on the world's stage and obviously corrupt to anyone from a foreign country who visits here. He led the way for mass incarceration. He led the way for massive outsourcing of our jobs and for trade agreements that make our standard of living the equal or worse of traditionally Third World countries around the world.

And these are the figures that you guys are embracing.

No, we are not the trolls. You are.

By running against both the Obama administration and the Clintons, you're repudiating the only Democratic administrations of the past 36 years. Isn't that a weird stance to take in a year where we're the incumbent party? Doesn't that seem doomed to failure considering that Obama has a 50% approval rating and an 87% approval rating among Democrats? And considering that Clinton had a 70% approval rating even during the Lewinsky scandal? The situation seems somewhat similar to McGovern in '68 and Nader in 2000, neither of which worked out well. Maybe it's inevitable that after 8 years of seeing ideals compromised to the ugly realities of Washington, a party falls into disillusionment and disarray. I just hope that we can get at least 4 years for Clinton to nominate some supreme court justices before we see another Republican in the white house. Maybe then we can get a real progressive revolution, but this just doesn't seem like the right time for it.

simmering hunk of populace - Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans, who see through the veil and are really pissed off and dissatisfied and say "Enough is enough".

They will count for something in this election, and if Hillary does the same as Obama did with Emanuel, and they hippy punch and call us "retards" I really wonder how this is all going to turn out. Hillary does not have the popularity of Obama, many like myself have seen through the illusion of the former Clinton years, and many are ready for something very, very different.

I think Bernie actually is the best candidate in this environment. I guess you're thinking maybe not. Second best would be a Clinton who actually embraces the Progressive and Populist policies that have gotten her this far in the race so far.

What I suspect I will see, if she is the nominee, is something far less tasty and much more disgusting. And my reaction to that will be - well, I really don't know. I'm working for Bernie till the last second that it seems worthwhile.

Take care, and thanks for the thought.

And, yes, the establishment needs reforming.

BADLY