I'm still convinced she's leftist only in label. In what world is endless war, ravaging the earth for fossil fuels, and operational opacity so thick that if used as armor, it could have deflected the bullet that killed JFK counted as leftist ideal?

She's "winning." That's all that matters.

The GE will be a bloodbath if she manages to pry the nomination out of the jaws of Bernie's victory.

Its the voters that are making the choices
second, I wouldnt put your eggs in the indictment basket.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Which means that ultimately, no the voters WON'T make all the choices.

"Excuse me, ma'am, did we get your attention?"

Do w still have that? Isn't 1 % of the people above the law?

And the Most pledged delegates.

Around 40 percent may not be "winning" but it represents a substantial number of people.

Bernie doesn't have enough of either.
He can't be president if he can't get the nomination.

Polls showing Bernie doing better against Republicans do not matter.
He has to get the most delegates and after today it's a statistical impossibility.

So it doesn't matter what the party loyalists understand or don't understand.
It's not going to Bernie. Period.

It's possible to "win" and still lose in the bigger picture

The Republicans have imploded.
If Trump is the nominee she wins.
If the GOP denies Trump the nomination after he makes it
to the convention with the most delegates the Trumpets
will probably burn Cleveland to the ground.

Don't worry. Hillary has this in the bag.

Little things like ability to govern, generating enthusiasm and more votes for the down-ballot races, mid-terms...little stuff like that.

If a party shrinks its base of support, and level of enthusiasm by making people fell unwelcome....well, ultimately that's "winning" but losing.

The right down the middle voters who are pretty much neutral
are leaving the GOP in droves.

Of course conservatives and especially the social conservatives
will remain Republicans.

The Democrats may lose the far left but that number is negligible
and they're an unreliable voting bloc anyway.

Looks like we're going back to center left economics and liberal social issues.

Bernie was never going to have the horses to pull this off.
His proposals are a case of trying too much too soon.

I'll tell you. I was for Bernie when he first entered the race.
But his ideas aren't very well fleshed out and in some cases his 1 size fits all solution
would be a disaster.

The GOP will lick its wounds (if it loses) and regroup in a way the Democrats ought to be doing -- working to bring together the different factions as a unified entity.

Then they will go after Democrats with all guns blazing

As for the Democrats becoming "center-left" you're dreaming if you think that alienating the 40 percent of people who have already voted for Sanders will make that possible.... The "far left" is much wider and bigger than you seem to assume. It includes many people who are basically moderate liberals,. but are getting tired of the same-old conservaDem stuff.

Not all of those will be hardcore progressives.

Some will have voted for him because he's not Hillary.


There's a poll I just saw here on DU that said
20% of the Republicans will vote for Hillary before they vote for Trump.

Until the progressives come up with some workable ways to implement their agenda 40% is probably
as good as they're going to do.

Bernie lost a lot of people by not having a real path to his goals.

Even people who support what he says don't have faith that he can pull it off.

Issues like income equality.
Most people don't care what the CEO makes as long as they make enough to live.
So just drumming up anger that CEOs make a lot still doesn't answer how that helps the typical worker.

Bernies $15 dollar an hour federal minimum wage sounds great. Until you start looking
at all of the details.
Positions like that are what happens when you think a 1 size fits all solution will work
in a country this spread out and this economically diverse.

It's a small state mentality that might work in Vermont but won't work on a federal level.

Fall all over yourself trying to make a sensible argument out of nonsense. It's getting you nowhere.

Has an insurmountable lead of pledged delegates
and 3 million more votes.

Seems like a pretty sensible argument.

Do you remember what this thread was about?

And how much they dislike Hillary and many won't vote for her.

But enough will vote for her that the Bernie or Bust group
won't matter.

They just don't have that many people to keep her from winning.

No matter how many times or how loud they say it.
No matter how powerful they seem on the internet.
In real life it's all just smoke and mirrors.

I don't care who anybody votes for but I will keep pointing out
that Hillary is winning.

Might want to consider starting your own thread ... something like "Hillary has more votes and delegates".

You are focusing on the Tiger Beat personalized aspect of it. Which is the opposite of what I was getting at in the OP.

So that's why we won the 2010 and 2014 midterms so resoundingly

Uninspiring candidates, Turd Way/MIC corporatist policies sure draw people to the polls

glad you can do that.

rest of her supporters as well.

Now with new and improved superdelegates.

Only count if they vote for Bernie.

If Hillary is ahead its rigged, fraud etc.

Case in point

But I am talking about cause and effect.

Give people a reason to think that they are welcome within an organization/movement/party and that their participation will make a positive difference.....they will be more likely to participate in other ways too.

Insult them and tell them that the ways in which they are trying to participate is irrelevant....and you discourage them from digging in to help in other ways.

...will only happen if the down tickets are voted for, and that will only work with high turn-out. Hillary only wins with low turn out, she has yet to win any primary with equal or better than 2008.

They are literally hostile and openly disdainful of voters. And then turn around and expect them to vote for them

in people who are full of themselves in my experience. So its quite strange to see it so prevalent at DU.

She and them agree on a lot of issues.

1) Shift further to the right with legislation Republicans in Congress support.

2) Inspire a high voter turnout and kick the Republicans out of office.

can get votes in Congress better than Bernie?

The Republicans will work with Clinton more than they would Sanders because...? My god, who makes this argument? They froth at the mouth when you say the word Clinton. Look what they did to her husband (outside of working with him to destroy the poor and working people and to support policies that benefited the rich and multinational corporations) and what they've already done to her. Yet, her followers like to pretend that somehow they will work with her. Face it, they will work with her if she sells the store to corporate interests. Anything other than that means she'd face the same roadblock he would, possibly even more so. I also wonder where in the hell popular opinion fits into all of this. Popular opinion on the issues is well to the left of actual government policy, multiple studies now show that popular opinion has next to no impact on which policies the government will implement, and the left's policies on a wide range of issues are extremely popular. So, how does it make sense to perpetuate this, especially given the inequitable outcomes? Why does it make sense to not challenge this, even more so given that this situation is the end product of systematic corruption (which Clinton and her husband are guilty of possibly more than anyone else).

No historic movement of note, not one, lacked a long term vision that wasn't "realistic" in the short term. The labor movement had a vision in mind and pushed for that vision, along the way getting us the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, safe working conditions, the weekend, the 40 hour work week, the right to form unions, etc. That wouldn't have happened without a long term vision, which Sanders has and Clinton doesn't. It seems that Clinton supporters think change happens by voting in people determined not to change corrupt and inequitable systems, and those people get together with others not determined to change the system, and somehow progress occurs. Not only a-historic, but logically absurd.

The Democrats backing Clinton, including many here, are just as much of a problem and an obstacle to progressive change as the right wing and the corporations buying them and politicians like Clinton off. You might as well all be working hard to get the left to leave your party entirely, cause that is the direction we are going in. Clinton supporters do not fully appreciate how radically the country has changed in the last ten years. It won't be something they can avoid in the coming years though, that is certain.

They are amnestic about repuke antagonism to Bill from the get-go. Remember the omnibus budget bill of 1993... not a single R vote for it. Then came Newt's revolution of 1994 and sweeping wins in the House, Senate and State Houses (Mario Cuomo, Ann Richards defeated). Then all the investigations and scandals that kept us occupied and distracted while Bill passed repuke friendly legislation: NAFTA, Telecommunications Act, Crime & Welfare Reform Bills, Glass-Steagall reversal...

Yet, it'll all be magically different with $hillary

Establishing a strong, tough authoritarian leadership is most important to them. It's totally authoritarian following. They project that we all should be good followers like them. How many posts here are demanding we acquiesce to the Wealthy Authoritarian Leadership. How many of the think the Republicon Party should die away? They are fine with one big party controlled by the Wealthy Oligarchy.

[link:|

the People will prevail.

is that loyal Democrats, who have spent their lives supporting the party that has led every positive change in this country in the last fifty years, don't take kindly to being called corrupt, whores, and false 'progressives'. Bernie's entire campaign has been one long insult against everyone who isn't as far left as him.

When a campaign starts from a place of disrespect, it will never get the respect it's followers think it deserves.

That'll help increase the number of "loyal democrats."

The 99% has been struggling for the last 40 years. We have 2.5 million children that are homeless and that number will only grow under a Wall Street controlled Presidency.

It was Democrats that brought us out of a Depression. Since then the Republicons have worked at dismantling the New Deal. Sadly, the coopted Democratic Leadership has helped them. Bill Clinton didnt bat an eye signing away Glass-Steagall and HRC agrees with his vote and won't work to reestablish.

The 50,000,000 Americans living in poverty need help and the Wall Street controlled Democratic Party will look to the middle and working classes to help them and continue to allow the Wealthy 1% to loot wealth from us all.

have been loyal Democrats since we were old enough to vote and feel that the drift to the Right has left us without a voice.

But, you don't need the left, we're annoyances to be purged.

I just hope she doesn't drag too many good Democrats down-ticket with her.

By not supporting Bernie you have attacked him and his supporters.

That's how they some bad

standing up to corruption is what Sanders has done consistently, for his entire career. It doesn't matter who it is.

attribute "whores" to him. As for true progressives, Bernie simply defines what true progressives value and support -- you assign the conclusion -- and then get offended by it because you are righteous in your own mind.

No one person does. He has his definition, you have yours, and I have mine.

The problem is that Bernie has self-righteously promoted himself as the only voice of progressives, and his seriously implied that people who disagree with him are corporate sell-outs. There's nothing at all 'progressive' about the attitude he takes with people who don't support him. He is leading a movement of ideological purity. That is the furthest thing from progressive.

wrongly. You guys are just being defensive. That's okay. We do that too.

I like Bernie's behavior based definition of progressive. He has it right.

So now progressive is what, being impure??

Ideological purity = neoliberal, neo conservative

what is progressive about someone as hawkish as Clinton? Can you explain what makes her foreign policy progressive? The trade model she supports? What is progressive about her largest donors, her meeting with corporate lobbyists left and right since she entered the race? Explain what makes Clinton progressive? Sanders doesn't get to define what is progressive, your problem is that you are angry you can't invent your own reality. You want to pretend that someone with her record, someone that has been given (along with her husband) 3 billion from corporate interests since entering policies, someone that was instrumental (along with her husband) in pulling your party to the right and towards corporations, is progressive or on the left. My god, she was bragging about being "centrist" and "moderate" a few months ago, now we all have to pretend she is some progressive fighter. What nonsense. Well, pretend away, but your problem is that you are backing someone that is clearly not on the left on economic issues, regarding institutional power and foreign policy. It isn't our fault you chose her, if you do back her then be honest with yourself about what exactly you're backing, and you aren't.

...and when they see ( or don't see, lol) their reflection they hurl insults at Bernie for his rude mirror.

don't take kindly to the sellout, war-profiteering, corporate owned DINOs who have taken over OUR once glorious party of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society!

Gave me the chance to opt-out of reading the rest.

Was just trying to be a bit funny. I always read the thoughts you share. I was making a point with humor. I'm guilty of said point as well.

Dry humor doesn't always translate on the Interwebs

You missed the best part.

Some see any problems related to the country as blue vs red. The others see it as rich and powerful interests vs the interests of the people. I don't know if those world views can actually co-exist in unity under the same roof. Only time will tell.

propaganda over the last 40 years or so. It lets the Party get its candidates elected without any new ideas and with precious little achievement, just by pointing at the opposition and calling them crazy.

to keep us fighting one another, instead of them. Blue vs Red issues are real but IMHO they pale in comparison to corporate/populist issues.

... there's a REASON that what you guys are doing now isn't working. I suppose you could have tried to change gears when it became obvious that you were falling behind, or you could just try the same approach next time and continue with the same griping and complaining and insults and smears and lies and obscene RW attacks.

The best candidate learns from their mistakes and builds on their successes. A successful candidate and their campaign staff is prepared. The smart candidate knows how to make adjustments, doesn't let pride stand in their way, takes personal responsibility, doesn't blame others for their own mistakes, and doesn't instinctively go with absurd conspiracy theories for every little hiccup or stumble.

Whatever your motivation may be, whatever it is that inspires you ... you're doing it wrong, and votes show it ... the media endorsements show it, the Senatorial and US Rep endorsements show it.

Better luck next time, Bernie.

Now, step aside and let us proceed, Bernie! We've got a crown to polish and a "coronation" to attend to.

n/t

will run as an Independent then. Set all the conditions you want, but it won't help you WIN.

Your last comments reflect your person I guess.

Why do you think Bernie ran as a "Democrat" this time?

Based on everything I've observed from Bernie's campaign this time, there are still many miles to go and many lessons to learn.

Why? He's realistic. He knew he would have a greater impact running as a Dem this time around (not that he plans to run again, but someone will carry his banner forward). As an I, he would never have had the opportunity to debate, the media would have ignored him, and the Democratic Party would have ignored his issues/proposals. As a D, he got around all that, achieved his goals (visibility, ignite an already smoldering movement) plus he can still choose to run in the GE as an I -- which he won't because he's more honorable than that. He has already won. BTW, the next "Bernie" won't even have to consider whether to run as an I or a D.

What lessons does Bernie still need to learn? Do tell?

Exhibit A: Dr. Jill Stein (G), no coverage
Exhibit B: Gary Johnson (L), even less

In A's case she is to the left of Bernie.
In B's case he is between Hillary and Trump, closer to Hillary.

I don't blame Bernie for running as a D, it's too bad that he is currently losing.

Should we change the Party symbol to a cat - with nine lives?

it's probably on life 7 or 8 by now

...really has had me scratching my head. It's absurd. It's the equivalent of suggesting that an idea needs to be mainstreamed before it can be considered viable.

First I was told on DU there was no revolution; it's not coming.

More recently I've been told that Bernie hasn't done enough to be qualified to start/lead a revolution.

Never mind that this revolution has been brewing since at least WTO Seattle, and that Bernie has consistently been on the right side of every wrong political decision made for even longer.

..claims to represent the values they represent.

And the people who propose them should not be marginalized and dismissed.

I will bet that if Obama and otehr Dem elected leaders had taken a step back on healthcare reform, for example, and actively pushed for a pubic option (which was a compromise) they would have either gotten it included ion the ACA ....Or helped to generate enough public enthusiasm and support to help it get through eventually.

Medicare is mainstream. The idea of choice is mainstream. The opportunity to save money on health care bills is mainstream.

Instead it was thrown under the bus.

that is what the Sanders' candidacy is about. Also "how it works."

if you say so

There are many historic figures who would disagree with you

We are in a fight right now, no? You cast it as bad, we cast it as good. Relative to dealing with the GOP, "mainstreaming ... an idea into viability" as opposed to "fighting" has obviously been really successful:

90% of Americans supported expanding background checks on firearm purchases;
most Americans support tax increases on the wealthy;
overwhelming majority of the American public support government action to curb global warming;
- - - - the list goes on and on.

As I mentioned in the OP....Sanders did not spring out of a vacuum.

That argument ignores that fact that people -- including many good loyal Democrats -- have been working to bring reform in many ways -- but every effort to point out, discuss issues...and even compromise -- is slapped down with the same memes that have been used endlessly. It, just in more concentrated form this time..

We saw the first rumblings of this phenomena with OWS. Unfortunately, that never resulted in a major, organized or sustained movement. If nothing else, Bernie's revolution needs to develop into that sustained and organized movement and I'm committed.

The real opposition to the Democrats is not the GOP......It's widespread and ingrained cynicm and apathy ("why bhother? they're all the same.&quot that stifles enthusiasm and/or seeds the field for the GOP among disgruntled voters.

the truth hurts but it is worth knowing

Suffice it to say, the anger is just deepening. Should be interesting. Civil unrest always is. Hmmm need to replace my boots and maybe invest in more protective gear though

Like its winning the GE. They forget in the snide dismissive comments that without us, and the many indies that couldn't participate this spring - they will not win the GE.

and that they are berning their bridges behind them. They always had one candidate and one candidate only. When he either lost or grew too old to continue, it was a movement that was going to fade away because it was about one candidate and one candidate only. The bros were never about building a movement, they were about idolizing one man. The bros will not and were never going to work for any other candidate for any other office. Ever. They have made that clear. It's about their love for Bernie. A man who stopped getting his hands dirty 50 years ago.

It wasn't even Dick's plane. He stole it from a homeless guy in Brooklyn!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]

You should try comedy

Conservatives and allowing them to take over the party of FDR.

... which refers to ...

Vote rigging, voter suppression, election fraud. If someone, anyone just smirks at the thought of that because it helps their candidate "win", they don't give a damn about our country.

Don't bother telling me any different, either. Running out of fucking ballots? What kind of nonsense is that? Uh, you know how damn many voters are on the rolls have - enough R ballots and enough D ballots for each voter in the district.

Reducing polling places in the most populace county in Arizona to 60 for 4+ million people? That isn't voter suppression and election fraud? Spare me.

Messes all over the place in Brooklyn, Iowa, blocking polling places in Massachusetts, those are just the tip of the iceberg. Open your damn eyes. Controlling and manipulating who you *want* to vote leads to no true representation. It's Soviet Union type crap.

she displays a serious lack of graciousness. How hard would it be to say, I will listen to those supporting Senator Sanders and I hope we can talk about the issues we hold in common.' She is all about her listening tours. But when it comes of really listening -- ha ha. Yes she will be the nominee and yes I expect her to win the election and I hope she will be happy. I am not against her personally. I would like to be allowed to vote for my candidate of choice before the primary season is closed down and I would like to feel included. I do not feel included and I haven't yet voted.

I do not think she will be the nominee.
Go do some reading on the FBI investigation. Don't read talking heads, but find articles with people high up in the intelligence community and hear what they say. Mukasey has spoken on it (former AG) and so has Lt.Gen. Flynn (former head of the D.I.A.). They at least know the facts and their implications.

or it can let the Republicans appeal to them, because Donald Trump for all his odiousness has some ability to do that.

Why?

So, you can parade around as Rightists? Pretend to be victors in the mold of Ronald Reagan? Even President Obama had some horrid things to say during his campaign about what a "transformative" President Reagan had been. Transformative to shit, that is.

I wish that this Democratic Party would stop worshipping at the trough of Ronald Reagan like the Republicans. Then I could feel a part of something that has a chance to help the average working person in this country again.

Besides that, it just makes practical sense. There is a whole, willing electorate out there, jazzed to be involved with Progressive ideals. Wouldn't it make more sense to make room for them rather than to pick off a few Republican assholes by being more like Reagan?

I think so.

It's not just people who consider themselves "left" or populist. I think a lot of people who think of themselves as middle of the road or moderately liberal or even sensible conservative ....or have given up due to disllusionment...are also fed up and looking for answers

do it?

I think Obama could have (he did initially) if he had been more like Bernie (a kinder and gentler version) in his message and actions instead of going to the corporate side.

we are Democrats SQUARED!

it will require Republican votes.
they are on the right track.
all that anti-leftist extreme hatred put forth over the last 15 years begins to make sense.
these are not liberals, and I hope we never find out how much not so.

If they were never going to vote for her anyway and they were likely never going to vote for anyone other than third party green unless it was Bernie, why should she or the Democrats care? Those folks were always a lost cause.

here tonight make me want to reach for the Maalox

8 years ago they managed to excite people by giving us the chance to vote for the first black president. that president turned out to be a devoted corporatist, and the party has been decimated in the intervening years across the country. This year they will present the nation with the opportunity to vote for the first female president (another hook), and despite her remarkable corruption, the unelectibility of Trump and Cruz, together with her gender, may be enough to carry the day. But once again the country will continue its rightward lurch at warp speed, and the party will become even smaller.