you might need the Democratic Party to work with against our common enemy.

Everyone would be much happier...

The screams that he was pulling a Nader would have been deafening. And frankly I doubt he would have gotten anywhere near this far.

Sanders came out of nowhere and has scared the crap out of the establishment, they will now bend Heaven and Earth to make sure their exaltedness is never again questioned.

out with a revolution, no. We've just seen that fail with Bernie's defeat.

Hillary is as smart as she must be, she will also participate in the party changing. If inclusive, we win, if not inclusive, there is a very good chance we will fail.

If Sanders had built up connections within the Democratic Party -rallied the 'subversives' inside- he could have had a hand in transforming it. But he's just not that good at teamwork. Or so it seems to me.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

They'll increase the number of super delegates and work to make more state's primaries work like that of New York.

Reforming the party won't happen over night but it will happen or a third party will form- and that tends to split the vote. Not giving up on shaping where my party goes yet. Been a Dem my whole life and I want to see it get back to the party of the little guy again.

The Republicans have gone from being the progressive party to the repug party — left to right to far right — but we've never seen a party go left-center-left again.

The Tea baggers changed the RepubliCON party. I do believe you can change a party from the inside

Not sure why you'd want to hang around at DEMOCRATIC Underground....

but is a confirmed centrist Democrat.

Here's a good article for you:

Edsall: How The Other Fifth Lives

And apparently, the OP isn't prepared to do the hard work of building the "new" Party earlier; that's apparently Bernie's job.

By the way, Brand New Congress seeks to achieve what you desire. I hope you get involved, if you're on board with the policies that is!

...I've looked over the list of "Berniecrats" from this year and most of them are marginal candidates at best. Honestly, Zephyr Teachout is probably the best of the bunch, and if she wins her Primary, I'll be happy to support her. But "replace Congress all at once" means selecting candidates WHO CAN ACTUALLY WIN; not supporting symbolic windmill chasers who haven't got a chance but make the Sanders folks feel good by "sending a message".

Sorry if I'm blunt, but I take politics seriously, and if you can't get elected, you can't change things. I'm currently monitoring 74 House races and 35 Senate seats; I'll contribute to any of them, progressive, centrist or conservative, if I think they have a chance. Show me candidates like that.

Zephyr Teachout has a good chance, I am contributing to her campaign.

Raskin is going to be an excellent congressman but he hardly needs help with his district.

I'm only backing candidates on that list who have a realistic chance.

If you see a candidate primary'ing Judy Chu, please support them; my congresswoman is useless.

I wish Sanders had backed Sestak (a better candidate for beating Toomey than Fetterman, IMO) in PA -- in my opinion a blunder.

John Fetterman was polling 4% last week and ended up with 20%. I have to believe that Sanders voters supported him because he endorsed Bernie, and shaved voted off of Sestak.

McGinty is not that well liked; only reason she had a chance was DSCC pouring money into her campaign. Sestak and Fetterman together are a significant departure from what McGinty will be, and if one had the other's support, well then..

...and now I have to hope McGinty wins in November. Fuck me.

More than 85%. Liked-minded people generally gravitate to each other even in online communities. You Hillary Clinton supporters are the minority here. I agree with you on the name, so, as I have said in the past, Skinner could help solve this problem by starting 'Progressive Underground' and we'll then leave this site to you 15%ers.

Deal?

the party really is!

They just don't get democracy. They all need to quit and get away from our party.

I think Hillary was just a better known candidate with many years of proving her loyalty to the Democratic party.

I see no reason not to have a leftist 'wing' of the party if there is agreement to work together against the right.

That was not going to work. And it didn't.

He won a lot of people over 30 too, just not quite enough to overcome those who were either worried about changing things too fast, or who bought the electability argument. Then there's the myriad of people in-between.

Democratic Party, not the party of the NEW (Clinton) democratic
party. Why is that so hard to understand?

For one thing, I definitely don't want the old Democratic party's position on race, or LGBT rights, or gender equality.

Though; the gnawing fear is that we can't have both because the white working class is too racist/sexist/bigoted to vote for its own interests and we can't actually get progressive change until the country becomes majority non-white.

Expound pls — from within or independent from the Dem party?

is willing to suffer under neoliberal oppression as long as POC, LGBT, and women are oppressed worse, the energy needed for economic populism is essentially frozen. (Trump is offering economic populism PLUS bigotry, which is why he's so popular among the white working class. )

Because of this, the votes haven't been there for economic progressivism in the Democratic Party because it's needed to orient itself towards a POC/LGBT/educated professional coalition. Now, there was a hope in 2008 that the disaster of the Bush years would rectify this balance, as things have now gotten bad enough that white privilege won't save them anymore and they'll have to swallow their bigotry and vote to feed their families. However, 20 years of talk radio and Fox brainwashing proved too strong, the election of a Black president brought out all the dogwhistles, and the GOP ideology made a little talked about but brilliant bait and switch (and I blame Ron Paul for this more than any other politician, it was the Paul/Rockwell/Rothbard/von Mises Austrian School shit that the Tea Party distilled and pushed for public consumption) - trot out economic theories blaming "the gubmint" for the collapse and the resulting economic pain.

The white working class dislikes any programs that help nonwhites.

Bernie seemed to have a lot of WWC support and even some crossover Republican support, and while most people just saw it as "wanting to run against the weaker candidate", could it really be that his shortcomings on social justice issues after he entered politics actually made him more appealing to the kind of voters that would go for Trump? Maybe there's a gut sense that he's not "pandering to those people". Now I don't think *he* was going for that but it's possible they might have reacted to that way on a "gut" level.

I will say this. If any candidate can win back even a small part of the Trump demographic WHILE bridging the gap with the current Obama coalition, both in winning a primary and keeping high turnout for the general, and have coattails for Congress, then it's over for conservatism, especially since white privilege simply isn't enough to assure economic security anymore, and white privilege is the key to keeping the working class (white and POC as a whole) divided and has been for centuries.

power. And that is incompatible with democratic principles.

And looking at other parties around the world, this seems to be true. If Bernie were to start a 3rd 'left' party, that would essentially push the Democratic party to the centre, which, in today's American tapestry is the Republican party of the 80's. Is that what you are suggesting? That the Democratic party should become Republican? Sure sounds like it.

The Dem party is what it is. Some centrist, some more right and some more left — not nearly left enough for Bernie's revolution apparently though.

So the attempt at revolution from within didn't work, thus my suggestion. I hope the Sanders movement doesn't die out and I hear there is a plan now to totally socialize Congress in 2018. That sounds like another party to me.

2018 might be ambitious but at least plans are afoot.

That was a closed primary. So, yes, a good chunk of the registered Dem party is ready for the ideas he represented by the Sanders campaign.

There is a good chunk of the party that is worried about the big tent leaning a little too far right - although as you say - room has been made.

And what do you mean by 'socialize' Congress? That is pretty loaded. Do you mean, have more representation of the left, significantly large, percentage of the party?

It sounds like you want a purge. Then you are dooming the party to fill the pre tea party Republican role.

I said nothing of the kind. And apparently you haven't heard of the movement plans for 2018.

Google it. The move within the party for Sanders' revolution has failed. Why not start a left-leaning party that won't come up against entrenched figures in the party leadership?

in the towel and letting it drift that way. And why not challenge the entrenched figures? And who are they anyways? Everything you write seems to suggest they are the 3rd wayers, in which case why would you want to throw out the only cure?

at least in the way Bernie was attempting to — a totally revolutionary overthrow of the party's leadership and way of doing things.

The party by its very nature, and btw, the nature of the US government since its birth has been about incremental change, so Sanders and his supporters approach was bound to fail as the party's ptb (DNC and influential figures in the party) would of course resist. They did, and they prevailed.

I'm not about throwing out the cure. Fu_k that. I think it's possible, with this new Sanders movement at hand, to build a new entity, sans 3rd wayers and DNC and incrementalism, based on Sanders' ideas and principles, that would stand entirely on it's own to begin working towards actual demcratic socialism.

It'll take a lot of work and patience though at the grass-roots level, and actual movement thinking, long view thinking of the objective and the years it might take to get there.

edit - forgot to add - adopted in fear. Wrong metaphor. I will never abandon a social-democratic stance and will continue to use the tools at hand for a peaceful change and will support this with all of the people's of the world.

ps - Had to chuckle a bit at your 'American history of incrimentalism' considering the war of 1812 and the civil war.

btw - do you think President Clinton's actual implementation of the party's platform (vs. what he promised) was an incremental shift from Carter?

And expect them to vote for your candidate.

If every malapropism uttered in frustration at a faction of any group (including the dastardly Republicans) was taken so preciously to mean 'all' we'd be living in bunkers armed against our neighbours.

implied I was a low info voter without adequate access to the internet, because what other reason could there be to not support him? PP and HRC are The Establishment. I can do more of his insults, but it is boring to rehash it all.

Point is, they were NOT malapropisms (I think you meant gaffe, lol). And he didn't walk many of them back, either. He meant what he said, and Bernie Sanders does NOT compromise. Remeber? Or say he is sorry or wrong much, either.

But He did apologize for that, and as far as being wrong re. what others say... I betcha Hillary isn't impressed all the time with her supporters all the time either. FB?

Would Hillary be insulted being called The Establishment? Really? Come on, she's worked damn hard through the ranks of it to land where she is now.

But they'll have to do it from the ground up - state legislatures especially. Clearly, the west coast is the best starting point.

... little to no where.

I'd put money on this after Mr "we'll see" comments on supporting down ballot dems

He'll encourage his supporters to back them and continue the work that occupy started.

Berniecrats are a bottom-up organization.

... most influential of offices, Sanders revolution will continue into getting more progressives elected into that legislative body of congress.

Sanders has no track record of doing this, I have no confidence he'll continue after this primary ...

We'll see... I'll be happy to say I was wrong

This is why we need a viable Third Party. I wish Bernie had run as a independent.

The "movement" actually wanted Warren.

She said no.

The problem the "movement" has is that its sits around WAITING for some hero to arrive. It doesn't like the hard work of organizing people for the long haul.

...everyone fighting first.

BLM didn't need and still doesn't have a Sanders figure

he is faux anti-establishment and the CMGs know it, that's why since the day he announced, they gifted him billions of dollars in free advertising while at the same time doing their best for most all of last year in blacking Bernie; a true anti-establishment candidate and his message out.

In regards to Bernie, when he started becoming competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire the corporate media conglomerates set the frame and played that meme relentlessly as well, "they're mostly white states" and Hillary's "firewall."

Counting Hillary's early super-delegate commitments as presetting the stage of inevitably in the American Peoples' mind before the first debate much less vote was even held.

Perception is reality, the corporate media conglomerates know this better than anyone and manipulating it is worth trillions to them, their corporate parents and mega-commercial buying corporate clients, the average American is only a customer; to be sold a product or candidate and way too often down the river.

Thanks for the thread, brush.

But most of us knew that a long time ago. Parties have been taken over before, right?

If you're really on board with the movement, "can't" is premature and no, the movement isn't about Sanders.

Last edited Thu Apr 28, 2016, 11:41 AM - Edit history (1)

And I want Sanders (and Warren, and Feingold) supporters to take over the Democratic Party. This is not a one-election proposition. Look at the conservatives and the GOP. It took 32 years to get from Bob Taft (who lost his party's nomination to an establishment figure from New York) to Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan. And it took not just winning the presidency but contesting positions all the way down ballot (the conservative movement famously went after school board seats as a route to power).

This doesn't have to be the end of anything. The fight for the soul of the party could just be beginning. But Sanders supporters need patience, persistence, and grit.

I think the takeaway is that a virtual unknown with a powerful message came close to winning the Democratic nomination, despite facing the most dominant non-incumbent Democratic presidential candidate in my lifetime.

I think Bernie showed that there is definitely a viable path to the Democratic nomination for some future candidate who continues his message.

Leftists here sound like freepers sometimes.

Seems pretty obvious.

If they run a Democrats they will lose the general if they win the primary.

You wrote: "There are too many entrenched forces with years invested in the party to over come."

The key is "too many". The people supporting Hillary Clinton constitute a majority. (By a large margin, but the margin is irrelevant.) We don't think Bernie Sanders is a Democrat, we don't think his positions are realistic and we don't think he is electable. Yes, he is a nice man who recently started taking care of personal hygiene, but that really isn't enough to put together a coalition in a year to run the country. He managed to get one and only one member of Congress elected in his 55 years in politics (himself, yay Bernie!) and talks a good game. But those of use who remember Nixon, Reagan and Bush (two of them) know for a fact that there is no substitute for winning up and down the ticket. No substitute for winning up and down the ticket. No substitute for winning up and down the ticket. Let me repeat: no substitute for winning up and down the ticket. None.

If he can't even persuade a bunch of moderates in the Democratic Party to vote for him, there is no way he is going to get Republicans to vote for him. You claim that I must vote for him because he has the only chance to beat Trump in November? No. I can vote for Hillary Clinton for any reason I want to, just like you can vote for Bernie Sanders for any reason you want to. And I'm voting for Hillary Clinton. And if you want to vote for someone in November other than Hillary Clinton, be my guest. It's the American way. Vote for whomever you want, write in someone, or stay home. Those are your rights. But I too have the right to vote for whom I want to. Just like you do. And I'm voting for Hillary Clinton in November.

Under no circumstances will I be voting for Bernie Sanders for President this November. If he wants my vote in future campaigns, he can demonstrate his willingness to help other Democratic Party candidates in the coming years with Herculean efforts. Just like every elected member of the Democratic Party. If he does that, I will consider his record and consider voting for him. But not until. Asking me to vote for Bernie Sanders would be like asking me to vote for Arlen Spectre who switched because he thought it would help him win. Spectre and Sanders have spent their lives outside of the party, and the point of a party is to organize to make a coalition of people who want to get things done.

you might want to go leave and start your own party, but please, stop crashing this one if that is your agenda.

that might possibly, if they get it off the ground, form a coalition with the Democratic Party to totally marginalize the repugs and render them ineffective.

I don't like the my candidate or bust division going on here.