Never was about that.

Now, if it wasnt about Bernie the man, but his policies and agenda, then I dont know how any aggressive supporter of his could NOT follow his lead when he says to vote Hillary.

I don't say that to denigrate anything, but just look at the story out of PA this week. There was a Senate candidate who publicly endorsed Bernie, and the campaign said they didn't even know him, let alone do anything to help a guy who supports their agenda. If that's a movement, it's going to move like a glacier.

Bernie wanted to endorse back? I guess some that simple, that obvious and that non evil is just not possible?

However, there are about two hundred people running who have associated themselves with Bernie, like Tim Canova and Bernie has not distanced himself from them or claimed not to know them.

... for the rallies!!

Then Elizabeth Warren, Now Bernie Sanders...

I'm probably forgetting someone.

In four years it will be someone else...

...then you have to say that the 'Donald Trump Movement' is a thing.

And that's what makes it scary.

I actually think they share something very close. They are both progressives willing to get dirty and get things done. It is one of the reasons I have such great respect for Kucinich. He didn't spend his life on the sidelines yelling. He spent it in the trenches yelling and getting the most he could, but always fighting to get something. The end result wasn't always pretty. Clinton has done the same. When campaigning, I think the fact both were willing to get dirty to accomplish progressive goals, hurt them.

I decided not to post it because of the current environment of DU. It would have been post after post about how I am comparing every bit of Kucinich to Clinton.

... just seems like if you were gonna build a cult of personality, you'd pick someone with personality.

which is exactly why Bernie and the movement were and are not about a cult of personality.

Many posts and replies on DU alone illustrate this point.

looking for committee positions.

Oh, and ego.

Bernie didn't. Neither did his supporters. Obviously, he is the one running for the nomination, though.

and the reasons why were obvious from the start.

about how they did not get it or how they were clueless.

I am not saying every supporter of Sanders is like me, but the ones I "pal around with" are.

They also refuse to acknowledge how much "movement" the movement has already made.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12778005

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280109865

I have no problem with the cluelessness. In fact, it maybe preferable for us.

And this one was fantastic as well. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1280&pid=104497

I'm not sure if they didn't/don't get it, but actually do and are just trying to ignore it. In any case though, the millions of people who've worked so hard for change are true heroes, in my eyes. This is a movement for a moral and just country/planet ... they/you've already accomplished so much. People all over the world have been watching and rethinking our own actions and the things we all need to do. Not a dime, a second of posting anywhere or a spoken word or action taken has not made a huge difference. Those that are trying to delude themselves or convince anyone it's been anything other than what it is are going to lose out in the long run, big time.

I really believe that this time, at least within the Democratic Party, there has been a real shift of awareness. And if Clinton wins the Presidency, she will have to listen to her own base or risk being challenged in 4 years.

I also posted an OP from Huffington Post about how we have to continue the revolution:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027787788#post2

... that's pretty damn selfish

yeah, it's about him. There is no movement to speak of.

He could have been. But once he realized that the only way to sell his extremely expensive policies was to engage in Reganesque budget fantasies, he sent the unavoidable signal that he wasn't serious about funding said policies.

The country could have had the discussion about whether we wanted to "be like Denmark" and fund a more-socialistic approach to society, but that would have meant discussing the fact that the average person in Denmark pays 47%+ of their yearly income in taxes, and Sanders realized that such honesty would have doomed his campaign by September.

We could still have that discussion, and it may well be that the majority of Americans wouldn't mind paying out nearly half their salary in taxes (like Denmark) if it meant a more-equitable society. But I kinda doubt that, as the majority of Americans balk at Sanders Medicare-for-all plans once they are asked if they'd be willing to pay over $1000 a year more in taxes to have such a program. Imagine what the polls would show if the REAL number was presented to them, with a family earning $50,000 a year paying out a Denmark-like $23,000 of that each year in taxes.

"What are you getting with your taxes?"

Take the F-35 program (the one even Sanders lobbied to get in his state). That program alone could have covered free college for everyone for a couple decades. There is lots of money being sunk into crappy programs that Republicans and 1%ers love. I would have framed it as "Hey would you rather pay 30-35% of your income to buy jets that can't fly, subsidies for corporations, and tax cuts for rich people, or pay 40-45% of your income to get good schools, nearly free healthcare, no worries about educating your kids, and a safety net for if things go wrong for you?"

One big missed opportunity was not counting the "FREE STUFF" meme with a meme showing all the free stuff conservatives like.

...research his record, and read his campaign site to find an answer to that question. But it's a bit late in the primary to start.

Finding a new way to finance a campaign relatively free of Big Money doesn't leave a lot of extra cash lying around, and competing against a celebrity nominee-presumptive doesn't leave a lot of extra time.

... at least fight even

Some Bernie supporters are too focused specifically on Bernie though. That might change with time.

But there is a change in how progressive our country is on economic issues anyway - not necessarily on everything - and Bernie is at the forefront of that. There will be other candidates, and I think there will be a general change.

It wasn't likely that the first candidate of this movement would win, so I don't see the point of so much teeth gnashing. The best thing we can do for the movement IMO is to keep the country from going too far right. I am OK with Hillary - she is not where I'd like a candidate to be on economics but she's a solid Democrat and not a fascist or anything stupid like I've read. I did prefer Bernie, but IMO our job as progressives is to keep the country as far left as we practically can. I think movement to the left is inevitable, given time, and our best bet to get it the furthest left in the long run is to keep it as much as possible from going right. Therefore, I will do as much as I can to keep Trump from becoming President.

... I wish more Sanders supporters shared this sentiment.

Maybe, they do, and DU provides a distorted view.

That's been going on for years. Normally, they don't have a presidential candidate with any hint of viability. Bernie gave them a chance to come together and try an end run for the White House. But, they've always been around, and often try to get people elected to legislative offices. Typically, that's less than successful, but most congressional and state legislative races have progressive candidates running, right through the primary.

The problem is that in most areas, there just aren't enough progressives to overcome the Democratic Party endorsed incumbent or candidate. It's easy to run for office in most states. Getting past the primary, on the other hand, is usually very difficult, indeed, if there is a solid Democrat running who can get endorsed by the local Democratic Party organization.

It would be easier if more people bothered to show up to primaries where legislative offices were being contested, but we're not very good about doing that, really. That's especially true in mid-term elections, unfortunately. So, in Democratic legislative districts, it's usually a well-known, long-time Democrat who gets the nod in the primary.

If you want to know why that is, volunteer as a poll worker in a mid-term legislative primary election and watch who is coming through the door to vote. You'll see the same faces at every primary election. They're almost all long-time democrats who vote in all elections, reliably and out of a sense of responsibility to participate. They're the actual base of the Democratic Party - the voters who can always be counted on to come to the polling place, no matter what offices are up for grabs. They even show up for odd-year city and county elections. When they do, they vote for the Democrats they know and skip the ones they don't.

And there you have it. If progressives want to elect more progressive legislators, they're going to have to do the hard work of getting enough voters who agree with them to those under-attended primaries. It should be easy to do, given the low turnout, but it never seems to happen, really. The solid, reliable base, though, does turn out and vote for their solid, reliable candidates.

Don't tell anyone, but I just explained how to have a real voter revolution in this country. It's a secret, though, so don't spread the word around. Thanks.

The reality is an effective movement needs a leader who inspires others to action. So, time will tell. I'm not sure this won't go the way of Occupy. On the other hand, I kind of look at Seattle WTO, Occupy, Bernie as waves in a larger growing movement. I think there's more to come and a leader will step forward ... who knows, maybe Jeff Merkley.

I think to discount the "movement" and downgrade it to activism on the down ballot and local levels is missing the bigger picture.

We shall see, eh?

Just imagine if the entire national conversation about economic inequality had been changed by people camping outdoors for a few weeks.

It served a very useful purpose ... in fact it did a lot to change the national conversation and focus it on income inequality. It challenged the establishment openly in many communities throughout the nation -- in a way that hadn't been seen since the Vietnam era. That's all good -- despite the camping, and the homeless who attached to it.

"I'm not sure this won't go the way of Occupy," implying that Occupy went away.

I was laughing at that comment of yours. So then, you defended Occupy because you thought I was attacking it. zomg.

I wasn't scoffing, just meant that Occupy went off the radar screen (though I continued to follow their website and knew they were still out there, the media acted like it had evaporated).

Well, glad you didn't scoff and pardon my density.

Its all about a message Hillary still can't quite put away yet.
We are bigger than Hillary's profit franchise will ever be.

Or are you just using rhetorical questions to put that movement down?

On the off chance that you really want an answer, I'll give you what I've got. I don't speak for the movement or the revolution, just myself.

I am one of a number of people that have been disenfranchised by my own party during the neo-liberal takeover of the Democratic Party. Those not affiliated with partisan politics: independents and small 3rd parties with little power saw it first, the slowly building erosion of progressive values and support for the 99% within government and the Democratic party. For a long time, we were just discounted as "fringe" and tossed under the bus when it came to political representation.

Some people spoke up, and were made pariahs.

Then, though, as neo-liberal policies continued the destruction of the 99% begun under Ronald Reagan, and more and more people were disenfranchised, there began to be a rumbling.

We saw it in the response to the IWR and the Patriot Act, and those who turned out to protest, and were ignored. Of course, we could blame all of that on Republicans since it happened under the illegitimate GWB administration. No matter how many neo-liberals and other scared Congressional Democrats jumped on to the war and security bandwagon; people's fear was used against them.

We saw it further in the occupy movement, which lasted a very long time and was more public than tptb would have preferred before going more underground.

Then the primary season began. For myself I can say that I didn't really care WHO stepped up to the plate, as long as someone who was not a neo-liberal DID. Anyone. They are getting rarer and rarer within the party. I just didn't want to be faced with more neo-liberal choices that I couldn't, in good conscience, support. I wanted some hope.

When it was Sanders, I was fine with that. I wasn't holding out for Warren or anyone else. I just wanted SOMEONE. Sanders stepped in, and he's done an amazing job. He's run a powerful campaign and connected with all of us who are sick of neo-liberalism and corporate control of our government. In the beginning, I just wanted someone to represent me, so that I could vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone. That rarely happens. Then, the campaign did so amazingly well that I actually began to hope that we had a chance. That's my experience.

As far as "movement" and "revolution" goes? The Sanders campaign is a natural continuation of OWS. Win or lose, the sentiment, the anger, the determination, and the movement has been there before his campaign, and it will continue after.

With or without the Democratic Party.

I'm one who thinks that it is a fundamental error for the Party to have worked so hard to put that movement down. It renders them, at best, irrelevant, and at worst, an enemy of that movement. Beating it out of the party in 2016 will be costly in the long run, because it's not going away.

That's my answer, fwiw.

... I hope Hillary is elected and surprises you.

I think she will.

... he was either not serious or didn't know what he was doing.

Anything that gets more people engaged and participating in our government is a very good thing.
I hope that it is not just a momentary fad...but stays the course.

in the mid terms. If he can help win the Congress back it may be legit.

FIFY

was spent on 'up ballot' hence your OP here...

Do the issues presented by both candidates have any impact on your OP?

Do those differences in policies presented resonate with your OP?

Maybe it's the way you decided to phrase your OP that's the 'cult of personality' issue...

in every single speech he says "no one person, not Bernie Sanders, not anyone, can do this alone" I would assume it's not all about him.

It's about someone who actually espouses progressive ideas that we can get behind. Ideas that could transform society. Or we could just take what has (not) been working and "improve it".

.... I just wonder if this will splinter back into fringe movements or continue to coalesce into something much more powerful.

I'm hoping it will be the latter.

(CNN)Two speeches, two candidates and a markedly different focus when it comes to pronouns. That's the conclusion reached when we analyzed the content of the speeches given by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after their finishes in New Hampshire Tuesday night.

Clinton may be one of the most experienced presidential candidates in recent history, and yet a pitch based on that might be a drawback on a campaign. She used the pronouns "I" or "me" in that speech 44 times. She used the words "we" or "us" less than half that amount -- 21 times. For Sanders, it was the exact opposite. Sanders used the words "I" or "me" 26 times. "We" or "us" was used more than twice as much -- 54 times.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/12/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-pronouns/

...some are anxious to get back to corruption as usual.

Simple as that.

... tellers of truth.

of course it is a cult of personality. Always has been.