2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie and the Bulworth Effect
WARNING: The linked youtube video contains racial epithets and profanity. It is in the vein of farce or satire, but it may be offensive to those with no tolerance for such language.
The Bulworth movie premise is that a politician becomes so desperate in his personal life and physically debilitated that he starts telling the truth about what is wrong with America and why it stays that way. Because he tells the truth he starts to rise in the polls. But of course, the political experts regard the meme of this movie (i.e. that honesty is the best policy in politics for both pragmatic and moral reasons) as pure fiction as they continue to chuckle and deride Bernie Sanders on the TV venues for the chattering class.
Bernie is telling the truth on the stump, just he has been his entire adult life. And he is rising in the polls. And he is attracting more money from real people than anyone else. And he is drawing bigger and more enthusiastic crowds than anybody else, wherever he goes.
Still they say he cant win the nomination or the general election. Lets put aside his chances for the nomination for a second and assume he gets it. What kind of people he would attract in the general? How about Republicans?
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/23/1395700/-Republicans-for-Bernie-Sanders
Why do those conservative Republicans support Bernie? Because he tells the truth and they agree with most or all of it. There is a populist strain in the Republican Party that responds to his message. He connects with all kinds of people. A majority of Americans support most, if not all his platform. Another quick example, veterans:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/06/27/bernie-sanders-surge-partly-fueled-veterans/e1qNTpzFpIaoxIGKygKa9J/story.html
Even our current President wrestles with the Bulworth dilemma.
Yet Mr. Obama also expresses exasperation. In private, he has talked longingly of going Bulworth, a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/politics/new-controversies-may-undermine-obama.html?pagewanted=2&smid=tw-share&pagewanted=all
Well, Mr. President, when the ACA came to the floor, Bernie had your back. When you are fighting for time and a half for more overtime workers, Bernie has your back. And he can put together a diverse coalition and win the general election, just as you did.
Bernie is telling the truth and its working. Americans want the truth. Americans can handle the truth. At this desperate hour in our nation, Americans need the truth.
peacebird
(14,195 posts)boston bean
(36,221 posts)Admiral Loinpresser
(3,859 posts)for starters. If you listen to the movie clip you will hear about neoliberal policies, such as implemented in the Clinton White House. Policies which especially betrayed black people but ultimately betrayed all the people. Policies which can only be overcome by a grassroots movement, imo. I do not hear HRC calling for a grassroots revolution in this country.
But the larger point is not just what you say, it's also what you do. The truth is not just about talking the talk. In politics it's more about walking the walk. Nobody in this race walks and talks like Bernie.
bunnies
(15,859 posts)Single payer healthcare, rejecting the TPP, breaking up the banks, ending corporate control of government and the turning of our Democracy into an Oligarchy, to name a few.
Has Hillary touched on any of these things?
Admiral Loinpresser
(3,859 posts)I don't hear Bernie defending himself from charges of corruption (a plus in the general!), I hear Bernie freely railing against Super Pacs (he doesn't have one) and he has pledged not to take money from Big Oil and Big Coal (the only candidate who made that pledge in either party!).
LWolf
(46,179 posts)I'll point out that whatever Bernie is saying is backed by a steadfast record on the issue over the decades of his life.
In other words, he walks, he lives, his talk. Whatever he is saying is not just words on the campaign trail after triangulating the probable reception of listeners.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)--imm
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Admiral Loinpresser
(3,859 posts)On the critical issue of the 21st century, the environment, HRC is terrible!!!!
Where is she on fracking, Tar Sands and climate change? Just listen to Naomi Klein:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/01/vatican-may-consider-divestment-from-fossil-fuels-despite-popes-call-to-arms
She also said she had no high hopes for Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic contender in the 2016 race for the White House. When she was secretary of state she rarely talked about climate change and it was her State Department that was set to rubber stamp Keystone, she said, referring to the controversial trans-American pipeline.
So, just judging her on her record, I dont think there is any reason for optimism about Hillary on climate change, she said.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... tax credits for corporations who take on interns.
See the difference?
BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)Opened my eyes to alot of things.