I know you didn't have time to actually read what I wrote and consider the point that I was making

True Dems find him insulting every 4 years and you can't counter that at all.

and have voted exclusively Democratic with one exception, voted for John Anderson in the 1980 California primary to slow Reagan (who I detested as a Cal student when he was Governor and resigned as a Fed after 16 years when Reagan was POTUS).

I supported Sanders in 2016, then backed into Sanders as my candidate as usual, politically used to not getting what I want for a choice. Wish Sanders was not running for POTUS now (also wish Biden was not in the mix).

What are your metrics? I am wondering. After all, I'm a registered Democrat and have been for 49 years. I've voted Dem on every ballot throughout that period.

Since 2006, he has always run as a Democrat in a primary, then turns down the nomination and runs in the General (in Vermont since 2006) as an Independent, then has always served as an Independent, if he wins.

true members of the Democratic Party. That is major for many of us. I don't understand why some folks just don't get it including the original poster. How do you think we feel when he leaves the party after he loses?

There are just as many that don't feel that way, and more when you include former D's who are now I's.

But here's the thing. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a "true Democrat".

that remain dormant in the ground but every so many years, start growing around and up a tree, sending roots into the tree's vascular bundles, sucking up all the nutrition for their own growth.

Many times the tree dies and the vine finds another tree to climb on.

Parties change. At times they need to regroup. The question is, can Republicans change

Democrats have many times. The funny thing is it often takes a real billionaire to do that for the middle class.

Bernie is being indirectly compared to a parasitic plant, yes?

New shoots of the tree!,)

I think we witnessed a few over the last 3 days.

I will interpret exactly what you were trying to imply.

We need to look less at labels we apply to people and more towards their ideas and policies. Labels are like clothes that can be changed in a second. It’s his beliefs and policies over a lifetime that prove Bernie to be a Democrat.

If that were true he wouldn't quit when he loses now would he? It's insulting to many of us.

But we should not exclude them. Look to their heart not the label on their jacket. Trump waves the flag but he’s the least patriotic person in the USA. Bernie may not fit a neat check the box role, but are all of us so binary. At heart he is clearly a Democrat, perhaps one of the best based on his policies and track record of taking strong stands for justice where others haven’t.

Aren’t family members and never were.

And there’s always two sides to the story. Historically all figures leading change were vilified by the mainstream, Jesus, Gandhi, MLK ... the very definition of bravery is going into territory that others fear to tread and Bernie has done that.

Yes, he’s at fault for some things but who isn’t? We all make mistakes and the DNC itself has its fair share of issues. Regardless, all must unite in support for Biden or Bernie, whoever wins the nomination.

... and all the LIES about how the Democrats are "intellectually bankrupt" and "ideologically bankrupt"... and that Democrats are "the party of the elite" and "the party of the one-percent" and that there's "no difference between Democrats and the GOP".

That's the kind of divisive bullshit that I can't stand. I'll never be able to trust or support anyone who denigrates the party that I love and support.

And want to ask, if Democrats are no longer relevant why doesn’t Bernie run as the Independant Socialist he says he is?

Not trying to be smart here, simply discussing.

Thank you.

We have had many Independents run over the years Bernie could run on his own Principles.

We know what they are.

was in 2000. We know how that turned out.

Just giving the OP the benefit of the doubt for this reply, who are "we?" I certainly don't count myself in allegiance with Ralph Nader (who didn't run as an independent, btw) anymore than I do Ross Perot, who garnered much more support than Nader in his '92 run.

The elections. Many Independents have run.

When you run as one party, say you will go back to the Senate as a member of that party, then switch back until the next time, you are not.

Sorry, not trying to be difficult, but I'm not following. Many independent have run, but the example given wasn't an independent, nor was he the most successful of candidates outside the two party system. Not even close. And in a scenario where Sanders ran as an independent, he'd likely garner less actual votes than Secretary Wallace or Senator Thurmond.

Perot had more to do with the results of 1992 than Nader did in Gore's loss in 2000.

Gore actually would have won Florida if the protocol had been followed and recount completed. That said, at the time thought Nader had no business running as POTUS.

If one can find arguments for the opposite, then I'd hope one would provide such an argument that extends beyond the conventional wisdom you're coming from.

Say hello to trump's second term if he wins the nomination. It's clear that his supporters either don't know or don't care that the repubs have a ton on him and would release it immediately. It's called define your opposition first. Then say hello to trump's second term.

you don't know all the baggage that the repubs would release. We are a Center/Left country, but voters would run to trump if he gets the nomination. Or they just wouldn't vote for president. He insults us every 4 years and you think it's funny.

woman and because she is LGBTQ... for the greater good I guess... rah rah...the revolution.

than someone else who likes and supports Bernie, Yeah he's an ass but he can't suddenly make smart people become asses. Bernie didn't hire him, he's not campaigning for him. He's not going to work in the administration if he wins. He's nothing more than a comedian that isn't funny to some and is funny to others.

So rah rah... whatever.
^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^

if he runs as a socialist. Who's kidding who?

And with his socialist baggage there's no way he'll beat trump.
If he gets the Dem nod it'll be McGovern2.0—a rout for four more year of trump and possibly the end of the republic.

media attention...

will run ads 24/7 with youtube videos of him calling himself a socialist. And FOX and hate radio will do the same.

McGovern2.0

Dems put up with him.

would lose too much of the base to be competitive in elections.

Thankfully this has eased some since 2016.

does he insult us every 4 years?

candidate runs for president every 4 years? On my state ballot there were 20 candidates not counting Hillary and Trump. That was just in CO.

many organizations begged hc to join the green party in their quest for a hand count of the votes and an actual evaluation of the machines

our next nominee needs to be ready to fight for a fair count!

a fair election and they know it.

but Georgia will have paper ballots for the first time since the mid 60s in 2020

they will still be counted by machine but in theory the paper is there if the candidate pushes for a hand count

Pennsylvania will have paper ballots, a few other states and peops are still working

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212888619

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212878729

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212861351

an endorsement from a guy that really really likes the Proud Boys...good old Joe Rogan.I do not believe Sanders will be the nominee and it is not because of the 'establishment' but because of choice made by Sanders...to hire Stein supporters, to welcome Rogan's endorsement and to attack Warren and other candidate with lies. Warren is not an elitist.

Well you can't always pick who endorses you but Sanders welcomed the praise and re-tweeted it. My values are what they are...I do not believe in Racism,misogyny , and persecution against LGBTQ. I do not welcome those who believe in these things and make their living persecuting others (Rogan) into the big tent period. It is non-negotiable. Thus as a primary candidate, Sanders is over for me. I will vote for him in the general as the lesser of two evils. I always wanted Sanders to join our Party. Today, I thank God he is not a member of the Democratic Party.

be silent while some who do not speak for us welcome a POS like Rogan into this truly wonderful Party. We do not support his racism, misogyny and hatred directed at LGBTQ. This too shall pass. We are stronger than the likes of Rogan. My problem is with Sanders as a candidate...I do not nor ever will support him in a primary...only in the general.

...you know, before I realized I already had. LOL.

That's why Bernie is a TRUE BLUE DEMOCRAT'S DEMOCRAT!!!

That's why working class people LOVE Bernie!!

That's why Bernie will win the Democratic nomination and President Sanders will go on to govern for those of us on Main Street, not for the corporate elites on Wall Street!!


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

When people get frustrated and leave the parties, they are simply ceding the power to those that stay in the party. This move towards people registering for independent status just means they don't get to participate in choosing the candidates.

Then, the hard core believers who stay are picking candidates that are more and more outside the mainsteam. Those independents then go to vote in the general election and find themselves disgusted with the choices. Which only further drives them away. It is a death spiral of disgust and apathy.

This has happened in extreme measure to the Republican Party for sure. Sane moderates have left which means only the drooling mouth breathers pick the candidates. But the Democratic Party certainly suffers from it as well from a lesser degree.

Of course the answer would be to break the lock of the two party system but that simply isn't in the cards in the foreseeable future.

I don't care how frustrated I am with the Democratic Party, I will never become an independent. Doing that just makes you a self imposed exile while other people decide your fate.

In the immortal words of Neil Peart..."Those who choose not to decide, still have made a choice".

doesn't have party registration. In primaries you have to pick a party, but in the actual elections you can split your vote or vote straight party.

People are free to vote their choice in the general.

But their choices are effectively limited to whomever the primary voters have chosen. Not participating in those primaries leaves more radical people to choose the candidates

Bernie showed up at the church, refused to join, condemned the members, then asked to be the pastor. It doesn't work that way.

Fortunately we'll see him flame out after Super Tuesday and the entire conversation will be moot.

Than I am giving.point made.

I feel he insults us every 4 years and his supporters are clueless.

.....the church is always above reproach.

Even though churches in the North are closing and the Catholic church is bleeding priests and nuns and giving sermons to half empty churches on Sunday.

Just using your analogy.

disgruntled members that the leaders realize are wrong. Otherwise the best party leader ever would have already done it. She hasn't. Sorry.

Thanks for admitting the 2016 primaries were not rigged against Bernie. He lost it without being voted down/voted out/blocked.

btw, no one believes 'she' (and assume by 'she' you meant Nancy Pelosi) is the leader of the DNC - the organizational body of the Democratic party.



Super Tuesday, the organization's shareholders (if that term makes you feel better) will send Bernie packing again.

consider the DNC to lead anything and I have no interest in discussing them or 2016. YMMV. Organization is your term that you used. Not mine.

... Pelosi is, in no way, the leader of the organization. She may be it's most influential board member, it's prime stakeholder. but the leader of the DNC is currently Tom Perez, former U.S. Secretary of Labor under Barack Obama.

American political parties have no real official leadership. The power rests in the people - the voters.

But Nancy Pelosi has been so accepting of Bernie Sanders, she said late last year, "As a left-wing San Francisco liberal I can say to these people: What are you thinking? You can ask the left — they’re unhappy with me for not being a socialist. Remember November, you must win the Electoral College.”

Sounds like an endorsement to me... but not of Bernie Sanders.

Sure, you have a great day, too.

.....left Bernie. Not the other way around. You know, the big neo-liberal change that happened in the late 80's with the DLC.

He's someone who can beat Trump now and that's all that matters.

Since Bernie was never a Democrat, the party couldn't have left him.

DLC boogeyman again? LOL. You really want to discuss that? The party was never as left as Bernie. Ever. We can debate all day long whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But it is a fact.

He couldn't beat Hillary. But he can beat Trump?

Not comparing Sanders to Jesus and as noted above I do not support Sanders as a POTUS candidate now but will vote for him if Democratic candidate in General Election.

.....whom I believe can beat TRump. Bernie is one of them.

Am I happy to support Bloomberg who was once a Repug? No. But will support anyone running as a Democrat in 2020, who gets the nomination.

Right now there are 5 potentially viable candidates who can plausibly do so. After NH it is unlikely there will be more than two or three, and there's a very good chance that Bernie will be one of those, though that is not certain.

Or doesn’t really isn’t the point. I’ve seen Bernie haters on this board who say they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate but will quit the party and go independent. That’s what my oldest son did after being a registered Democrat since he turned 18 (he’s 51). He voted for Hillary and became an Independent. That swings both ways. He also badmouthed Pelosi last time I saw him. I called him after the impeachment vote and said i wanted to slap him for what he said He said, “good I deserve it.”

Sanders first ran for office as member of the Liberty Union Party. When that no longer served his needs he ran as an independent. He registered as a Democrat in Nov. 2015 in order to run for president then left the party shortly after failing to get the nomination. So what is Bernie? He’s an opportunist in search of the resources and support of an organization he's done nothing to build …. a political pig who feeds at whatever trough suits his immediate need.

of membership cards...for real.

It brings into clearer view the issue some here ignore: what if his status as an ally rather than “establishment” is viewed as appealing to those who like his platform and his values (shared with Dems, based on his voting record)? Do their votes for him as a Dem candidate not matter to us? Rejecting him out of hand, as the immediate comments to your post illustrate, is perilously narrow minded. If beating the orange beast is truly all that matters, we damned well better be looking at the whole picture that you aptly describe.

It’s remarkable how some are insistent on a Dem purity test when the boundaries among the voters are so obviously fluid.

As a Sanders supporter, you seem to think that’s a good thing, or at least savvy. Here, along those lines, is what a friend of mine just wrote:

Comparing a cat to a lion may be enlightening in one regard, but misleading in another. I was speaking to aspects of appeal, you moved to a comparison of perceived selective behavior. And while there may be a relationship between the two, it is not at all linear.

I want to win in November and I know that you do also. I am open to supporting any of our viable candidates who show the potential to put together a winning coalition in November. Right now I believe that comes down to Biden. Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg. This OP explores my reason for thinking that Sanders may be best positioned to pull off that winning coalition. As I am sure you noticed, I did not say a single negative word about any of our other candidates, their campaigns, and /or their supporters.

Your candidate has a whole cottage industry that does it for you.

But that has been a terrible development. The rise of worldwide populism has been a terrible development, as we've seen fascists, and bigots, and anti-Semites ride waves of irrational extremism that evoke memories of the 1930s.

Populism is the mortal enemy of liberalism and liberal democracy. It could not be a greater threat to the traditional values of the Democratic Party, not a greater threat to a peaceful world order.

No doubt what you describe has happened in the past, is happening in places now, and can happen virtually anywhere in the future. But populism tends to surge, whether from the left or right, when genuine systematic problems go un or under addressed by those whose hands hold the levers of power. Right wing populism is virtually always fueled by manipulating fears and redirecting them to service the interests of the few.

The anti Vietnam war movement was a populist movement that challenged the then leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties and it had its roots in a genuine rejection of the direction that our nation was then being steered toward. It flared up in response to Vietnam, but U.S interventionist internationalist policies had a long and decidedly checkered track record. In South America for example, and in Iran where U.S. involvement in the overthrow of a democratically elected government there and the installation of the Shah ultimately led to the Islamist revolution and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehranand much of the unrest in the Middle East today.

Populism fed the growth of the U.S. Labor movement at the turn of twentieth century, which was not led by the then established political parties. With nimble and responsive political leadership, populism can be harnessed into a force for social good. and it can be channeled constructively. But populism arises naturally in times of stress. It can not simply be condemned for its unruly nature and then wished away. FDR is probably the prime example in American history of a responsible political leader who knew how to channel populism for the good of our nation.

It was certainly a protest against the policies of both political parties, but lacked the other elements of populism.

There was no demagogic figure leading the movement who promise he alone has all the answers. The identification of scapegoats who were responsible for all societies problems was also lacking (as general "anti-establishment" discontent is not enough).

Populism can never be harnessed for good. It is a terrible impulse that speaks to the very worst in human nature. All populism does is to increase strife and violence, and to crowd rationality out of the political sphere.

Every populist movement that has gain power has gone authoritarian/totalitarian. And all the most dastardly regiemes--the ones who've committed 100s of millions of political murders have all had populist roots.

Populism is based on manipulating rage and fanning political irrationality. Liberalism, at its core, requires political rationality as the operative condition. Which makes populism the greatest possible threat to liberal democracy and the traditional values of the Democratic Party.

As liberals, nothing should cause more grave concern than a rise of worldwide populism.

You say "Populism is based on manipulating rage and fanning political irrationality" I think it is more fundamental than that. If you want to use charged language, populism is the rage, rage at an untenable and unsustainable status quo propped up by a minority who benefit strongly from it. That rage can certainly be misdirected and that rage can be manipulated, or that rage can fuel a movement for positive social change. When the latter is done effectively, rage can be transformed into a steely resolve to not rest until justice is achieved. That requires a certain type of enlightened leadership that understands that while "something must give", mere rage virtually never brings about positive results.

is perceived as being the root cause of all that society's problems.

Populists and anti-Populists might adopt different terms to describe this condition, "rage at an untenable and unsustainable status quo" vs "scapegoating and demagoguery," but it describes the same rage-based politics that identifies one segment of society (the "people" ) who pin their resentments on some other segment of society.

Who the scapegoats are differs from movement to movement. The rage remains the same.

Rage based movements never lead to positive results.

The civil rights struggles had success by rejecting populist impulses.

Rage is bad voodoo. Rage is incompatible with reason. Liberalism is incompatible with political irrationality.

Populists play with fire. How many hundreds of millions of victims of populist regiemes need to perish before people see that populism is the most illiberal and most dangerous ideology on the planet?

In no way, shape, of form is populism a good thing.

The anti Apartheid movement in South Africa was sparked and to a large extent fueled by "rage at an untenable and unsustainable status quo" but I would not say that it was based on "scapegoating and demagoguery," There was rage at the Boston Tea Party but the American revolution, at root, was not a movement incompatible with reason, even though it ultimately literally took the form of an armed rebellion, resulting in the most successful liberal democracy in history. We had good leaders then, and we need them now.

One that embraced rage and violence and one that retained a loyalty to liberal ideals.

Mandela represented the latter. Some of his successors, like Zuma, represented the former.

God help the South African people if the populist elements shape the future of their nation.

Good leadership has never risen out populist demagoguery. No, instead populism has deliveed up the bloodiest tyrants in the history of humankind.

Populism is a disease. Liberalism is the answer. That's why I'm a Democrat.

Those whose whose populist leadership you condemn are the ones you are willing to call populists.

There are clear lines of demarcation, in my estimation.

Populism and Populists are NEVER causes for celebration.

He's figuratively nailed his 95 theses to the door of the DNC railing about the corruption and inadequacies of the "church" to which he claims (at least for now) to belong. The big difference is that Martin Luther didn't demand to be elected Pope.

and for all the material possession of Jews to be confiscated. Luther's vicious anti-Semitic populism laid the foundations for a future populist anti-Semitic movement in Germany.

Populism is a disease. Not a cure.

But that's completely unrelated to the point I was trying to make. Luther was trying to reform the Catholic Church, which he considered corrupt and heretical. Sanders seems to be trying to do the same thing with the Democratic party - except that Luther actually was a Catholic, but Bernie isn't a Democrat, and Luther wasn't trying to become the head of the organization he was criticizing, while Bernie is.

but just because a person like Luther was a critic of "corruption" does not erase the fact that he was burdened with his own evils.

This is one of the object lessons we ought to learn about the dangers of populism.

and run as an Independent for both the prez and the Senate. And don't forget, he runs as a Dem in the Vermont Senate Primary, then once he wins the nom he switches back to being an Independent.