"crude "anti-establishment" messages are problematic for Democrats in broader ways. The federal government is the "establishment", and the Democratic Party wants the federal government to do more, not less, to help people. We want more environmental and financial regulations. A stronger social safety net. Expanded access to education. If the "establishment", and therefore the government, is made to be the enemy, then these government programs end up being smeared by association."

PREACH...........

not no institutions at all, as the libertarians and libertarian Republicans do.

Right until the day of the election.

Was he supposed to spew rose petals in her path and sing her praises?

As Harold Washington said. "Politics ain't beanbag."

We predicted the effect of what he was doing as he was doing it and as his camp took up the mantle of crying about Hillary being a liar and a criminal and other outrageous shit. After the primary they kept it up so, I an not sure if he intended it or not. But he has been ranting agaist our party for decades and is no longer with the party. I say never again should we allow a non party member to run in our primary. They dont worry about doing us long term harm. And can hurt us badly with no gain for us in any way. We get nothing from it except torn down. It was stupid for us to do.

He's an old school socialist. He had no idea his campaign would get as big as it did.

And when it caught on, for a while he thought, "hey, maybe I could become president." So he kept going with the message that got him as far as he did.

I think that the older and wiser Bernie of today would not have done the same things that the Bernie of last year did. Especially attacking Hillary after he had not mathematical chance of winning the primaries.

I think he knows he was part of why we have President Trump. Sure, in interviews he says that he had nothing to do with Trump winning, but he knows he did. What else is he going to say? He was the one who turned young (white) lefties against Hillary, with his empty anti-establishment rhetoric.

What he did had disastrous consequences. But it wasn't intentional. He was just trying to be an rabble-rouser, and got in over his head.

And i hope nobody else ever gets the chance he did

wouldn't have shown up for the primaries or caucuses if Bernie hadn't run and they sure wouldn't have fallen all over themselves to get to the polls to vote for Hillary in November.

Because of Bernie, Clinton did pick up some of their votes, even if they are fed up with the party.

I've heard/read tons of people saying they didn't vote for Hillary because of Bernie.

They all got involved because they supported Bernie. Most of them have said they never paid attention to politics before. Whether they would have voted for Hillary without Bernie getting them interested could be debated. But a few did admit to never having voted before even though they are old enough to have at least voted in 2012.

or did you mean "anecdotal?"

Bernie's intentions were to win, and he may have had the deck not been stacked against him.

That certainly hurt Hillary, too. Who knew the ordained could lose... except for people like me who kept warning arrogant Hillary supporters Trump could still win.

I've never wanted to be more wrong in my life.

The dnc did not sway me one damn bit. I was for bernie until the hubris of his campaign and attacks on democrats caused his fans to wild the fuck out. I saw he had no control over them, he riled them up and whipped them into a frenzy. And now he quit the party since he did not win. He is not a democrat and never was. That is why he lost. He had no loyalty to the party and therefore the most reliable demographics of our base had no loyalty to him.

The same demographic of voters that voted for Trump were the same group of folks that voted for Bernie overwhelmingly, demographically. White males. What works to win the reub nom does not work in the democratic primary. Purist progressives need to google intersectionality if they ever want to win a dem primary. Then study it. Then be it. Then I will vote for them once they own it and practise it.

I don't think he had an intention to win when he got in, but he did himself no favors with the rhetoric he chose to use, which failed to convince the majority of voters to pick him. Not sure what actually hurt the candidate that actually won a historically large number of votes, but the savagery and damage he did in helping Trump and toxifying an entire generation of young people who apparently were never taught the basics of how government works, did hurt us as a country.

Who knew his utter failure to have any effect on those he sold a bill of goods would land us Trump? Oh right, people like the us, who kept warning the die hard supporters of Bernie that they were falling prey to manipulations by the RW and other nefarious characters who were feeding them total lies? We were threatened, abused, harassed and hounded into enforced silence for warning them what would happen if they put their purity and their fond RW lies over the truth and the best interests of the nation, but would they listen?

You were wrong, and the reasons you were wrong were that you were too gullible and too invested in RW hatred of the Democrat and that you literally believed EVERY lie they fed you. Trump won due to a 100,000 votes, because people in key states were too "pure" and too arrogant to bother to vote, or who refused to vote against Trump for the only candidate that was feasible.

I wish you guys had figured out what we were telling you about how pointless a "purity" vote was or bothered to do your homework, or listened when we pointed out that RW lunacy was indistinguishable from the things you were saying, sadly you would not listen, and you were wrong. And yes, we did tell you so.

Could not have said it better myself. The willful delusion of many (including the OP) in this thread spells trouble for the Democratic Party going forward. Neoliberalism should have no place in the Democratic Party platform or among DNC staffers.

-app

they were never members of the party and had no intention to be. Nonsensical neologisms have no place anywhere.

Would engage in the same sort of *why my candidate lost* introspection they want from HRC voters.

I can critique Hillary well though I don't think her flaws were really the tipping point this year. There were happenings beyond her control. But I can point out the flaws her Campaign made , and even she made.

Bernie supporters also need to own up to him dividing the party.

There are ways to do things, and ways not to do things - he chose the latter.

If Bernie really wanted to sway Democrats he needed to pay his dues and show loyalty to the party - any organization would demand this including the libertarians and green party.

He needed to join the Dems in 2012, instead of threatening to primary Obama - work on making his case among the rank and file Dems. Ally himself with other progressive groups, work on establishing coalitions. Put a laser focus on recapturing the house, and hone a group of 30 progressives to capture districts held by moderate Republicans or even take the risk and aim for more right leaning districts. He also needed to out-manoeuvre his critics by showing he's serious through sound policy proposals - which would require he make more refined and detailed arguments instead of going on and on about "The billionaire class" The best way to shut down your critics is show you understand their views and predicaments better than they even do, and counter their claims. There were other things he could have done - and of course HRC needed to take all that advice as well.

But Bernie did none of this, oh no. He barged into my party a year before the elections, criticised everyone and everything, labelled people who disagreed with him as being corrupt or some nonsense and by February I was tired of Bernie Sanders after willing myself to give him a chance. His establishment arguments were slogans, his economic arguments made no sense, his analogies made no sense to me. I am not saying he is a bad man, I'm saying he did not approach this strategically, and unwittingly made it more difficult for Democrats who historically find it tough to recapture the Presidency in an incumbent year.

I'll tell you what it feels like - a dude barging in, fking you over, and there's no orgasm to show for it - I feel like my party was used to propel his political ambitions and he has no real love for democrats. And yet people wonder how he lost to Hillary by millions of votes.

So much damage for god knows how long by this loner who sent out another amusing meaningless Tweet yesterday

Our party is not about having fancy fundraisers,
it’s about going into union halls,
veterans’ halls, farm communities, the inner cities.

This coming from the guy who hit up white kids at white colleges and dissed the south.

He can't even bring himself to say what party - what party is he talking about?

Her approval numbers were below water before she announced to run for President and they just got worse. Democrats ignored that and decided to delude themselves that people really did like HRC.

Even active party Democrats like me, despised HRC because she was arrogant and sided with Wall Street over Main Street.

I distinctly recall her approval numbers above water before she announced her run.....

demonized her, lied about her and encouraged their readers to not vote for her and spread their hate - which they complied and now we have a real live monster about to take the office.

The so-called most tolerant generation of whites turned out to be downright hateful.

Her approvals and the votes she garnered, at historic levels, are pretty good for a woman who was savaged by both sides, had a foreign campaign against her, the media against her, the FBI against her and 20 years of lies that infected people who actually agreed with her policies but were too lazy and too brainwashed to bother researching.

People love HRC, her approval numbers when she's not being targeted kind of show that, it's why she's got a two decade history of being voted the most admired woman in the world. Those who were not bright enough to do their homework, who mouthed RW smears fed to them online by foreign actors and who were led astray by a man who wasn't even a Dem and did an anemic job backing her when he finally admitted he lost, are the ones who were deluded.

Actual dems and liberals were well aware that HRC is a pretty remarkable woman who had actual achievements to back her up rather than arrogant nonsense and vague gestures, it's why so many millions voted FOR her, despite all the despicable things said about her and done to her by those who seemed to forget what Democrats actually stood for, as they did the RW's work for them. Those who "despised" her were too arrogant to realize that the things they were saying were literally RW talking points, and no real Dem actually thought she sided with wall street over main street, since most real dems are aware that's a pretty silly line to draw. Those who were busy "despising" her for various things, like her gender and other things put out there by RT, and RW outlets forgot about reality and facts, and that her record actually shows she's accomplished more for "main street" than her opponents.

The voters, the ones who put their brains to work over their need to be "pure" were the ones who delivered a pretty hefty margin. She won by millions and lost states in narrow razor thin margins where purists were too busy being arrogant to understand the threat in this election, no matter how often they were told. They were too busy putting their purity over the uppity woman with the actual skills to do the job, the most qualified candidate in history.

Let's not pretend that this was about the woman and not about the despicable arrogance of those too busy despising her rather than doing their homework or voting with their head.

He should never have been allowed to run in my opinion. It hurt us badly.

to win? I understand that Hillary supporters are mad but my local Dem group was very much in support of Hillary after she won the primary - even though the majority voted for Bernie. Even after evidence that support the DNC was against Bernie.

I was downright sad and depressed that I was right about the Trump win. I wanted to be wrong but HRC's Team and faithful ignored the warnings. I have close friends that kept predicting a landslide win while I was trying so hard to make them understand why I thought Trump would/could win - I was ignored and told "not to worry." She was a flawed candidate and Trump spoke to the lowest common denominator as well as the blue collar middle class. Women ignored his lies! This is not about Bernie to me - it is about the failed campaign that was run and then ignorance of the DNC.

And now we pay for it...

Then these HRC supporters that are blaming Bernie would have cried foul and said he should not have done a Nader and cost Democrats the White House. They need to face it, they wanted Hillary unopposed and Bernie had no right to run at all.

Bernie went easier on HRC than any other politician would. He was widely criticized for not going after her email scandal. Bernie was in it to win it the whole time. Funny that some here think that he wasn't.

The biggest problem is that many HRC supporters were in a bubble just as much as any Fox Bot ever was. DU became a bubble when you were not allowed to say anything that could be perceived as negative. Because they did not want to hear even any constructive criticism of HRC, they were caught totally flat footed. Objectivity should not take a holiday when it comes to your own candidate. You must be able to recognize and admit to your candidate's flaws if you wish to improve your ability to sway others to vote for them. By denying the obvious flaws you lose all credibility.

I think the bubble here is incredibly dangerous, and this thread is a prime example of it. Bernie outside of here is incredibly popular, but hated on DU. I do mean hate too, there's a lot of hate, blame, and projection here. Bernie was very gracious, but it seems like no matter what he did it would have never been enough.

The bubble on the left is apparently as big as the bubble in the right these days. And that is what makes me fearful....

On with your assessment in my opinion. At our local Dem meeting I made the same point about being in the bubble. Every single HRC supporter actually agreed with me that night which shocked me honestly.

We talk about the Rethugs being in a bubble but we are collectively just as guilty.

I voted for HRC but she was a flawed candidate with a flawed campaign. I am sorry but you just can't ignore states and hope to win. The bubble still exists apparently....

I have been on DU since before 2003. I was shocked when I was banned from the Hillary Clinton group on DU last summer for posting an earnest contrary opinion there.
I was open to listening to them make their case but instead I was just banned. Their case was weak, so here we are the Orange fool will be in the White House.
Hillary's supporters are guilty of hubris and laziness.
Blaming Bernie is very weak.

HRC won by more than 4 million votes. The DNC did not affect that at all.

Her campaign was run by not stepping into certain states. Sorry, but that is the bubble that we speak of...

That type of thinking is what will keep us out of the WH. We need a 50 state strategy that brings the blue collar working class back to our side.

4 million divided by two is closer to the actual popular vote.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/11/28/hillary-clintons-popular-vote-lead-increases-to-more-than-two-million-votes/

Because it was a small minority of Bernie supporters that did the personal attacks thing.

And it's BULLSHIT because the RNC had the same problem. The NeverTrump people did the same thing about trump. Screaming about how he's not really a Christian and he's pro-abortion and a bunch of other stuff.

Both parties had a small number of people doing the same 'outrageous shit'. There's actually nothing anyone, including Bernie on our side, and Cruz/Rubio et al could do about it on their side.

This is part of the noise that any candidate must punch through. You will NEVER have 100% acceptance of any candidate ever, party-wide. It just doesn't happen. If it did, we wouldn't have any primaries anyway, because everyone would immediately agree on a single candidate, every time. When they differ on issues, there is contention, and a small percentage will never let go of single-issue litmus tests.

You're effectively advocating against having a primary at all. Because ooga booga, contention.


Romney didn't lose against Obama because of the Ron Paul supporters either. SAME SCENARIO. Completely identical primary, RP wasn't really a Republican, Romney was the establishment choice, and RP was the only serious challenger, and the people who followed him were bound up in ideological single-issue choices like isolationism, or economics.

Romney lost the general election because Romney. Not because of Ron Paul. The only difference is party affiliation and issues. The scenario is the same.

And we will probably only have democrats in our primaries in the future after how this went. Good!

A point the RNC used extensively to isolate and marginalize him despite strong grassroots support of the candidate.

I'm certain I saw some sour-grapes-ing about how RP wasn't really a Republican and shouldn't have been allowed in the primary, and 'hurt Romney in the General' etc, but that's all it is. Sour grapes.


It was the same scenario from stem to stern, they just mirrored the party affiliation and alignment. Republican is the political counterweight to Democrat, as Libertarian is to Socialist. Hillary played the same role as Romney, Bernie as Ron Paul. The outcome was the same, and it was NOT Ron Paul or Bernie Sander's fault.

He whipped up a lot of anger at hillary that was unjustified and insane attacks. Alot of his words made their way into Donalds speeches. We should be smart and never ever tolerate another non dem in our primary. I will immediately choose the dem and fight against the faker. Fakers have no loyalty. They do not give a shit about the long term health of the party or the nation. They use us to get attention. Fuck that

lost, over and over. Had to fight against that headwind the WHOLE primary, even as he gained ground. Had to fight against 'pledged delegates' that were assumed to be for Hillary, when they didn't cast their votes till the Convention. People push back against shit like that. Growing up, we still had 'live' polling places here in WA, rather than mail-in ballots. We were always told, before our day was half over, who the winner was, every time. You make people feel like they don't matter, and they start getting angry. That holds no matter whether it's politics, or race, gender, sexuality, education, or war, whatever. Get 10% of the way into a primary and tell the supporters of the underdog that it's over, and they better get in line behind the winner, and that's going to get a reaction.


There was a way to resolve this primary as a fair horse race, and that just didn't happen. People are going to be bitter about it.


On the other hand, I don't believe the Bernie supporters that were so bitter they didn't vote for Hillary were identifiable in the statistical noise. We couldn't have had a better opponent to ensure everyone held their noses and voted for Hillary no matter how bitter they were about the primary, or XYZ single-issue crusade.

They basically ran Atilla the Hun, and that worked because 'unreasonably angry' resonated with a huge number of republicans.
Bernie was a non-factor in the General Election.

Nobody listened to any of the black democrats that repeatedly said time and time again that the outreach was revolting to us and we did not like his rhetoric on social justice, he held his rallies in only the whitest areas and did not included a damn thing we wanted until blm interrupted him. We were tellling you guys we felt completely ignored and left out. You guys then decided to ignore that and pretend to be the actual oppressed minorities.

How the hell was that going to win a dem primary? Starting a war with black democrats? Did bernie notice or care that we were having a rough time with his message and base? Did he? No. He kept the same ass white washed policy and monochromatic crowds in 90 percent white areas. If he couldn't be bothered coming to us within the first FEW MONTHS of running, how important were we?


But yeah. Everybody did it to him. No reflection on why his supporters were so white and why we felt. LEFT OUT. We always vote democratic. He never did bother to even notice us until we were done waiting to be noticed and interrupted him. The attacks we suffered for speaking out pretty much lost him any chance with us. Totally his own fault.

That still isn't a reason to insist he drop out of the primary. The primary itself is a winnowing process that will reflect that lack of support over time.

If all those concerns were true and universal among black democrats, great, he wouldn't make it to the finish line without that kind of bulwark support. Doesn't mean Bernie's campaign doesn't serve a purpose. I viewed it as an opportunity to drag a war-hawk to the left*. Where the two candidates diverged were opportunities to get assurances and campaign promises on-record for later.

Something that has ended up not mattering after all, unfortunately.


(*Recall the 'we came, we saw, he died' and ensuing laughter Hillary put up, in an interview about Gaddaffi. Children were killed in the airstrike that flushed him out, and led to his death. I never saw Obama joke or laugh about it. I question the basic humanity of anyone who would joke or laugh about that, but for shorthand, I'll just chalk it up to 'war hawk' and leave it there.)

Because he said we democrats rigged the system. Sounds familiar. No thanks. No more turncoats.

That's what led to the whole infighting war here on DU that made the entire primary suck.

It was well under way prior to that.

Bernie's economic message did resonate with POC; there's a reason why he still tied with millennial POC, and held what, 25% of the black vote after all that? Had he woven minority outreach into his campaign from the start, he COULD have won; Black people are well aware of how the banks/capitalism/Wall Street fuck us over. I'm on the far left BECAUSE I am black, and a far left message could have resonated if he had put some thought into crafting it.

It's not like we trusted Hillary from the beginning, but she made the effort to talk to us and Bernie didn't and it's a DAMN shame because he would have won the primary and probably the general election if he did (And there's a lot of "Establishment" you can rail against that speaks to what black people go through - corrupt police departments? Voter suppression via the Koch's et al? That's where "millionaires and billionaires" can resonate". Gentrification?)

I don't blame him for the electoral result, but I do get annoyed at the whole "DNC rigged primary against him" like all those minorities voting for Hillary don't matter.

I chose Bernie first BECAUSE i liked his message. But I know I am super into politics, I wanted to see how he interacted with other black folks who are not as into it as me. The problem was he didnt. He didnt even try to interact with us or understand us or see why we were not coming out. By the time he realized he had messed up, it was too late, his supporters had already started to battle with black folks and act like we better follow them or else. I actually got messages telling me I better vote for bernie or ELSE. Mail to my home too.

He dd not know that as soon as you start ginning up anger, a bunch of folks will immediately direct it at blacks and women and other others. You cannot control it. You can use it. But it is empty. His plans were not real. I read them. Never did he say how he was going to get anything done. Except take it to the streets!' and 'revolution' or 'march on mcconnell's office in dc!' stupid plans.

Hillary supporters attempted (perhaps successfully) to create a self-fulfilling prophesy by saying over and over "He's unelectable." I butted heads with a woman who was insisting this even as polls were showing Bernie ahead of Rump by wider margins than Hillary.

Bernie was a non-factor in the General Election.

Yup. Protests to the contrary are a reflection of sour grapes/bias.

Reinforced the message Hillary represented the old guard, and business as usual.

She should never run again.

.





.

Being bilingual really wasn't necessary. Finding someone youthful and engaging might have helped. But who? Who is out there?

I was disappointed with her selection. I wanted her to pick a relatively young person of color.

It's a candidate's first presidential act.

Number one on the selection criterion is can this choice be president from day one should the need arise. In that regard, Tim Kaine was a solid choice.

IMO, Picking a veep who's a relatively young person of color - without enough of a resume for the position - can come across as orchestrated window dressing.

My biggest gripe with Kaine is how boring and moderate he is.

I want her to fade to black... be in the background and let the new guard take over from here.

He did not run against the Republicans. That is what he should have run against.

Bernie tried not to make personal attacks and stuck to issues. He was also running for the same job as Hillary. He was criticised for not going after her emails or Benghazi.
Bernie stood for great Democratic policies, many of which Hileary adopted. To say it was Bernie's fault she lost is idiotic, ignorant, and a lie!
If Bernie had not had to fight Hillary and the DNC who collided with her, we would have a Democrat in the White House!

I am a Bernie primary supporter and I saw it all.

Bernie did run an excellent issues oriented campaign.

He did not want to engage in personal attacks.


However IMHO Weaver did not let Bernie be Bernie.

Weaver went negative and made Bernie go negative. Unfounded personal attacks. He insinuated she was corrupt. He said she was not qualified to be President.

Those are lines Trump took from Bernie verbatim, often crediting Bernie and quoting him directly.

No Bernie did not intend to help Trump.

But he did engage in personal attacks and unfounded smears, especially when it became clear his campaign had stalled out.

The more apparent it was impossible mathematically to win the nomination, the more desperate and negative Weaver became as the campaign was dying.

And Bernie went along with it.

I continue to admire Bernie, but I am not going to close my eyes to the desperate negative campaigning that was done,

anything he didn't want to do. One dirty hand washed the other.

Please let me cling to my illusions ...

others unless they never were truly rooted. Doing anything in our name only comes about through our consent.

at one of his rallies and he never objected. It's true, he didn't start out that way but at some point he flipped. There are always harsh tones and rhetoric during a primary but he went further and sold his supporters on corruption and then did little or nothing to change their opinion after.

but not anything close to what was necessary. Still, I give him credit for that. At the time I didn't hear about his tweet and I don't believe I was even a twitter member at that time. Thanks for the correction.