So it starts here.
Great way to alienate all the enthusiastic young supporters (and some of us not so young) that favored Bernie

how can the DNC possibly "work hard" on losing?

their tactics and appears to be ready to use the same strategy for 2020 that they used for 2016.
Kind of like the US Olympic sailing team that is now boasting they are on the right track after picking up 1 bronze medal.

WORK on it.

keep bashing Hillary Clinton, keep bashing the democratic party. Here's a thought, run locally, win locally and maybe you get taken seriously until then if you not truly a democrat, stop trying to tell us how to run our party

are you non democrats who think you get to come into our party, tell us how to run our party and then expect us to cow tow to you r demands. So over you guys

We lost to a moron. That's only one person's fault: Hillary's!

I don't want to lose again in 2020 and the only way to prevent it is to keep another Hillary type from running.

We need someone who can energize voters of all stripes and has a simple and clear message. We need another Obama.

Because every time I logged in during the primary, if you were not for Bernie you attacked. You got your buddies to gang us pn Hillary supporters and put us in time out. You want us to give you respect, start winning local election, start winning Governor ships, start winning house election because I for one will never abandon my party because I got rights as a gay man because of the Democratic Party.

The green party had nothing to offer me, the Independent have nothing to offer me. As long as you all keep attacking my party I will call you out

You backed someone who cost us the Executive branch. There are plenty of honest criticisms of why.

As long as you keep attacking, I will keep calling you out too. We lost, and again it is one person's fault.

Keep pushing people away from the party, and your ideological purity, and we will keep losing elections.

It's my party too, and my voice is as equal as yours.

Good luck in finding someone like Obama. He is one in a lifetime. If there is someone else like him...where is he or she? Whomever is going to run in 2020 is already out there. I wish I knew who so we could start backing that person.

She miscalculated the electoral map, had policy but no message to push it, and lacked the ability to turn Trump's smears against him.

Hillary threw everything she had at Obama in '08 and every time he turned it against her. She lacks that ability.

on alienating millions of Democrats by embracing the DNC's choice to favor one candidate over the party.

And that thread was posted after many many let's blame Bernie threads here that ignored the fact that leaders of the Democratic party were caught red handed.

The Democratic party leaders can't blatantly favor their favorite candidate and just say it wasn't a big fucking deal. For the millions that were treated unfairly it was.

This isn't made up. There is plenty of PROOF. Here is a DNC leader telling other members to covertly pass around a FALSE story that Sanders supporters were violent and throwing chairs:

DNC Communications Director Ordered Anti-Sanders Article Be Shared 'Without Attribution'

Hannah Gold - 07/23/16 05:30PM
Filed to: DNC HACK


On Friday, Wikileaks published an email exchange between Western Regional Communicators Director for the Democratic Party Walter Garcia and DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda, in which Miranda requests an article critical of Bernie Sanders be covertly shared, “without attribution” to the DNC.



https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756968126001115136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw


The article, by Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston, pushed a narrative that Bernie Sanders supporters were becoming violent and out of control and that Sanders was partly responsible.

The article was published on May 17, one day after the New York Times reported that Sanders supporters threw chairs at the Nevada Democratic Party’s convention and threatened the convention’s chairwoman, Roberta Lange.

http://gawker.com/dnc-communications-director-ordered-anti-sanders-articl-1784191906

why would they be after all the shit he's said over the decades and wanting to primary our first AA president?

Surely you must be happy now - the Democrats are kissing his ass in spite of his continued bashing of the party and our nominee on his book tour.


I am thrilled my state said Hell NOT to ColoradoCare by 80/20 defeat...he was out here several times trying to shove it down our throats.

Already, we have a black eye about the Vermont plan...we don't want to try to pass bad programs...also if Bernie cares so much how could he not try to stop the election of a GOP governor in Vermont...he never tried to help the Democrat even once.

Look, you folks are not a majority in the Democratic Party; the primaries proved that beyond doubt. So it's simple, you have two real choices:

1) You an go form your own party and in the process consign your self to the junk bin of political history.

2) Are you can join with us in finding candidates we can all eagerly support who can win the general election. That means that some are probably going to have to settle for someone who is not as liberal as they would like and visa versa .

Sure, their are options in between, but they all involve the kind of in fighting that will lead one side or the other (probably your side since you're not in the majority) ticked off as hell because their side didn't win, resulting in an advantage for the Republican nominee.

In other words you guys are going to have to learn to do something that you aren't good at - compromising.

It's not every organization that has so much support that it can afford to drop half of it's membership into a new party and then go on to win all the elections needed to fight Fascism and the Republicans with even smaller numbers. Pulling such a Leeroy tactic sure does sound heroic though.

Come on Dems...stop the ally-bashing and unite! Democracy is in danger and some of you are still cat-fighting over trivialities.

BTW, while Hillary did get nominated(to some degree because Bernie was relentlessly and unjustly accused of not caring about institutional bigotry, an accusation that wasn't withdrawn even after Bernie had done everything he could possibly have done to prove his anti-social oppression commitment) there were a LOT of Clinton supporters who said they actually preferred Bernie's stands on the issues to Hillary's, and the polls showed that most of what Bernie proposed had majority support among the electorate.

You're not entitled to talk down to Sanders supporters or tell anyone to "know their place". The party did it your way this fall and THAT'S why we ended up with Trump scamming his way in.

At the bare minimum, we need to stay as progressive as we were this year to be worth supporting. And we need to build up actual enthusiasm for 2018 and 2020, because this year proved, as had 1988, 2000, 2004 that passion-free campaigns don't give us the turnout we needed to win. We should all be for whatever causes turnout to spike(other than human sacrifices at the polling stations, obviously).

In 2020, the majority will want a chance to vote for peace, for a strong and environmentally sustainable economy, for measures to rein in corporate power, and for an economic policy that puts full employment(the objective that benefits the people the most) over balanced budgets and low inflation(the objectives that benefit the rich will doing nothing for the people). Will you stand in the way of our party nominating someone like that?

People are in a populist mood and that will continue for some time...so your election principles which Hillary espoused this year will not help us win. And you talk about 'standing in the way' . We vote for the candidate we prefer...you can fight like hell to make people vote for your candidate, but in the end...we make a choice...win or lose...and at that point, we vote for the person with the D next to his/her name. No one 'stopped' you, your candidate did not have enough support to win a primary...better luck next time.

I did vote for the ticket, campaigned for it and tried to get others to do so.

And let's face it-if Bernie had been nominated and then had lost, HRC supporters would be posting threads saying we should have nominated THEIR candidate-plus, at least some would have campaigned for Bloomberg(had he run), even though there was never any chance that guy could have been elected(or been worth electing, since he'd have been as right-wing as president as he had been running NYC as a unionbusting austerity mayor).

All I've done since the site re-opened is to try to tell you WHY they said they wouldn't, to share what my experiences were in the fall and what I learned from them.

What would have been so terrible about running the fall campaign, as I advocated repeatedly, as a "partnership"-Hillary was the nominee, but with a recognition that the ideas each candidate supported essentially had equal support in the party and that the administration we were going to try to elect would combine the best of both?

Instead of that, while some of our ideas were incorporated in the platform, they basically weren't mentioned in the fall campaign and nothing was done to make the Sanders supporters themselves feel particularly welcome in this party. They didn't need to be coddled, but treating them with respect and recognizing that they had done an amazing job of winning support for their ideals would have done us no harm and disrespected no one.

The party didn't have to get all "winners rule-losers drool!" about it. And it didn't have to run a fall campaign directed solely towards winning the votes of "moderate Republicans"-a group, it turns out, that no longer exists and would never break from the GOP ticket no matter what(if they weren't going to break with it with THIS candidate).

If nothing else, Hillary deserved better than the same strategy that gave us Presidents Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry.

And that's the problem.

4.5 million MORE wanted Hillary. So I do believe that makes your assertion a false equivalency of a sort.

So it would appear that NEITHER party establishment are any special friends with truth.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. She was way more popular than either Trump or Bernie.

Bernie was effectively eliminated on March 15, yet he continued to bash the eventual nominee and the party for months, before finally acknowledging that he'd lost.

Sid

didn't want to admit Clinton was the presumptive nominee when those "smoking gun" emails were sent.

she cost Bernie nothing...he lost on his own. Bernie and his supporters were looking for someone to blame...you do notice she was re-elected handily? You have to run the right candidates to win.

Oh, because it's time to put it behind us. So we have to keep discussing it. I see the logic there.

.... That Sanders supporters won't let it lay. You can't believe for a minute that Hillary supporters want to be discussing this.

I thought this was a Bernie bashing thread, but you say Hillary supporters... Oh, phooey! I give up. I'll never understand what goes on here.

when Bernie supporters stop posting Bernie articles on the sight and stop attacking Hillary supporters we'll back off

Most of us have carefully refrained from saying we told you so. There are still a few, of course, but not that many, considering what just happened. I will do my part to discorage them. I suggest everybody control their impulses.

how they are the ones complaining that we're bashing them but yet every few days I see nothing but Pro-Bernie post and post disrespecting Hillary Clinton.

I have noticed that Coolest Ranger.

about posting 30 articles that all say the same thing. Bernie should have been the nominee, Bernie would have one. Do you not know the opposition research they had on Bernie? You all are always saying we forced Hillary down your throat. Well guess what, you all are forcing Bernie down our throats.

Bernie is not a democrat. I don't care how long and how loud you shout, Bernie is not one of us. Now if he re registers as a democrat and start spending time in the black community and start hiring black staffers then I may be willing to give him a closer look but until then, just because he caucus with us does not make him one of us.

thinking that their ridiculous "they accused us of throwing chairs" poutrage was the cause, rather than Sheldon Adelson's cornering of the Nevada media market, a move than enabled him to drive out both editors and long time reporters who weren't willing to keep their mouths shut carry his water.

Cogent analysis, kids, but anger over thrown chairs was small stuff. They've got 65,000,000 people mad at them for throwing the election, and the contempt is only going to get deeper as we begin to see exactly what the republicans have in store.

Too pure to vote for a Democrat...well I guess they showed us!

and the voters for all the other candidates were disenfranchised.

Maybe some day it will sink it that EVERYONE KNEW the DNC was being unfair.

Harry Reid On Bernie And The DNC: ‘Everybody Knew That This Was Not A Fair Deal’

By Ryan Grim - 07/27/2016 05:52 pm ET

~Snip~

Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, made his comments in response to a question about whether his party had a Plan B if something truly disqualifying emerged about Hillary Clinton in future email dumps.

“No,” he told The Huffington Post, but went on to talk about the DNC communications released so far in what appears to be a Russian-orchestrated hack.

“Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she’s always been good to me. I like her just fine,” Reid said. “I know she’s tried hard, but as some people probably know, I thought Bernie deserved somebody that was not critical to[ward] him. I knew ― everybody knew ― that this was not a fair deal. So I’m sorry she had to resign, but it was the right thing to do. She just should’ve done it sooner.”

As DNC chair, Wasserman Schultz had scheduled many of the primary debates on weekends, when viewership was likely to be lower. Without the opportunity to debate in front of large audiences, it’s difficult for an insurgent candidate to gain traction against an established rival.

Read More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harry-reid-bernie-sanders-dnc_us_5799259fe4b02d5d5ed42db6

No one seems to be reading your posts; I'm about the only one responding to them and I certainly haven't read them.

Sanders lost because more people voted for someone else. Sanders, who was not even a Democrat when he asked to run on the Democratic line, admitted that he was only running as a Democrat as a matter of convenience. Kurt Eichenwald and the other adults in the room have explained over and over that Sanders lost because he was not as popular as Clinton and that the DNC is not the all powerful monolith that the aggrieved claim it is.

I'm not sure what the BoBs are complaining about. They got what they wanted in the end. Trump will be president, and 65,000,000 people know exactly who is responsible.


http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/sanders-yes-im-a-democrat-of-convenience

Yeah, I thought so.

Un-rec.

....I wouldn't I would have posted the entire article here. I can do that because I don't have to worry about copyright restrictions.

And by the way, thanks for your kind words about my work; it's nice to be recognized by my fellow DU associates. Hopefully I can return the favor some day.

and those who hate our party how about register as a democrat and start running at the local level.

in 08.

Because he hates our party and continues his bashing of "not his party" on his book tour.

I can think of two Democrats that come from conservative states...for example WVA where that might be true, but that is to be expected...you want a majority, you have to have a big tent and that is the truth.

He wish for the same result in 18 and 20? Schumer made a big mistake putting him in even any sort of leadership...it was not voted on by the caucus; I know that... I really doubt he could win such a vote. He also cost us the Senate.

Good lord.

Eventually, you'll have to run out of dead horses to beat.

Whether or not that is the intent of the OP, the effect is to splinter the Left and benefit the Right.

and wished for someone to challenge Obama in 2012.

didn't like Bernie's candidacy.

The Democratic Establishment was utterly opposed, and successfully did everything possible to stop him from getting the nomination. They succeeded. Hillary lost. Go think about that.

He failed to get the majority of the votes in the primaries . he failed to get the majority of the votes of Democratic Party members in every primary. After 25 years he failed to the endorsement of most of his Congressional colleagues. He failed to make any promises on which he could actually deliver.

When he won primaries it was because of the support of a minority of Democrats, politically hyperactive independents who are too liberal to be Democrats, and a large number of kids to whom he promised handouts he could never have delivered

However, he succeeded in his original objectives which were to push Hillary to the left and to push his REVOLUTION which he values above everything, and certainly above the welfare of the Democratic Party. He failed at everything else.

then I hope you are not one of the many here who blame him for Hillary's loss.

You have a couple of emails from May. How does that amount to stopping him? By march 15 it was obvious he couldn't win even to his own staff. How exactly did those emails turn the votes of 3.75 million voters, many of whom had been cast months ago?

Let it go or it will eat us to death like cancer.

"But here is the bottom line - it is long past time to quit re-fighting the primaries. If Democrats don't bury the hatchet and unite without acrimony we will have no chance in 2018 or in 2020. "

But it seems based on the Bernie-bashing, acrimonious novel you wrote above it, your true purpose for making the post unfortunately wasn't building bridges instead of walls.

Methinks you need to start with your own advice.

Come on Dems, enough of trying to beat down and alienate your allies instead of your enemies. Unite!

And I am sick and tired the "poor abused Bernie" and the "Bernie would have won if they had given him a chance" etc. posts. My OP may well have been divisive, but no one challenged the content. They couldn't because every word is true. If Bernie supporters aren't confronted with the truth about why he didn't have the support of the Democratic establishment and the majority of Democratic Party members, they will continue to believe conspiracy theories about why he lost.

The bottom line: I believe I said what needed to be said - my popularity on DU be damned. I would like to see you, and every one else who has condemn this OP, to also condemn every "Bernie could have done better" and "maybe now you will learn from your mistake" posts as equally decisive. Otherwise your posts are most disingenuous.

Bernie may or may not have won, we just don't know. Bernie had a great message and I believe he would have been a great President, but Trump and the Republicans would have started hitting hard on the Socialism thing as well as the fact that he's Jewish, considering how much of Trump's campaign was based on hatred and discrimination. I'm also thinking more and more that no matter who the Democratic candidate was, the entire election would have been rigged against them based on things I've been seeing coming out of the states doing the recounts. It smells fishier and fishier.

I'm also not convinced that the majority of the Democratic party are establishment centrists supporting big money interests and business as usual. At least I hope not. Not only were a large number of Democrats excited by Bernie's message because it was *not* the above business as usual, they were later thrilled with the Democratic platform that Bernie and Hillary devised together...the most progressive platform the Democrats ever had in history from what people keep saying. I don't believe it would have happened though without a competitive primary. Hillary turned into a *much* stronger candidate than she would have been thanks to having competition (and it was kind compared to Trump...maybe too kind), and I have a lot more respect for her now than I did before the primaries even though I was always going to vote for the Democratic candidate. I went from the idea of holding my nose for her to actually believing she would be a good President.

I have been in depression for weeks knowing that the dark times are approaching. We *need* every ally we can get to fight this and we don't have time to keep bickering over stupid stuff. Who cares whether people think Bernie or Hillary would have done better? The fact is that *neither* of them won and we need to move forward as a united progressive force and quit pointing fingers and unproductively blaming each other (while forgetting our *real* enemy is out there) or the Democratic party and every other progressive is done for. Finis.

Build bridges instead of walls.

It is reasonable voices like yours that will help the party get back on solid ground. We shall persevere, it's just going to involve an uphill climb to get there.

It's just a bit discouraging to come to this site every day and seeing so many posts from people who apparently would rather the Democratic party burn to the ground rather than admit that more diversity (not divisiveness) makes everyone stronger and that we need to unite and move forward to fight the real enemies. (And those enemies are *not* Bernie or Hillary).

It seems to have lowered yours.

At least your post, however divisive and anti-Bernie it was, is freshly written. Kudos for that.

....in every primary? Looks to me like the rank and file agreed with the establishment.

the election realities early. The news was intentionally padding Clinton's numbers with prepledged super-delegates, who would not actually cast until later, and would have traditionally done so according to who carried their state. The pre-pledging is nothing BUT putting your finger on the scales. Why not just endorse? The media running with those numbers gives the impression that Clinton has already won before the fight even begins.

It may surprise you, but that actually has an impact on the voting. It doesn't surprise the establishment.

are welcome to ride, but they should keep their hands away from the steering wheel.

he lost because he didn't do well enough with the party's core base. It is easy to blame the DNC but the reality was Sanders and his campaign didn't see this till it was too late. Just like Hillary made general election mistakes, Bernie made primary mistakes.

I take pride in Hillary's campaign and no doubt Sanders supporters take great pride in his campaign.

Heartbreaking that this Nazi is taking office! I really wanted Hillary as president and Sanders as budget committee chairman.

We all loved our candidates and the fight and that fight must go on. We will live with this loss for the rest of our days and it will hurt, but there will be other battles and other challenges.

Fight the good fight!

The fact is, we need the people Bernie reached to feel welcome in the party, to see it as a place where they can work for what they care about(little if any of which is alien or anathema to us as Democrats).

We need to move past the primaries, but the way to do that is through respect and inclusion-not through shouting "Suck it up, buttercup!" at anyone who didn't back Hillary from the get-go.

...."Bernie was robbed" and "Bernie would have beat Trump" crap. That isn't exactly asking for acceptance; that isn't a call for unity. I have said this before and it remains true, Clinton supporters do not want to discuss the primaries or Bernie Sanders - there is no point in it for us. It's your Bernie buddies who keep pushing it into our face and who are keeping the battle going. We are only responding.

You are among the more rational in that crowd and your call for "respect and inclusion" are positive, but you have done nothing to try to convince your Bernie brethren to do the minimum required to be accepted by those who didn't vote for Sanders - quit trying to re-fight the primaries. It's not a lot to ask.

Could you at least admit that without any chronological map, that there's no telling which group is the one trying to refight the primaries. Your post IS refighting the primaries.

Respond inside those posts that piss you off. Why feel the need to make one to continue to fan the flames?

at Sanders (as the main reason we lost) to continue fighting the primary...and honestly, what will that change? Yes, I will always believe Sanders cost us the election and some will always believe that is not true...so the question is now what? Trump has shown with the Taiwan and China situation that he is in over his head and will cause serious damage in our foreign policy. We know where tax cuts lead from 2008...economic chaos...so we need to fight Trump...not each other. Sadly, those who did not support Sen. Clinton strongly will pay a terrible price...we all will...so we don't need to argue with them. It won't change anything...resolved ...ignore the click bait posts and stop refighting the primary. We have a GOP cabinet that wants to bring child labor back!!!

...unless one really wants to settle old scores.

...."Bernie was robbed" and "Bernie would have won" themes.

I know of no Hillary supporters who want to re-fight the primaries or discuss Bernie Sanders. We won. We have no scores to settle. What we are responding to is constant BS from Bernie supporters, and as you have noted, it isn't helpful.

stop posting articles blaming Hillary for the lost

but I was posting this for the ones who always keep on us

Pushing the crazy claim that the DNC fixed the nomination process hurt the Clinton campaign. That claim was false http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

Great post Cajun.

... and was not smart enough or too damn proud to see that it wasn't working. He was lone wolf howling in the wilderness for most of his time in Washington and no one, including his most fervent supporters should have been surprised that neither the Democratic establishment nor the majority Democratic Party voters embraced his candidacy.

In the end, it didn't matter. It was his unrealistic policies and his lack of prior relationships with large segments of the Democratic coalition which were his downfall. He lost by 2.5 Million votes and didn't win a majority of Democrat Party voters in any primary.

As a Senator and Congressman, he spoke to issues that were often being categorically ignored, and was regularly ahead of public sentiment. When opportunities arose to do so, he leveraged his vote for changes in bills

Nobody on the inside was going to give him a megaphone, that's for damn sure. Working for 25 years in a manner of integrity, regardless of whether or not that marginalized him, doesn't diminish the good work. When he finally got hold of a megaphone I would say it had a net positive on shaping our party's priorities going forward.

All I am saying that the manner in which he went about doing his work was never going to endear him to the party establishment or to Democratic Party voters. After you have played lone wolf for 25 years it unlikely that they will invite you lead the pack. Again, I point to the fact that Bernie did not win the majority of Democratic voters in a single primary.

he ever expected. I would not be wholly surprised if at some point he thought he might win the primary, but I suspect that for the most of it, he was using his candidacy to push on the DNC messaging and had no illusions about his odds.

Though I did get a strong impression that at certain points in the campaign he thought he might have a chance to win.

I also agree that if he had the ambition to be President when he first got elected to Congress, or even when he was first elected to the Senate, he would have handled his political career differently. But as a Congressman and and then a Senator from a somewhat eccentric state with one of the smallest population in the country, I'll bet that early on the thought never crossed his mind.

I also agree that he became a candidate for the nomination in order to push his idea for a "Revolution", but I think that that he originally entered the race primarily to push Hillary more to the left.

... has nothing of substance to say.

It is just another way of writing, "I disagree, I disagree, but I have nothing to back up my opinion".