but couldn't win the primary. It's all moot from there.

Incompetent, didn't bother to expand Bernie's base. Wasted his time throwing red meat at those of us who already supported him.

During the primaries. (please deal with actual facts- he started with little name recognition against a very well-known First Lady and had the support of nearly half the voters in the primaries. She won, but pretending the campaign he ran didn't outperform expectations is ridiculous)

His message resonated. He set the agenda during the primaries and in many ways he still is. He's energizing and giving voice to the opposition to Trump. I am proud to have supported him in the Primaries, to have supported Hillary in the General, and to continue to believe that Bernie's message is our way forward.

I supported Bernie in the primary as well.

That's why I'm pissed at Weaver for fucking it up.

He had zero qualifications for running a national campaign and it showed.

Sanders was soundly rejected by three key groups in the base of the Democratic Party. The claim that the DNC fixed the primary process is wrong http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

I thought the Party was more than magnanimous by letting an Independent run on the Democratic Ticket. They should have denied him, IMHO

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His supporters trashed Hillary throughout the campaign, causing many to hate her and vote 3rd party or not at all.

Real Dems don't do that to each other.

Never again let a non-Dem with no allegiance to the party take advantage of our brand to get name recognition that he couldn't get as an independent from a small state, then have the nerve to switch back to independent after using us.

He is STILL trashing the Party.

And so are BS's cheerleaders

Bernie Sanders running in the primary was the worst thing to happen to progressive policy in years. His and his supporters attacks on Hillary combined with Russians, Wiki and Comey destroyed our election chances. NEVER allow an independent to run as a Democrat in any primary. I would point out that we have the idiot governor in Maine because of an independent candidate as well.

A few catty emails about Jeff Weaver after Bernie was mathematically eliminated is not an action.

Donna didn't have to do that, and Hillary would have been fine without them. But they cheated anyway.

Hell yeah, help our candidate beat the repugs.

And how do we know what Donna Brazile did?

Because the repugs and Russians cheated by hacking Dem emails.

I rest my case.

Last edited Fri Jan 6, 2017, 03:04 AM - Edit history (1)

And if you want to talk about primary cheating,what about the Sanders' campaign stealing Clinton campaign info from DNC servers.

Here's a link though that goes into more detail about the Brazile controversy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8435867

and irrelevant.

You asked for a specific action to harm Bernie, and I gave one. Changing the subject does not help your case.

in the security breach who blew up Bernie's campaign two days before a pivotal debate.

but didn't.

It's pretty well known the went into areas on the server they weren't supposed to be in and took information

All three campaigns could see each others' data, despite the Sanders campaign notifying the DNC about this problem for months.

and the staffers wanted to provide proof.

Does that justify Donna Brazile feeding debate questions to Hillary?

Bernie took responsibility and fired the staffers who stole Clinton's data.

Weaver took no responsibility and sued the DNC to deflect from the unethical behavior of those staffers.

The first of Weaver's many boneheaded moves that cost Bernie the nomination, imho.

I am a Bernie primary supporter. That boneheaded move played well w those in Bernie's base who hate Democrats but most likely alienated other undecided voters who were considering Bernie.

I am still bitter about all of Weaver's strategic fuck-ups. Bernie deserved better than Weaver.

It was restored soon thereafter. I'm glad he did it. And I don't "hate Democrats."

I edited to clarify my meaning. I too supported Bernie and like you I don't hate Democratics. However as you know, a very very vocal faction did hate Democrats.

IMHO That's who Weaver was attempting to appeal to as he deflected from the unethical behavior of those staffers.

I think we are gonna have to agree to disagree regarding Weaver.

Would access to his data have ever been restored?

I think it's creative how hold two different standards for the same fundamental breach of ethics. Maintaining our bias often requires do as such...

that I outlined above.

The depths of the Bernie delusion is astonishing.

gave Hillary, I laughed out loud...the most obvious questions in the world. CNN fired Donna but allow a Trump shill...a paid Trump shill at that.

No way, no how, are we adding one single more debate on the schedule! We have enough!!!!!!!


Hillary feels a little heat.


Oh, I suppose we can add a couple more debates. I mean why not? More debates are good!


Please.

Sanders truly did get his ass handed to him even after getting caught in a major cheating effort. It would have been an even bigger drumming if he hadn't cheated.

It's your blindness to facts that lets you only think of two ridiculous possibilities about why Bernie failed to win the votes of actual voters.

When your premise is incorrect, anything you build on that is also incorrect. Bernie simply had no policies, he simply did not win votes of the majority of Democratic voters, possibly because he and his people:

1) Kept trying to blame their losses on cheating that didn't happen, other than the hacking of databases that his own campaign engaged in, and then sued over when caught and punished.

2) He and his people spent their time attacking Democrats, liberals and progressives who questioned his lack of concrete policies and reliance on slogans as he abused the very methods that are required in the real world to achieve progress. Calling people corrupt and various other names is not a way one wins votes.

So, there was no corruption or cheating, Bernie lost because of his failure to win the votes of voters and he and his campaign and followers were busy insulting and brow beating people and continue doing so on boards dedicated to Democrats, where such bashing is not allowed.

Populism won. False populism in Trump's case, but the Corporatist lost and the Populist won.

It would have turned out the same way if the Populist was a (D) and the Corporatist was the (R). I don't think anyone can doubt that.


The real question is...."How did the Democratic Party become the Corporatist Party?"






The answer is that we allowed them to cheat during the primary.

I voted for him in the primary because I've been a lifelong fan of his, but I wasn't so sure he would have had an easy time of it in the general election, had he beaten Hillary in the primary. However, I never thought Hillary had a chance of beating anyone in the general in 2016 until Trump came along, but she couldn't even beat him. As competent as Hillary is, she should have sat this one out. Her chance was in 2008.

She flipped on it a number of times and had no credibility when she campaigned on being against the TPP.

People in the "rust belt" states who were worried about losing their jobs voted for the candidate who said what they needed to hear.

Bernie was always right on trade, he would have won because of it.

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critical swing states against the establishment, incumbent, republican?

They never respond to it.

My guess is that the media shitshow surrounding all the Clinton 11th hour "controversies", while simultaneously promising a Clinton win and "blue wave" probably hurt democratic turnout. The Clinton campaign also thought they had a lock on a bunch of states that they didn't, and diverted resources towards other states she wasn't likely to win. The various voter suppression schemes also hurt, if you are not enthusiastic about voting (voting against, rather than for) you are less likely to put up with all the red tape get out and vote.

Voter Suppression is what sunk Hillary

like me (Democrats) didn't want him.

Some Democrat.

I'm a lifelong Democrat and of course I would have voted for Sanders had he been our nominee.

Did you vote for our nominee?

Democrat running for Senate in those critical swing states lost to the establishment, incumbent , republican

That's odd, considering he wasn't the one running in the general election.

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self-identified progressives who refused to vote for Hillary and either voted write in, third party or didn't vote

It isn't exact but it is the closest we can get.

Bernie's favorability was better than anyone else running for President. Hilary's and Trump's were within the margin of error of each others, the two lowest by far.

We know there was cheating involved in the primary, so your "lost primary" argument is a pretty weak one.


It seems pretty clear that Bernie would have won. Trump won because he beat Hillary on Free Trade and people who needed to vote to save their jobs in PA, WI and MI did so. Bernie was always right on trade and many of those votes would have gone to him.

said that California was throwing provisional ballots out was pure garbage. California counts ALL its votes, including provisional ones.

11 days before the election Comey released a letter to the republicans in Congress, which MSNBC reported as breaking news that "the email investigation had been reopened". THAT WAS A LIE. MSNBC had every right wing politician parade across the screen propagating that lie. Within an hour all the other media outlets were repeating that LIE.

A few days later bret baier from fox news said that "according to his sources in the FBI that an imminent indictment was about to happen to the Clinton Foundation". THAT WAS LIE, and the other news outlets were only to willing to repeat that LIE. two days later bret baier came out and said that that story was a mistake. However, that did not stop fox, or others from continuing to repeat the LIE.

In Michigan Hillary lost by .3%. Jill Stein received 1.1% of the vote. Similar results in Wisconsin and the other swing states, and that Russ Feingold lost by several percentage points. Hillary was within 1%.

Of course the wonderful self-identified progressives made sure that their self fulfilled prophecy that they would never vote for Hillary, and Hillary would lose would become a reality. They are still so proud of what they did and have no regrets. Well F**K THEM"

Chomsky said it best:

"Noam Chomsky: Progressives who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton made a ‘bad mistake’"

Chomsky also attacked the arguments made by philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who argued that Trump’s election would at least shake up the system and provide a real rallying point for the left.

“[Zizek makes a] terrible point,” Chomsky told Hasan. “It was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early ’30s… he’ll shake up the system in bad ways.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/noam-chomsky-progressives-who-refused-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton-made-a-bad-mistake/

Period.

Why bring this up again.

little bird

No other reason.

and giving 'em HELL. Go, Bernie!

should be raised to 60% so we can be demmark . that's how the gop would have sold him just to start

clinging to this false belief that defies logic, facts and any understanding of what happened in this election. The guy couldn't even beat Hillary, and despite not being saddled with misogyny, appealing to angry white males is not a path to success here.

Regardless of what you fervently believe, Bernie wouldn't have won, and there is literally no reason to believe he would have, but there seems to be a dedication to posting this false belief over and over again. The question is, why?

Also, the right wing had enough on Bernie to slaughter him, Hillary did too, she didn't use it. They were pushing him because they could take him out pretty easily.

to push this delusion is getting really old. The sheer number of threads spreading this nonsense makes one wonder if they should not change the name to something that would be more accurate, since so many here are busy attacking Democratic voters, the party and its candidates and leaders.

If only they had as much anger at or contempt for Trump and the GOP as they do for Democrats and Hillary, we might not be facing this absurdist nightmare right now.

We can't say the same for Bernie and his campaign though.

They bashed Hillary and the party through out the primary, and now are at it again.

went up against?? He cleaned house in the primaries, and there is no arguing it any other way.

Trump likely would have beat Bernie by even more...although they both represented "change", bernie would not have attracted any of the right-leaning conservatives.


Kasich v Bernie? Likely same - Kasick probably would have done even better then trump....would have gotten more centrists AND all the conservatives that bernie wouldn't.

within 1%. Of course let's not talk about those self-identified progressives who refused to vote for Hillary, voted third party, write-in, or didn't vote.

Even after it is apparent what a trump administration is, they are still bragging that they didn't vote for Hillary

There is nothing more despicable than a self-identified progressive who is proud of that action. I have nothing but contempt for them

Russ Feingold did not win. That is an indication that voters were coming out to elect Republicans like Johnson. It is a fantasy to think Bernie would have won in that environment.

"Young people stayed home in Wisconsin."

If they wanted to vote for Feingold and didn't go vote, they should have voted.. Non-voters 'non-votes' don't get counted on Election Day.

Y'all are the ones writing fantasy fiction.

The only thing that would have drawn even more republicans out to vote, would have been a "socialist, communist" running in the general. However, Bernie couldn't get there. He lost the primary. If you can't win the primary, you have zero chance to win the general. If any of you think that Trump's team, and the republican party, would not have hammered the socialist/communist agenda; you're not thinking clearly.

I never respond to threads here in postmortem, but this is getting so ridiculous; it even drew me out.

Again, ffs! Let's move on! Or, don't some of you want us too?

Bernie would have beat Trump in the general!

How could he win in the general if he didn't win the primary?

DNC cheated in favour of Hillary!

Bernie isn't a Democrat!

It's all a big circular argument and it goes round and round and round and round and please, everyone, let's leave it behind, okay? Please? That part's done, now. The time has come for the fight to move forward. Hillary talked some really good policy during her campaign (not that you'd know it from the news coverage or anything), and she and Bernie both put forth progressive platforms. But the whole process has demonstrated that there are some serious shortcomings in the DNC and the Democratic party's approach, and that liberals and progressives have got to come together and figure out what to do next.

There are going to be lots and lots of fights over the next four years, but those fights have to be in the direction of the PEOTUS and his new cabinet. Not even in power yet and we're already looking at defunding Planned Parenthood, repealing Obamacare, dismantling the EPA, dismantling the department of education, etc... This is BEFORE THE INAUGURATION. Let's imagine the first 100 days. Now is the time for resistance and liberals and progressives and Democrats need to come together to put up resistance to the potential fascists taking power.

Bernie's been making lots of noise, which is great. He's an elected official and he's standing up for progressive causes. Hillary has done great work, and she's taken some time off after a brutal election season. She's not an elected official, and she'll continue to do the great work with the Clinton Foundation. But now everyone who is against Trump needs to just be against Trump. He doesn't have any political will of his own, so he's written a blank cheque for every regressive policy that the GOP has been dying to put through for decades. Say goodbye to protections for women, people of colour, LGBTQ, immigrants, the poor, etc... Newspapers are already bowing down to Trump's obvious lies. Now is the time to make a ton of noise. Call your representatives, call your congresscritters, call everyone who will take a call.

Sanders.

Sanders was soundly rejected by three key groups in the base of the Democratic Party. The claim that the DNC fixed the primary process is wrong http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

… will cling to this fairytale forever.

Like all fables, I expect it will embellished over time. Eventually we’ll be hearing about how, after winning the GE with 99.8% of the popular vote, Bernie would have ended poverty and homelessness, cured all disease, and brought about world peace.

And on his second day in office, he would have done even more.

Seriously, it's not my fault if you're still stuck in your own little fairy tale that Hillary won the election just because she won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes. She LOST, period, otherwise she'd be the one getting inaugurated, right? Any other candidate would likely have beaten a despicable candidate like Trump in both the popular vote AND the electoral college and probably trounced him in the popular vote by at last 10 million votes, not 2.8 million. I realize it's hard to believe that anyone could lose to that orange moron, but it's time you started facing reality instead of getting so upset whenever someone speculates about Bernie Sanders chances, had he been the candidate.

We all know she lost. What I have pointed out is that she won the popular vote, which is demonstrative of the will of the voters – as opposed to the technicality of the EC vote. The “winner”, on the other hand, had more people vote against him than for him.

If you want to dismiss the voice of the voters as somehow irrelevant, that’s up to you.

“… it's time you started facing reality instead of getting so upset whenever someone speculates about Bernie Sanders chances, had he been the candidate.”

Uhmm, apparently I’m not the one who’s “upset” here. Bernie became irrelevant to me a very long time ago. I’m not the one posting endless OPs about how Bernie, Bernie, BERNIE!!! would have won this – fer sure!!!!!!”

“Any other candidate would likely have beaten a despicable candidate like Trump in both the popular vote AND the electoral college and probably trounced him in the popular vote by at last 10 million votes, not 2.8 million.”

Thanks for proving my point about embellishments to the fable. It’s always easy to talk about “what might have been” when it is all based on something that never happened. Such speculation requires no factual basis, nor any consideration of facts already in evidence; e.g. Bernie couldn’t even win the nomination.

” I realize it's hard to believe that anyone could lose to that orange moron.”

Given gerrymandering, voter suppression, so-called “progressives” voting third party out of butt-hurt, and the able assistance of Comey and Putin, it’s really not all that hard to believe at all.

But again, those are facts that don’t figure into the fairytale, do they? In the fairytale, the GOP does oppo-research on Bernie – and find nothing to use against him! The man is a saint! Putin, swayed by the integrity of St. Bernie – along with being scared to death of his YUGE following – immediately decides to call-off any operations to put Trump in the Oval Office.

How about we have Bernie winning the GE with 122% of the popular vote, and an unprecedented 2,427 electoral votes? It is, after all, a fairytale – so let’s go big or go home.

because admitting defeat is an important first step.

A very important second step you should consider is to concede that we made numerous costly mistakes throughout the campaign so we can learn from those mistakes, which will help us prepare for future elections.

BTW there is no charge for this sage advice.

Everyone knew she lost on Election Day - this is not news to anyone.

You seem to delight it saying it, though.

Bernie lost the primary - maybe we should discuss all of the mistakes he made, so whoever our upcoming candidates are can learn from them.

Sanders would have lost the popular vote to trump.

I have posted in depth on this many times. His tax plan would have been poison after the rw agitprop treatment and his own falsely and foolishly mislabelling himself, in reactionary Murica, as a democratic socialist when he is not. He is a social democrat, he never ever wanted to do away with all private enterprise, which a socialist does want to do.

let's move on

What makes you think Sanders would have fared any better?

So PLEASE stop beating it, for Christ's sake.

This election was unlike any I have seen in my lifetime, and I am no spring chicken. Think back to the beginning of the primaries. No one expected that Trump would end up being the Republican nominee, including him. The Republican establishment openly despised him and didn't take him seriously. But they didn't have the means to stop him (aka pre-pledged super delegates), and they only realized too late that it was no longer enough to promise a platform all about guns, abortion, God and gays. They thought that they could continue to ignore the anger of their constituents at their failure to do anything to benefit them, and finally they got a giant FU response in return from the Republicans who voted for Trump.

On the Democratic side, the simple fact is that Hillary didn't excite the voters. Yes, she won the popular vote, and yes, the Republicans had done everything possible to reduce the number of Democrats who voted–or whose vote counted–but even so, based on her experience, Hillary should have won by a landslide.

It seems to me that the Democrats need to wake up and face the fact that there is an increasing feeling of economic insecurity in this country, and we cannot expect to start winning again until we address that. And NO, I am not saying that we should ignore social justice issues, of course not. But we need to face head on the fact of the enormous shift of wealth in this country upward over the last 35 years, thanks to a tax system based on an absurd economic premise that lowering taxes on the wealthy benefits everyone. The failure of that supply-side economic theory has been proven over and over and over again to be wrong, but it is a zombie that simply will not stay in its grave.

Bill Clinton presided over a booming economy, and he did raise taxes on the wealthy, which is what motivated the Republicans to impeach him. But he also continued the deregulation mania started by Reagan in ways that ultimately led to the financial meltdown of 2008. What people saw in Hillary was more of that, combined with a foreign policy that scared them.

We all think that Hillary would have made a far better president than Trump can ever hope to be, but we must remember that most people vote on the basis of emotion, not rationality, and what they saw in Hillary was the same old establishment that seems totally removed from the lives of most Americans, and what they saw in Trump was someone who wasn't beholden to corporate sponsors who would be an independent voice for them. We all know that Trump cares only about himself and his family, but for now we are stuck with him, and, armed with a Republican Congress and–horror of horrors–the potential to reshape the Supreme Court, it is hard to imagine the limits of the harm he could do.

So please, everyone, let us set aside our feelings about the primaries. The only point in addressing them is to seek to avoid the mistakes of the last one, which should be apparent to all by now (if they are not, it is not for lack of information), and to focus on how we can hinder Trump from getting his way and to take steps to insure having a more reliable voting process in the future. Not doing anything about how are elections are conducted is the great mistake the Democrats made after 2000. As well, of course, as being wimps.

Obama was right, albeit far too late, in telling the Democrats not to try to work with Trump. He must be resisted across the board (unless, out of sheer incompetence, he manages to come up with a constructive policy. The best medical advice is not to hold your breath waiting for that. )

This is a national emergency: we must be willing to do everything lawful to resist Trump and what he represents.

See you at the barricades!
Potone

He couldn't even win the Democratic primaries. If not for caucus states, which are not anything like elections, he wouldn't have made it two months.

Hillary was never going to get the deplorable vote. As you said, they hated her already. But she would have done better with the middle group if Democrats and people who pretended to be Democrats hadn't spent the whole length of the primary trashing Hillary. I can't tell you how many times I heard white people who had supported and still supported Obama make statements like "she has so much baggage". All that baggage was lies. These people didn't get that idea from faux news or trump. They got it from people like Bernie.

So, yes Bernie scummed his way into the disgruntled middle ground. But he would never have gotten the turn out from Hispanics and the Black community that Hillary did.

No. Hillary was our chance. But gullible voters bought the primary campaign lies and innuendos that let trump into the white house. They threw their votes away on third party or stayed home. Even more voted for Hillary after they had spent several months convincing the middle ground not to.

Yes, much of that baggage was lies, no doubt about it. She didn't deserve much of the baggage she had, but the thing is, the PERCEPTION was out there that she had tons of baggage. Unfortunately, for millions of voters who don't do their homework, perception is everything. By the time 2016 rolled around, Hillary was perceived by the masses to have more baggage than practically any other candidate in modern times. Only until Trump came along did she have any real hopes of winning in 2016.

any Democrats (or pretend Democrats) who kept pounding the air with their "baggage" meme about Hillary will have to live with the fact (not opinion) that they helped treat America to the nightmare to come.

Most knew the "baggage" was crap at the beginning of the primary, but when "Democrats" heaped on, it gave the uninformed, which is a large voting bloc, what they thought was reason to question Hillary's honesty and judgement. Shame on them.

This is a good article that demonstrates that Sanders would have under performed in the general election https://extranewsfeed.com/bernie-sanders-was-on-the-2016-ballot-and-he-underperformed-hillary-clinton-3b561e8cb779#.jbtsa3epl