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Originally Posted by dobbles
I'm a lifelong democrat. And a pretty far left person in my values. But I hate Bernie. Why? Because he is. not. a. democrat. I spent years going door to door registering voters, phone banking to drum up support for candidates, running online campaigns, driving voters to polls, etc. And I did that because it was in support of a political party I believed in. Meanwhile what has Bernie done for the democratic party? For democratic candidates? Even for his recent senate election he was officially independent. And yet he wonders why the rules that govern the democratic primary are the way they are? If he doesn't like it, maybe he should join the god d$&%*d party and work to change them1?!?!?!?!?!??!
All that aside, the reason I think that he is a terrible candidate is that none of his ideas will get anywhere. Even if he wins, the senate likely isn't going to be in democratic hands. And just look at Obamacare. It ended up a watered down, republican influenced bill, and yet republicans have still spent the last 10 years dismantling it. If you want something to last, you have to build consensus from everyone. His policies alienate and infuriate a large portion of the country. That is not the way for lasting change.
As I have aged, I have become much more pragmatic in my thinking. While I would love to see policies like Bernies implemented and at least tried, we are not there yet. Sure we probably need to do more than the incremental change we get, but the risk is we just keep devolving into this team sports stuff where the party in power just spends their time undoing whatever the other party previously did.
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I agree with what you are saying about pragmatism.
Bernie is an ideologue, and seems to be committed to staying that way. That brings up a lot of questions of what his general election campaign looks like and also his presidency.
How does he run on Medicare for all when a vast majority of Americans feel strongly about keeping their employer based health care? There is a giant red flag on why this policy will fall apart in a general election and it is this:
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KFF polling also shows many people falsely assume they would be able to keep their current health insurance under a single-payer plan, suggesting another potential area for decreased support especially since most supporters (67 percent) of such a proposal think they would be able to keep their current health insurance coverage (Figure 11).
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https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public...care-coverage/
How does he deal with those numbers and relentless ads saying Bernie is taking away your employer based coverage?
And if he does win, is he still Medicare for all, or nothing? There's not a chance that gets approved in his term, so does that mean he does nothing to improve health care?
Does his environmental stance of anti nuclear energy, anti natural gas, etc and other uncompromising positions lead to actually improving environmental issues or make things worse?
He has all these simple ideologue solutions to complex problems that he has to implement with backing of a likely split houses. Even if the Democrats control both houses, they probably aren't likely to back most of his ideas.