The New American Politics thread

[Senator Clay Davis]

Whatever speech he had written before has probably been thrown out now. The margin will fall because of how California counts its ballots, but he's still likely to lose. Tough speech to only be able to talk about North Dakota and maybe Montana.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Whatever speech he had written before has probably been thrown out now. The margin will fall because of how California counts its ballots, but he's still likely to lose. Tough speech to only be able to talk about North Dakota and maybe Montana.

According to MSNBC Bernie won North Dakota by a huge percentage, 65 to 35 I think, trouble is it's a caucus state so that margin is in fact around 200 votes out of 300 cast!!

The U.S. is just nuts.

[Bunk]

Bernie is staying in! My goodness, know when you've lost, man.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Bernie is staying in! My goodness, know when you've lost, man.

Bernie is going to go down in history as a dick, potentially the dick that elected Trump, he should give Ralph Nader a call and see how well that worked out for him.

[Caged Great]

I think it's Jane Sanders that is causing him to stay in. Before his speech, she said to him "See, they are behind you" and it was picked up by the mic.

Bernie needs to pull out after Thursday's meeting with Obama or he is going to destroy his legacy.

Bernie could continue to lead the movement in attempting to pick congressmen and senators in 2018 by mobilizing his power in the primaries then. He will squander that potential way to get the movement he wants if he continues to be a dick.

[Thor]

Isn't he staying in to affect the convention in a more progressive way, in order for Hillary to bring on his supporters. Not to mention the long shot of her getting indicted, which seem utterly unlikely to happen. Slap on the wrist maybe.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Thor

Isn't he staying in to affect the convention in a more progressive way, in order for Hillary to bring on his supporters. Not to mention the long shot of her getting indicted, which seem utterly unlikely to happen. Slap on the wrist maybe.

If he dropped out and she got indicted, he could always jump back in.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I don't think Hillary dropped out right after the final primaries in 2008, I think she waited a few days and then dropped out. Bernie was never giving a concession speech at 2AM Eastern with a strong crowd supporting him, that'd be a pretty downer way to end his campaign. He'll probably actually wait for the D.C primary to happen and drop out after that. But I think Democratic voters sent a pretty strong message last night they want this race to be over and for the party to shift to the general. If he really wants to take this all the way to the end he's risking blowing any chance to have a say in the future of the party by risking pissing off the whole party pushing this thing for nothing.

She's just going to come up short of the pledged delegate majority and is going to finish 10% ahead there. When she lost to Obama she lost the pledged count by 2%. No matter how you slice it she won this race by a significantly larger margin than Obama did when he beat her. There's no upside to Bernie pushing this any more, and entrenching his supporters further against her obviously won't help. His job now needs to be getting to work trying to elect as many progressives and liberals across every level of government if he really wants a "revolution". But clinging to a one in a billion shot is a pretty bad look.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

And maybe they require too much compromise to interest the zealots who see politics as a war of abstract ideals. But if that's the case, the system is beyond reform. We'll take our struggles to another platform. Maybe virtual-reality wars between legions of avatars headed by celebrity demi-gods.

Again, from my experience, people who see politics as a war of ideals are generally not zealots. That was my whole point. (Some of them are, but those people rarely have the patience for actual politics.)

The uncompromising people are those with singular ideas about isolated issues who generally are capable of doing at best lip service to any overarching ideas. Oh, and people who think politics are a huge tribal pissing match.

The idealists are only "uncompromising" in the sense that they try not to sell out to special interests and avoid deals that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. If you want to deal with them, you have to actually deal with the issue. Personally I think one reason idealists in politics tend to be portrayed as "dangerous" in media is because special interest groups hate idealists.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Thor

Isn't he staying in to affect the convention in a more progressive way, in order for Hillary to bring on his supporters. Not to mention the long shot of her getting indicted, which seem utterly unlikely to happen. Slap on the wrist maybe.

This is a big part of it from what I can see. His camp has been pushing for a lot of progressive downballot races, pushing for a seat at the table at the DNC to get progressive concerns the time they deserve, etc. I truly think at this point this is less about him believing he has a shot and more about trying to bring in more likeminded people into Congress and getting the DNC leadership (Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for example) to actually pay attention to the progressive side of the party.

I think he and everyone else realize he's not winning this race--but if he can help win a few other races, and if he can bring some of his ideas to the table at the DNC, it helps.

[HotHotHeat]

My take is that Bernie is staying in to keep his supporters engaged. The convention is when to make the case to support the Democratic ticket.

And the notion that he is suddenly a 'dick' for doing what he's done for 30 years in Washington doesn't even make sense. He's selfish because people are finally listening to him?

[HotHotHeat]

For me, the most interesting part of this election cycle is how it's broken the traditional bias' of the US cable news networks, specifically Fox. They used to tow the same line with amazing consistency, now O'Reilly and Kelly are using their shows to throw dirt on each other.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/did-bill-...t-megyn-kelly/

[Thor]

Also the move to the right on MSNBC the former "liberal" station. Its so clear big corporate media has a bias to the right of its viewership.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Itse

The idealists are only "uncompromising" in the sense that they try not to sell out to special interests and avoid deals that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. If you want to deal with them, you have to actually deal with the issue. Personally I think one reason idealists in politics tend to be portrayed as "dangerous" in media is because special interest groups hate idealists.

We must have different notions of 'special interest groups', because most seem to be driven by ideology.

If you're a politician who believes capitalism is unfair and the system is rigged against the common man, then you will turn to unions (a special interest group) for support.

If you're a politician who hews to the teaching of fundamentalist Christianity, then you will turn to anti-abortionists (a special interest group) for support.

If you hate taxes and think government is wasteful, you will turn to a group like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (a special interest group) for support.

If you believe industry and material consumption are putting the natural world in peril and we need to rethink economic gain in the interests of protecting the environment, then you will turn to the Sierra Club (a special interest group) for support.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We must have different notions of 'special interest groups', because most seem to be driven by ideology.

Hmm, granted not the best wording. Although I don't necessarily agree that special interest groups are that ideological, but I could have just said corporations instead.

Anyway. I think I've said my piece about this

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

I think he and everyone else realize he's not winning this race--but if he can help win a few other races, and if he can bring some of his ideas to the table at the DNC, it helps.

This is where he needs to come out and be 1000% clear on this. If he comes out and says "We can't win, but we can still have influence", that's obviously good. But if he goes right back to "We can still win this nomination, we can change superdelegates minds etc...", then yeah he's being a remarkably selfish dick. His supporters, lets face it, they're going to follow him. And if he still thinks he can win, they're still going to act like he's going to win and that the DNC is working against them and it's all fraud. And Donald Trump is the big winner in that situation. He cannot fester the belief he will or can win, he needs his supporters to accept he lost. Getting blown out in California should end any thought of that.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Wow is Jeffrey Lord ever getting annihilated on CNN right now. To be fair he is coming off as even more insane than Trump.

Who is Jeffrey Lord?

http://mediamatters.org/research/201...migrant/204860

[ernie]

He was a part of the Reagan administration in sort of an assistant/associates role and GOP strategist in pennsylvania. Primarily he's a journalist/GOP talking head. And someone who has fallen completely for Drumpf's cult of personality.

[taco.vidal]

Go Bernie!

[Thor]

I really disliked the % of Bernie supporters that seemed oblivious to facts, posted constant nonsense from laughable sources. I still see some posting total nonsense.

But what I don't get, is how after Hillary has now clearly won, the hostility of her supporters and their childlike haha we won, stupid Bernie bots. I mean I get your happy, but you need to win over much of these people, granted a big chunk of his supporters are independants but that still doesn't mean you should be out there insulting Bernie supporters, calling them names if you hope for your candidate to win.

The frustrating thing is IF Hillary manages to lose to the worst Republican candidate in some time, they will just blame Bernie.

Both sides at this point just RGMG and I can't wait for the convention to be over so people can calm the ever-living sh*t down.