A suggestion for the restoration of progressive unity:

[Ken Burch]

1) No one should still be arguing that Hillary should not have been nominated, or that she was PERSONALLY responsible for the EC result;

and

2) No one should still be arguing that Bernie and his supporters are to blame for Trump's win, OR that Bernie should not have been allowed to run in the Democratic primaries;

Is it possible we could all agree to those two things?

[yallerdawg]

1. Sure.

You stop with the (1) and it will stop reminding us of the (2).

[Ken Burch]

7. I myself didn't START with (1). Not ever.

I endorsed Hillary a week before the convention(the earliest decent time I could endorse her), and campaigned for her throughout the fall. I never attacked her during the fall campaign, instead merely offering a couple of respectful suggestions for doing things better)

Bernie HAD to run. There were too many people left alienated by the system for him NOT to run. Those folks had to be given some chance to cast a positive vote for what they actually wanted.

[yallerdawg]

8. And yet, your OP started with (1).

But that "you" I mentioned was more broad than a single individual.

I'm ready to move on, but not ready to assume we had a better alternative - and should look back to go forward.

[Ken Burch]

9. I only mentioned (1) because I HAD to mention it

in order to ask people NOT to talk about it...if there had been some way to convey what I was asking people to cease saying there, I'd have used that way.

I was asking people who do keep saying that to STOP saying it.

My point is that we should no longer be debating either who should have been our nominee OR who should have been allowed to seek the nomination. Neither of those debates serves any good purpose.

[williesgirl]

2. Absolutely!

[lostnfound]

3. Absolutely. Nt

[OrwellwasRight]

4. Fine by me.

Are we allowed to talk about the primary system and how to go about picking candidates in the future? Regardless of the personal responsibility of HRC or the certainty of Bernie supporters that he "would have defeated Trump" -- shouldn't we talk about how to vet flawed candidates (knowing all candidates are flawed) in the primaries in order to pick the strongest one? about how to ensure that the establishment does not put a thumb on the scale in the primaries? about how to raise up younger leaders within the Party so that there are a wider variety of choices for the next Dem nominee than only people 70+? Or is that kind of discussion going to be interpreted as a slight against Clinton or Sanders?

[kacekwl]

5. Sounds GREAT.

[Exilednight]

6. No.

Hillary didn't listen to people on the ground in three key states, nor her husband who warned her. That's on her.

If we can't admit the mistakes then no progress will be made.

[Yurovsky]

13. I agree but...

I blame Podesta & Mook for failing her. She fucked up by trusting them.

[kcr]

10. Sorry. Can't fully agree with the second point. He should of course have been allowed to run.

But his dishonest attacks on Hillary combined with his refusal to drop out when he should have contributed to the loss. He continued to attack her and it helped Trump. He still continues the attacks even now. That's what really galls me. It might be easier to move on if he didn't continue rubbing it in with the white working class nonsense. His little stunt in Kenosha? Ugh.

[Justice]

12. Agreed.

[bravenak]

11. No. Only Democrats should run in our primaries

[Gothmog]

18. We need to also eliminate caucuses

Sanders was rejected by Jewish, African American and Latino votes. Sanders did not come close to getting enough votes.
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/a-message-for-hardcore-bernie-stans/

Hillary Cinton won the nomination because of democracy. She received more than 57% of Democratic votes cast. Bernie Sanders virtually only won caucuses, which are the least democratic aspect of the primary process. And most of those he won only because she decided to save her money for the General election. He won very few primaries, except for his “home states” and Michigan and his clock was cleaned in virtually every other state that mattered. Demographically, he only won white liberals. The fact that YOU think he made it close, or only lost because of “Super Delegates” is a hallmark of your delusion. Bernie Stans largely didn’t seem to notice that she reached out to you repeatedly and you bit her hand off, making you more like Republicans than you should be comfortable with.

Sanders could not win the popular vote and was in the process only due to caucuses

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. Agreed about caucuses

[Gothmog]

34. Caucuses are very undemocratic

[hamsterjill]

14. I can agree on those two things.

As long as no one asks me to say nice things about Trump supporters, then I'm good. When we get to that point, however, I'm simply not capable.

[Ken Burch]

15. Understood.

n/t.

[Rex]

16. Not a chance! The greatest flame warriors on this site live and die

pushing disunity. Good luck getting those that need to the most to stop their disruption.

[Gothmog]

17. No

The first request is to ask that we ignore that Jewish, African American and Latino voters rejected Sanders for very good reasons.

The second request is to ignore reality. Right now a sanders supporter is running to be DNC chair and many will oppose Ellison in large part due to Sanders actions.

I like living in the real world

[NastyRiffraff]

19. Where to begin?

On #1: There are rabid Sanders supporters, many flocking back from the jackass site, who will ALWAYS treat Hillary as their personal pinata. NOBODY can stop them, and they continue to spread their poison long after the primaries were over. Just to clarify before someone jumps in with faux outrage, nobody is saying all Sanders supporters are jackass site immigrants.

#2: Bernie and his supporters were partially responsible for Trump's EC win. Many voted 3rd party (the odious Jill Stein), or a write-in, didn't vote at all, or even voted for Trump. This isn't me saying this, it comes directly from some of those supporters, BRAGGING about it. Nobody's saying they bear all of the responsibility; clearly there were many reasons for the EC disaster, including the EC itself. Of course, he should have been allowed to run; in fact, he was given special consideration by the DNC to run as a Democrat. (Personally, I believe that was a mistake by the DNC, but that's for another topic.)

[Gothmog]

20. Great post

[charlyvi]

21. Yep.

Anyone can certainly vote for whomever they choose; of course they can. However, what they cannot do is deny the consequences of their vote. If they feel the consequences were worthwhile, then fine. But there were consequences. Anyone who voted third party, didn't vote or voted for Trump helped to defeat Hillary; there is no logical way around that fact.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. Yup

[charlyvi]

22. Your Bernie bias is showing there, Burch.

Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2016, 08:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Sanders is not now, nor ever has been, and probably will never be a Democrat. He should have run as an Independent. The fact that he chose to run as a Dem (and the idiots at the DNC let him), used the Dem infrastructure, then scurried back to his Independent status firewall after the primaries shows how he pretty much used the Democratic party. A weasel move that doesn't speak well to his integrity. And yet you want us to say it was all perfectly okay. It wasn't.

[BzaDem]

24. We live in a two party system.

Our Constitution is not compatible with more than two parties in practice. For the sake of democracy, there should not be strong barriers to running in a primary. I think demanding that candidates pledge to support the Democratic party is a reasonable requirement (and would not be reflexively be opposed to closed primaries, though I havent thought about it enough to have strong feelings). Such a requirement is reasonable because it is a pretty low bar. If you can't in good conscious identify as a member of the party, perhaps you shouldn't be running or voting in the primary.

But Sanders did so. He ran as a Democrat, pledged to support the Democrats in the election, and made good on the pledge. Any rule excluding Sanders would have to require some long time period of party membership prior to the election. That would be a hard bar to running (unlike a pledge, which one can freely choose to make). I don't think such hard bars are desirable or good for democracy, in a two party system like ours.

Note that I say all of this as an enthusiastic Hillary supporter in the primary and the general.

[charlyvi]

33. We disagree.

Last edited Mon Jan 2, 2017, 01:20 AM - Edit history (1)

If a candidate wants to run in a Democratic primary, he/she should actually BE a Democrat. Not just pledge to support them. We live in a two party system, yes, but if one chooses not to be a member of either party, then one should not use the access or infrastructure from either to try and get elected. It's dishonest. And the consequences can be disastrous to this nation. Sanders knew what the system was and chose to play it. At least Stein and Johnson were straight up enough to not pretend membership in a party they would never join.

No one said anything about a rule requiring long term membership before an election. Long term membership? You're joking, right? He was an independent one day, a Democrat the next day when he declared he was running, then went back to being an Independent when he lost the primaries. Oh, and he filed his paperwork to run for his senate seat again even before the primaries were over; he filed as an Independent. To say that he ran as a Dem is laughable. Putting a D after your name on a ballot doesn't make you one. So I guess you are saying that anyone of any political belief ought to be able to run in any primary because, well, the system. Then change the system. Sanders is supposed to be good at that. But stop saying it was perfectly okay for him to use the party as he did. I, and millions more like me, will always resent him for it.

[brush]

31. YES, YES, YES!

" . . . used the Dem infrastructure, then scurried back to his Independent status firewall after the primaries shows how he pretty much used the Democratic party. A weasel move that doesn't speak well to his integrity. And yet you want us to say it was all perfectly okay. It wasn't.

That graph sums it up perfectly. You'd think he'd remain a Dem but he didn't.

That says if all.

[BzaDem]

23. I disagree with part (though not all) of both points.

As far as point one goes, in a cause-and-effect sense, I think she does share some responsibility for the loss. She was the candidate, and strategic decision-making in a razor-close election could tip the election one way or the other. I could easily imagine a world where different decisions could have changed the outcome (though such decisions would not have been knowable prior to election day). As to the first part of the first point, I think it is silly to say she should not have been nominated.

As for the second part, I think Bernie definitely should have been allowed to run. But I also think he shares some responsibility for her loss. Bernie knew that Hillary was not "corrupt" in any reasonable sense of the word, and also knew that attacks implying otherwise would do nothing but hurt Hillary in the general election. Yet he went forward with such attacks with knowledge of the directionality of those consequences. This line of attack resulted in otherwise reasonable people parroting such attacks, which not only reduced enthusiasm for Hillary, but made Trump's dishonest attacks on Hillary more effective later in the fall. I could easily imagine a world where Hillary would have won absent such attacks, given that the election was decided by less than a point.

So both are partly responsible. I ultimately think Bernie's attacks deserve a bit more blame than Hillary's campaign decisions, since hindsight is always 20/20 with respect to campaign decisions (whereas Bernie knew at the time of his attacks that they would hurt her in the general, and chose to risk it anyway). But both her campaign decisions and his attacks were far from the only causes of the loss (given Comey, the media's obsession on emails, Russia's email hacking, etc). I think all reasonable causes should be on the table for discussion, so we can learn from the mistakes that were made.

[aikoaiko]

27. Sadly I don't think we are ready

[stonecutter357]

28. Ill be crystal clear: Bernie Sanders has absolutely no business determining the course

of the Democratic party.

[HopeAgain]

32. because y'all are doing such a bang up job? n/t

[AngryAmish]

29. For unity one suggestion: Everyone who disagrees with me shut the fuck up

Merry New Year's, lads.

[HopeAgain]

30. We lost and BOTH should move on

Hillary is a good person, but lost to the absolute worst Republican candidate in history. Of course she bears some blame. Thanks to Mondale, Dukakis, McGovern and Hillary Clinton, but they were the wrong candidates at the wrong time.

Sanders is a good person, but couldn't win the primary regardless. Quicker Democratic unity mught have been nice, but he didn't lose to Trump. Thanks to him and Eugene McCarthy for their important influence.

Both Sanders and Clinton are now historical figures from a presidential candidate standpoint and we need to move on...

[Orsino]

35. Nope. Winner of the primary gets the biggest share of credit/blame for the general.

The second half, at least, of each of those points is debatable.

Considering Clinton's insider status and fame in the primary, her win was nearly inevitable, and I don't have much problem with that--but a different nominee just might have won where she couldn't. We'll never know.

If we want only insiders running in future primaries, I would generally oppose that, but party rules os party rules. We can close our doors, but that seems a bit unhealthy.

[BainsBane]

37. Bernie doesn't agree. Nt