Some politicians and commentators say that Bernie Sanders is losing leverage because he hasn’t conceded the Democratic primary to front-runner Hillary Clinton. To believe that is to misunderstand both the candidate and his supporters. Sanders received a mandate in “defeat” that most politicians never achieve in victory.
Good summary of the current situation. My input would be:
(a) "The Clinton team’s impatience is understandable, even if it lacks a certain grace. But they’re misreading both Sanders’ nature and the nature of the negotiations now underway. " I don’t think they are misreading - to the contrary, they are reading well what’s going on, and their reaction shows that they are afraid.
(b) ● 12 million votes. (agree)
● Victory in 22 states. (plus a few more states where the margin of difference was negligeable - see my last bullet)
● 45 percent of pledged delegates.
● A history-making small-dollar fundraising campaign that outraised his well-heeled opponent.
Nobody concedes while the negotiations are still going on. Except Obama. He did it repeatedly. Sorry just a side thought.
Bernie has leverage alright. The American voters are loud and clear, they are done with establishment politics. Whether they are voting for Trump or Bernie they are saying one thing “we are taking back our country”. That must be very frightening for entrenched establishment politicians. Someone like Bernie in the White House could expose even more of the sick plans that have gotten us here.
It’s not over and our calls that it’s just beginning must be like nails on a chalk board for Clinton, who imagined herself being installed rather than elected. A walk in the park she thought. And then there’s Bernie and the peasants.
They will see him at the convention and thousands of voters outside the convention. Should be interesting. Where are those Wiki emails?
The arrogance and condescension of the Clinton crowd as well as their avid, half-blind support for neoliberal economics and neocon foreign policy – so long as a democrat does it – are alienating voters and exposing the party for what it is; a corporatist puppet show.
The can hold on to their phony big-money liberalism as they shrink to irrelevance. We have better and more important things to do but we have to maintain the unity, communication and organization we have now.
After endorsing Hillary by wishing her well in her face-off with Drumpf, Bernie should take his:
● 12 million votes.
● Victory in 22 states.
● 45 percent of pledged delegates.
● A history-making small-dollar fundraising campaign that outraised his well-heeled opponent.
and walk away from the Democratic party and the 2016 presidential election. He and the movement should continue fundraising and building the dominant political force in the country, influencing down-ticket races, and planning for 2018 and 2020. At this point the Democratic party has declined the opportunity to participate and rendered itself irrelevant. To remain tied to it would cost the movement everything it has accomplished and has going for it.
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After endorsing Hillary by wishing her well in her face-off with Drumpf, Bernie should take his: ● 12 million votes. ● Victory in 22 states. ● 45 percent of pledged delegates. ● A history-making small-dollar fundraising campaign that outraised his well-heeled opponent.
and walk away from the Democratic party and the 2016 presidential election. He and the movement should continue fundraising and building the dominant political force in the country, influencing down-ticket races, and planning for 2018 and 2020. At this point the Democratic party has declined the opportunity to participate and rendered itself irrelevant. To remain tied to it would cost the movement everything it has accomplished and has going for it.
I like this article; however, I think this is untrue:
"Besides, he added, “there seems to be very little desire on the left for a challenger to Clinton.”
“That was what pretty much everyone thought. Look what happened.”
Everyone is a misleading term. The political elites who were foisting Mrs. Clinton onto the people may have thought that, but they didn’t ASK the REST of us.
They wanted Mrs. Clinton to be a done deal with all potential challengers knee-capped before the contest began.
Forcing a candidate onto a body politic under the guise that SHE is what they want is like telling a kid they will drink their medicine and LIKE it.
The entire “election” was intended to foreclose against ANY opposition to a throne already claimed by one of America’s two corrupt dynastic families. These entities have trafficked in weapons, spread wars, signed horrible trade agreements into law which have dramatically increased the gap between a diminishing number of “haves” against a growing tide of “have-nots,” and they’ve taken a collective shit on Democracy, itself.
This recommendation makes sense and it reminds me of the Kenny Rogers tune, “The Gambler.” (“You gotta know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”)
“Bernie Sanders isn’t positioning himself for another run. He’s not being stubborn; he’s negotiating. Nobody concedes while the negotiations are still going on. His negotiating partners should stop demanding that he fold his cards before the dealing’s done.”
The key now for the Sanders movement is to create a new party or else a new democrat in which all State candidates (i.e. Congressmen, Senators and even governors) support a “Sanders Manifesto” in which no candidate will receive the backing of Sanders supporters without pledging support for a handful of basic reforms such as universal healthcare, free college tuition, money out of politics, a $15 an hour minimum wage, down sizing the military, no TPP, an end to the carbon fuel generation, closing all U.S. bases abroad and en end to the modern Jim Crow laws and mass incarceration. Any candidate that rejects the pledge must be labelled as a corporate sycophant and subsequently ridiculed for their corporate allegiance.
Make the new “Sanders Manifesto” public knowledge for everyone and build support for the candidates that support the Sanders Manifesto. When corporations fight back using dirty tactics (such as over whelming poor candidates with frivolous law suits), the New Democrats must strike back using deadly force if necessary to prevent the undermining of democracy by these ruthless corporate fundamentalists. This class war has been going on since the first colonists landed in the Americas and the 99% have been losing badly.
Eskow sez: “… these (Sanders) voters can’t be handed off to Clinton and her party like a football.”
This analogy suggests Clinton in the role of Lucy, offering to hold the ‘ball’ while encouraging those voters, playing the part of Charlie Brown, to come and kick the party to the left.
In the context of recent Democratic primaries this one was not that close. There have only been two very close ones, in 1984 when Walter Mondale defeated Gary Hart and in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton. Several like this one have been moderately close like this one. An example is when Jimmy Carter defeated Ted Kennedy. Of course no other loser has made such demands as Bernie Sanders has. But then no other candidate has been like Bernie Sanders. What Bernie Sanders has that makes him special is chuztpah. You have to have chuztpah to run for office as a socialist in the US. You have to have chuztpah when you complain about closed primaries being nondemocratic and not complain about far more nondemocratic caucuses. You have to have chuztpah to complain that an election is rigged against you without much evidence to prove it. You have to have chuztpah to say complain that superdelegates represent a corrupt political party and then turn around to ask these same superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters. And you have to have chutzpah to lose an election and demand that your views go into the party platform rather than the views of the winner. Bernie may be lacking somewhat in leverage at this point compared to earlier in the election but he is never lacking in chutzpah.
The Republican establishment have issues with their own candidate Trump. Clinton can use her leverage to run on a “unified platform” and run both as the Republican and Democratic Candidate.
More Republican voters would welcome her than would Sanders supporters.
While this scenario will not happen it reflects the reality. Clinton is right wing , further to the right than was Reagan.
To me this is just another save Hillary and the Democratic Party from its demise by patting Bernie and his millions of supporters on the head saying nice game folks but we cheated you fair and square. This is not about the survival of the Democratic Party; it’s about the survival of our nation and the world. Bernie Sanders is in no way out of this race for who is going to be the next President of the United States. Bernie is in until the last vote is counted; the party establishment be damned. As an aside, Bernie beats Trump, Hillary will go to the dump, never to be recycled again!
i took a YouGov election poll this AM. I told them I voted for Sanders in the primary & that I distrust them equally. A question that was not present was who I would vote for in November. This poll feature is a nice out so that the poll won’t actively show the gap between the DNC & a large number of Democrats who will not vote for Ms. Clinton due to her poor judgment & past policy disagreements. The suppression of Democratic votes during the various primaries also guarantees voter distrust of the DNC & the DC Democratic establishment. That’s not a good sign for November. Ms. Clinton’s endorsements from the GOP show that they realize that she’s the 2nd Republican in the Presidential race.
Couldn’t agree more. He could be even more effective than being president that way. And it would be entirely in sink with what he has done his entire life. The mistery question is - why is he not doing it? Or is it too early to tell?
Another liberal who won’t vote for her. Jill Stein is a good option if Bernie drops out, but I refuse to support someone that Stanford found had a 1/777 Billion chance of the victories she had without voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and outright fraud. She can howl about Trump all she wants; I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
The issue is she’s entitled as anything and acts as though we should just give her our votes. Nobody told her apparently that she has to earn them, and you don’t earn votes by insulting the candidate’s base. In fact, if you disenfranchise voters and suppress them, as Election Justice is showing the DNC did, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose your base. I’m most likely out after the convention (I’ve been a liberal for 18 years, which is my entire voting history) and will switch to Green. Clinton is just the face of the DNC’s dishonest tactics to assure their preferred candidate was nominated, but she does have likability issues and issues understanding how to win over voters - however, I guess that doesn’t really matter when your organization is suppressing and disenfranchising them.
Then they will lose their voters. Bernie voters are policy wonks. They’re different than the Clinton voters of 2008. Their issues with the democratic party run right into campaign finance reform, single payer (which is not the same as universal healthcare, as much as Clinton wishes she could convince us it is), and bank reform, just to name a few. In 08, Clinton and Obama ran on essentially the same platform, with some aesthetic differences. People who truly have been listening to Bernie and endorsing his ideas won’t support her because her ideas are a complete 180 of what he’s saying. This is politics of ideas vs. politics of aesthetics (aka I have a vagina! or I’m xyz race! vote for me!).
A fun thought experiment: imagine a 4th Estate composed of individuals with integrity to ferret out truths instead of sycophants churning out unintelligent, contemptible “news”/“articles" to remain employed by the 1%.
i absolutely agree. i hope all of us here who agree have written and called the sanders campaign and told them we support breaking away. there is no way in hell i’d ever vote for hillary…i want to back bernie (because of his platform) and if he won’t “lead” us away to a third party movement of some sort, i’ll go to jill… and i HAVE told the campaign people that repeatedly. the more of who do it, the better.
I trust that Bernie Sanders is not negotiating. I would hope that what he stands for is non-negotiable.
