Bernie should have been the nominee — Page 4

"I've never thought of not voting, but if the US made it mandatory, I might well choose not to vote as an act of civil disobedience."

I'd only go along with mandatory voting if conscription in the US were re-instated with no exemption for able-bodied individuals, including conscientious objection, citizenship, gender, and age. I abhor the thought of being compelled to vote or enlist in the armed forces at this point in my life. Old men need to stop treating disadvantaged young adults, and teenagers in some cases, as expendable and mindless. I'm not ordinarily ageist, but Trump, Gingrich, and Giuliani have combined ages of 215.

Updated On: 11/11/16 at 10:01 AM

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, but I was just putting it out there as a counterpoint to the low turnout.

Jay Lerner-Z said: "I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, but I was just putting it out there as a counterpoint to the low turnout."

I know! You were just throwing out some hypotheticals.

Is Sanders really demonising foreign workers? To me, language that would suggest that would be things like "tired of jobs going to those scummy asian slaves" or something similar. When all he says is "People are tired of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries", Is he just pointing out an unfortunate reality that many jobs are being sent overseas? His issue is with the system that caused this not with the individual foreign workers.

Updated On: 11/11/16 at 05:29 PM

Yes perhaps. He is prioritizing American interests over others.

Passionate video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

He's not necessarily prioritizing American interests over others - I imagine he knows perfectly well that foreign workers are exploited to a shameful degree and that is not in their interest. He's demonizing corporate big business is all.

Updated On: 11/11/16 at 07:25 PM

"We'd need to be willing to pay more for our iPhones, cars, computers etc. and organisations would need to be less greedy in their profits (Apple are sitting on billions of dollars they don't know how to spend."

It would also be nice if the manufacturers of those items would abandon the insidious practice of planned obsolescence. Instead, they crank out shoddy goods with nanosecond warranties. I guess someone has to keep recyclers afloat since many claim that they couldn't break even otherwise. What is considered ruggedized these days was simply considered the result of good craftsmanship in the not so distant past. And much commercial software is full of bloat that forces consumers to constantly upgrade to more shabby hardware with the latest Intel processor. It's almost a criminal racket.

Fascinatingly, someone actually commissioned a poll just before the election to try and answer this very question. The results showed that Trump and Clinton were so close that they are within the margin of error (i.e., the poll was consistent with the actual outcome). However, Sanders was a shocking 12 points ahead. This lead would have probably been inflated given Trump didn't get an opportunity to do his worst on Sanders, such as maybe running a TV a claiming that Sanders was a 'communist' (Trump implied during the primary that Sanders was a communist haha). But if this poll is accurate, it means the only real question of whether Sanders would have got in is whether he could have survived the vetting. I'd be surprised if he had many skeletons in his closet though - otherwise surely they would have come out during the primary?

I understand and respect the point that it doesn't really matter anymore because nothing can be done (and I particularly related to the comment about say Hillary vs Obama in 2008 - to look back at it seems kind of silly [though maybe not as Silly if Obama didn't get in]).

But if anyone does happen to care about the truth of this matter, it's hard to ignore that electing Hillary as the nominee could have cost the democrats the White House.

There is perhaps something to learn though - as Bernie has made a few comments about recently. And that is reformation of the Democratic party and future candidates so this doesn't happen again.



http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Gravis_Sanders_Election_Poll.pdf

Updated On: 11/12/16 at 08:52 PM

I agree that particular variable was not accounted for - interesting thought. But it's funny that we now have data both during the primary and just before the election - plus clear theoretical reasons (not involved in criminal scandals; didn't hide Wall Street speeches; didn't get debate questions ahead of time; hasn't flip flopped on every major issue etc etc). Yet it never seems to be good enough to concede that maybe, just maybe, Hillary was the wrong choice

But re: continuing the discussion or not, I understand you and some others don't care, so I definitely invite you to not participate if you don't want to. I accept that the demographic of this forum is not like the thousands of people on facebook that upvote posts telling him he would have won. It is very clear at this stage though what the discussion is about (whether Sanders would have won) - and no one is forcing anyone down to read or respond to this topic haha.

Updated On: 11/13/16 at 11:57 PM

Thank you those are some good points. I can see how many of those would be particularly strong ammunition (particularly I can imagine Trump using a line of reasoning that Sanders would tank the economy, he is a socialist (or he might claim communist), look at what his wife did at Burlington College etc.

Bull****. A fake politician uses the political process to seduce gullible people to believe his empty ideas. Trump AND Sanders.

Bernie is a fake democrat who got millions of snotty millennials to buy his crap.

Will you also buy his new book?

fflagg said, "Bernie is a fake democrat who got millions of snotty millennials to buy his crap."

fflagg, you are a total idiot, and qolbinau this thread makes me sick to my stomach, please everyone stop with this, it's a moot subject, the thread title makes me want to fly to Australia just to slap the OP in the face.

I get why Bernie would recommend Rep Keith Ellison to chair the DNC but think the Dems should BEG David Axelrod to take the helm. Both Ellison and former Chair Howard Dean bring much to the table but Axelrod will help keep the coffers full and learned how to speak Rust Belt years ago.

ETA: Nearly forgot. Why is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz getting a pass? She was abominable long before the public public got wind of her tilting the nomination in Hillary's favor. And Donna Brazile is a re-tread from way back. The woman has worked on the unsuccessful campaigns of Dick Gephardt, Jesse Jackson, Walter Mondale and Al Gore if that tell's you anything. Heck, even the huckster Michael Moore would be a better choice as DNC Chair than DWS or DB. Full disclosure: Ms Brazile and I are long-time acquaintances and she is one of the reasons I left the party a decade ago.

Updated On: 11/14/16 at 01:56 PM