Nobody's locked out of a party. Anyone is welcome to join either party and participate in the process. But if you want to change the party, then the way to do it NOT in just jumping in at the end and trying to demand a Presidential candidate. It's to get involved over years at the grassroots level. Until then, it's silly for a bunch of people to just jump in and demand their voices be heard *within the party* because you're not actually members of the party. As an example of an unfortunate success story, look at the Tea Party and the commitment their members made over the last 8 years. They have helped reshape the GOP.
Something tells me that if you let Cruz run in the Dem primary and had a national campaign to get all the GOPers to vote in the Dem Primary using "same day registration" so we got Cruz as the Dem candidate, you'd be b****ing about the rules and how the party should ensure that only true Democrats can run and vote in the Primary.
I don't think the party primaries should be more 'democratic.' They should be more closed. I think it's unfair to card-carrying members that outsiders can swoop in at the 12th hour and sway the decision of what they as an organization intend to do. That's not more democratic. It's like letting a Wisconsinite vote in the primary for Texas Governor. If the party is going to have decision-making 'by the people' it should be exclusive to 'the people' -- the actual members. If you want a say, either join the party or wait for the general. Given the current state of affairs, it's not surprising insurgent supporters would feel disenfranchised. I don't think the solution, though, is to grant them more access. The solution is citizen education, and we're getting a big dose of it right now. The first lesson here is, if you really want a true outsider, don't try to use an insider party organization.
NO YOU!! lol Wtf do you expect as a response to this? Are you a child? I'll just make an early note here for my eventual 'I told you so': The coming crash can be prevented and predicted, but it won't be prevented. In fact, the trade agreement Hillary supports will accelerate it. The banks will not be broken up with the Treasury Department deciding how to do it. The economy will tank. More jobs will be sent abroad. Banks will be bailed out, and she will say "it's not a bailout". America will get into another major war. Income inequality will expand faster, as it has under Obama. This will all be the case by March 2017, whether it's Hillary or Trump. This is good for you Nook, because you're THAT guy. Most voters do not understand that almost nothing will change under Hillary, except swapping favors with the right. You are one of few people in America who can actually articulate her selfish career pattern, her reputation as either the most murderous or the most incompetent hawk ever to have any significance, and her factual cozy relationship with the one street where she SHOULD be picking up super predators and bringing them to heel: Wall Street. You're talking about a country where public policy has had no correlation with public opinion for decades now. You want to be a cheerleader and a child, go right ahead. I understand that for once, the fake democrats can't use the "well, lesser of two evils!" excuse. And it hurts. And it makes you think about HOW HARD you or your dad worked. A Hillary fan keeps coming to the Bernie thread to repeat the saaaaaame insults over and over with a cranky attitude. Come on. We all know what this is. Let's see your candidate beat Trump and get to work on all these wonderful plans.
I'm again going to point out that I have yet to hear Sanders supporters complaining about state caucuses which are more partisan and more difficult to participate in than primaries. If you're complaining that a closed primary isn't democratic then what about a caucus that is also only closed to party members, cannot be participated in through early voting and voting can only be done a set time and location? Those are reasons why caucuses states have far less turnout than primary states. A lot of you are acting like the two party was created by the Clinton campaign when it has existed pretty much since the Constitution was ratified. Unfortunately the nature of our system (Electoral College, majority rules in Congress, strong presidency) means that to control electoral power is dependent on two parties. Further consider in most parliamentary systems they are generally dominated by a two or three parties who form the core of a governing coalition. All that said though the power does rest with the voters and those of you who keep on complaining about it can vote and more importantly organize and donate to other parties than D or R. I myself have helped campaign for and donated for years to a party that wasn't Democrat or Republican, the Minnesota Independence Party (IP). In fact in Minnesota we have four major parties in terms of parties that have been able to get more than 10% of statewide votes and office holders. Just a few years ago in Minneapolis the Republican party had dropped to fourth place citywide elections. For that matter Sanders supporters can also work to take over the Democratic party and change party rules. This goes to a frequent theme of this campaign though. There a lot of problems identified but not much solution.
Companies and organizations in the way you describe them are more autocratic than any other legal structure on earth. To apply Western (and frankly global) views of corporate entities to a political party is legally.... fine. But this is the equivalent of the catholic church raping children a little bit while advising people against raping children a lot. It's true, people shouldn't rape children at all obviously. But it's a whole other thing when the person telling you that is, him or herself, raping children. It lets you know: people shouldn't rape children, but this organization shouldn't be in charge of getting that done. In the same way, yes you can make it less democratic. Yes it would centralize the goals of those in power in the structure, which is the exact opposite of democracy. But then is that the party for promoting democracy when they can't even figure out how to use it in their own little club?
It is that thought process that holds it back. You won't get the votes, if you aren't pushing for it. You have to ride the momentum, not take it back. When the president makes something a big issue, so do those running for Congressional seats. Sanders has lots of programs that won't come close to passing in the next 8 years, but I think Universal Healthcare can.
I'm not sure why you find this so hard to understand, what's stopping you from voting for Rick Perry or Spike Lee in the General if you don't like either party's nominee? What's stopping anyone else from doing the same?
Not Sanders related but since you posted this... I wouldn't call the ACA positive progress. The only positive of the affordable care act is the inclusion of pre-existing conditions. The only other thing it did was make insurance mandatory and give insurance companies the ability to raise rates & deductibles for lesser coverage. It gives the government the ability to fine you if you can't afford it. And it does nothing to provide health care for people, or save families from the rising costs of health care (it even made it worse), or prevent families from going broke over a medical emergency or end of life event. Its a program written by the government, for the benefit of the government and insurance lobby. We need a health care program, not a health insurance program. Huge difference. It needs to be scrapped and we need a single payer system. I don't think we'll ever get there going down the current path.
About 20 million people that have insurance now and didn't before would disagree with you. Insurers already had this ability. Are you just making things up? Insurers still are bound by profit margin rules, so its not like they can arbitrarily jack rates up and reap the profits. And so far, new Obamacare cover is LESS profitable for the insurers than their previous structure. Not quite true, but not worth arguing over. The millions of people who have substantial subsidies or got onto expanded Medicaid would disagree. And to millions of people. Actually, we needed both. We still arguably need both, but in different ways and to a different extent.
This is an excellent question for glynch. The ONLY reason Sanders is even remotely competitive is his domination of caucuses, which massively disenfranchise voters by making it extremely difficult to participate. Where was all your b****ing over all the caucus states the last 3 months? Why only New York?
It's time for Bernie to chill the **** out and fall in line -- he is starting to look more and more like an angry old man in full rant mode. I like him and respect his ideas, but he lost and defeating the republican candidate needs to be his primary focus. Stay in the race if he must, but stop attacking Clinton and start going after the cluster**** republicans.
I agree. the caucuses are a terrible, terrible, outmoded method for selecting a candidate and should be done away with. However I call into question your assertion that Sanders is not even remotely competitive. If you are to believe national polls (http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary), he is currently trailing Clinton by about 4-6%. In other words, if the Democrats were to select a candidate using a nationwide voting day in say, June, right before the convention, I believe Sanders would be very competitive. The most plausible reason for his current deficit is that voters did not have as much knowledge of him early in the primary season.
Every time you bring up this skewed statistic, I will ask you again how many can afford the extreme deductibles. If you count those, you may as well count everyone who is paying the penalty. How many are getting worse care because their plans are constantly being dropped. If you truly cared about this topic, you would be more concerned about the quality of care and affordability of coverage, not some meaningless "20 million" number. Quality of care has NOT gotten better. Paying 5k for a policy number for a single person is idiotic logic if they are not getting the proper care. The insurance companies are out of control more than ever. You're smarter than this. You know Obamacare has been ineffective. VooDoo is right. The only winners are those with pre-existing coverage. Even the insurance companies are losers.
You're absolutely right. We should do away with parties all together and everyone should write in their candidate. Somehow I do not think you would go for this.
There is little chance of a GOP victory in November, Bernie's obligation to the people that sacrificed for his candidacy is to keep the pressure on to move the party platform left, open the future process away from party insiders to allow for progressive, less corporate, candidates and keep the progressive narrative from being pushed aside, again. And frankly, stress testing Ms. Clinton campaign is not a bad thing. Bernie is chicken feed to the attacks she can expect from Trump, or the GOP house after the election.
You live in a fantasy world, talking about the desires of a people when you don't even live in the United States. Everything is dramatic with you, the sky is falling and it has been with you for years. The sky isn't falling, articles have been written about the fall of the USA for over 200 years. Every generation feels they are a unique and special snowflake, and that things are some how worse. Bernie Sanders made a solid Presidential, like Howard Dean before him. Depending on how sentiment and demographics change, the Sanders reformers could run the Democratic Party and a majority of the country in 8 year, times do change.... but right now they are a minority interest in the USA, and this election cycle demonstrated this fact. The problem becomes when you have some supporters that absolute refuse to acknowledge this fact.... Instead it is always someone else's fault, and when they cannot attack an individual it turns to "Wall Street" or "media" or "tax rates" or the "DNC". So have fun with you bizarre, out of touch conspiracy theories in Saudi Arabia, or where ever you reside now.
Health insurance has huge benefits even without deductibles. Everything from co-pays to reduced rates for services to prescription discounts. And if you get cancer or are in an accident, deductibles are the least of your worries. Lots. That doesn't remotely change the fact that lots of people have benefited, which is what you argued against. Of course it hasn't - no one claimed ACA fixed everything. But I find it bizarre that you think 20 million people getting insurance is meaningless. Even if you don't like the "quality of care", it's better care than they had before - especially the millions that got expanded Medicaid, which doesn't even have the crazy deductibles you think are all that matters. They aren't more out of control than ever - insurance rates have grown over the last 6 years at their slowest pace in generations. Insurance rates have always been out of control - but the problem is the underlying cost of health care, not the insurers. Insurance profits haven't skyrocketed - they are capped. So the person just above poverty level that had no insurance and now has free expanded Medicaid is not a winner? Please explain that. You seem to be really high on rhetoric and short on facts.
