Most polls show massive support for more gun control reform yet we haven't seen massive legislative changes in that regard either. You might not like policy wonks but it is important to understand how the policy gets passed. To understand this while yes there are majorities of support for many of Sanders policies there are significant proportions of the population that don't support them. YOu seem to be imagining that just because a lot of college students will be calling Republican representatives that means they will just turn over. I doubt a Republican representative for Texas will care very much if he's getting a lot of calls from college students in California especially if the Young Republican from Baylor in his district are calling him to do the opposite. True Sanders has been in the Congress far longer than Obama was but at the same time Sanders isn't as charismatic as Obama. For that matter I can't recall Sanders being the primary sponsor or shepherd for any significant legislation since he's been there. My own recollection is that he has instead been an outlier on a lot of legislation where he has been a handful or in some cases a single vote against bills that have otherwise overwhelmingly passed. If he has actually shown a track record of passing significant regulation I would be interested in hearing it. The argument that the enthusiasm of his supporters will somehow carry the day again belies that the same thing was said about Obama in 2008. From what I recall you were an Obama supporter during the primaries in 2008 and you clearly seem to have suffered buyer's remorse over it. From then what would convince you that a even less charismatic candidate who although has more experience, will be actually do more? How do you know that you want just end up with the same remorse if Sanders wins and can't deliver on his promises? This belies that pretty much since the passage of the 22nd Amendment that most presidencies are far weaker in the second term than they have been in the first term. Congressional members, governors and etc.. of POTUS' party usually start paying less attention to second term presidents when they know they aren't running for reelection. There are no coattails to benefit them. In most cases the midterm election of a second term tend to go very badly for the POTUS' party causing even more difficulty in getting a second term agenda passed. As far as Sanders' call to get millions of citizens energized that is almost the same as what Obama said in 2008. Obama supporters then said almost the exact same thing that the "Yes we can!" movement would overwhelm Republican opposition. Your argument now is that Sanders is either more charismatic than Obama, very doubtful, and that he isn't so likely to compromise, probably true but we don't know that for sure. Rigidity to ideology and unwillingness to compromise though has rarely proven the ability to lead to massive legislative success. If so then the Contract for America would've been actually implemented. Now you're certainly free to believe that Sanders, this election and a Sanders' Admin. will defy historical trends and that Republicans and moderate Dems will actually cave in the face of a massive Sanders' popularity and his no-compromise style. It's not out of the realm of possibility but not likely and hardly a rational reason to support a candidate. And it will be different if Sanders' doesn't even have a supermajority? As Major noted Obama did work his network and contributor list. believe me I got a lot of messages from Obama and surrogates to call my representatives. Also the Republicans and others were bitterly complaining about how Obama was politicizing things and running things like a campaign to get health care passed. What is Sanders willing to compromise on? Now you're certainly free to believe that Sanders, this election and a Sanders' Admin. will defy historical trends and that Republicans and moderate Dems will actually cave in the face of a massive Sanders' popularity and his no-compromise style. It's not out of the realm of possibility but not likely and hardly a rational reason to support a candidate.
Not really. According to RCP he is doing better than Hillary in a head to head match up with Trump and Cruz but not significantly better, only a couple of percentage points. He loses to Rubio. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html Looking at the average of the polls so far there doesn't appear to be much difference between the two. Further polls this early before an actual single contest has been run are very unreliable. I would especially say in the case of Bernie Sanders who hasn't been attacked much at all by the Republicans. The GOP has focused almost all of their attacks on Clinton so she has been battered from both the Right and the Left. In Sanders survives or wins a few primaries you are likley then to see attacks on him from the GOP. Perhaps you can be forgiven for not following US politics but there have been many very leftist US candidates. Maybe you haven't heard of names like Edwards, Kucinich, Obama himself ran as a Leftist which is one reason why pretty much the same that was said about Sanders was said about Obama in 2008. Yes and much credit goes to him that. That though wasn't because he was a leftist who didn't compromise but because he worked pragmatically to get what he could passed. This belief that somehow not compromising is what actually get's things done completely discounts the nature of how the US governmental system works. I agree Trump is potentially very dangerous and if he is the Republican nominee I certainly would encourage people to consider stopping Trump as a good reason to base your vote. That is mighty condescending of you as a non-American. To leave that aside though have you considered the possibility that Sanders can't get any of his agenda passed and instead embitters his political opponents? If he is the best of the worst in your view since you put so much stock in the US consider there are some huge potential negatives to a well meaning but ineffectual presidency, see Jimmy Carter.
You make a good point and then marry it to an inaccurate statement. Obama doesn't really belong in the same sentence as Edwards and Kucinich. Obama truly ran as a would-be uniting centrist pragmatist, for what it's worth. Despite the spin from the right, he's just never run as a wild-haired liberal.
1) Right, that's one poll you cited. That's why I said most, and even on average he is better than Hillary although his policies are much less known than Hillary. Most importantly, he's doing best against them and that's the whole point. Any objective assessment would say that such wide ranging success in a variety of polls is clearly in his favor. Now we can say that at this early stage it doesn't matter and I would probably agree with that to an extent, but it is certainly not meaningless because it far exceeds predictions for Bernie success at this early stage. 2) No I know what I'm talking about and I've heard of those guys, thank you very much. Obama ran as a leftist of 2012/08 America and people bought it. I'm talking about the left, the real human global left, which virtually doesn't exist anymore as a true wing in America probably since the 60's and that's not a coincidence obviously. 3) Bernie is a compromiser anyway if you look at his record, and he is regularly attacked for it especially his record on gun control. Let's agree to disagree that it was because of compromise or not, since I didn't say anything about compromising or not compromising. I'm not sure where you get the idea Bernie is not willing to reasonably compromise but in a government where big money interests have captured the process, you can't compromise 50-50 with people who represent less than 1% of the population. If there were a more diverse representation, I would agree with you but that's simply not the case these days. 4) Thumbs up on Trump being dangerous. 5) Not sure how it's condescending, his policies are in favor of most Americans and Obama's policies have widened the gap between the rich and everyone else for 8 years - that's the "leftist". In any case, apologies if my tone came off that way. The humongous majority of Americans are in the midst of a 30+ year wage freeze and productivity boom + exponentially growing inequality especially under Obama. I agree with you that Bernie won't be able to deliver on some of his promises but that's irrelevant because that applies to every candidate ever and it's no different for Bernie. He will try to do those things with compromise. When that fails he'll use whatever powers he has as president, as Obama does. When that fails - well, that's where he is saying that he will rely on Americans to push through his policies with aggressive public support. That's what has been missing, and the plus side of it is it will only work if Americans really want it. As for embittering his public opponents, that's fine IMO. They will be bitter and use their maximum ability to demolish things as long as they aren't in office, we saw it with Obama and we still see it to this day. I haven't seen any significant compromise on their part. Bernie's positions depend heavily on large public support, if the support is not there it will fizzle out and you're back to Obama-ish policies. What is the worst that can happen? Congress will stop functioning? They will shutdown the government? They'll repeal healthcare for Americans? More inequality? Carter was a totally different story IMO and at a very different TIME, I'm genuinely interested to hear how you've come to the conclusion that it's largely similar. It's a tired story, but the more obviously parallel is with FDR who was able to push through policies which both parties and virtually all powerful people opposed and what made that possible was the very real risk of a domestic implosion and a foreign explosion. Bottom line to me is there is nothing which overshadows everything like the potential for Trump to pull an upset and rip Americans' lives apart for at least 4 years. What about the fact that a decline in voters tends to help Republicans win and you could make bitter all the new voters Bernie is bringing out, leading to a decline in Hillary's numbers? What about how much more out of control the financial industry will be when their sweetheart Hillary becomes president? Is that less of a disaster than gridlock in an already ineffectual congress? There are far worse things that can happen In 2012 and 2008 people were on here saying they would rather not vote, but will do so only to avoid a Romney or McCain. The situation is far worse today and I suggest that the same strategy applied today should be an automatic vote for Bernie given what we know at this early stage. I won't get into why I feel 100% comfortable being critical of American government because it's off topic and I think we've already discussed it enough for you to know my position on the direct impact of American politics on my life, my bank account, my safety, my future, my family. Let's just leave it at: this is a D&D board and I know you really dislike my position on the matter. Totally irrelevant to the discussion though.
This man is a known communist. Isn't it illegal to be a commie in US let along being allowed to run for president. If he some how gets elected, RIP USA. Well I guess some people were right. All great empires fall from within.
Interesting that someone's crafted such an accurate Joseph McCarthy historical bot that can even find threads and post replies.
Don’t be fooled by Bernie Sanders — he’s a diehard communist As polls tighten and self-described socialist Bernie Sanders looks more like a serious contender than a novelty candidate for president, the liberal media elite have suddenly stopped calling him socialist. He’s now cleaned-up as a “progressive” or “pragmatist.” But he’s not even a socialist. He’s a communist. Mainstreaming Sanders requires whitewashing his radical pro-Communist past. It won’t be easy to do. If Sanders were vying for a Cabinet post, he’d never pass an FBI background check. There’d be too many subversive red flags popping up in his file. He was a Communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War. Rewind to 1964. While attending the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth wing of the Socialist Party USA. He also organized for a communist front, the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which at the time was under investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. After graduating with a political-science degree, Sanders moved to Vermont, where he headed the American People’s History Society, an organ for Marxist propaganda. There, he produced a glowing documentary on the life of socialist revolutionary Eugene Debs, who was jailed for espionage during the Red Scare and hailed by the Bolsheviks as “America’s greatest Marxist.” This subversive hero of Sanders, denounced even by liberal Democrats as a “traitor,” bashed “the barons of Wall Street” and hailed the “triumphant” Bolshevik revolution in Russia. “Those Russian comrades of ours have made greater sacrifices, have suffered more, and have shed more heroic blood than any like number of men and women anywhere on earth,” Debs proclaimed. “They have laid the foundation of the first real democracy that ever drew the breath of life in this world.” In a 1918 speech in Canton, Ohio, Debs reaffirmed his solidarity with Lenin and Trotsky, despite clear evidence of their violent plunder and treachery. Sanders still hangs a portrait of Debs on the wall in his Senate office. In the early ’70s, Sanders helped found the Liberty Union Party, which called for the nationalization of all US banks and the public takeover of all private utility companies. After failed runs for Congress, Sanders in 1981 managed to get elected mayor of Burlington, Vt., where he restricted property rights for landlords, set price controls and raised property taxes to pay for communal land trusts. Local small businesses distributed fliers complaining their new mayor “does not believe in free enterprise.” His radical activities didn’t stop at the *water’s edge. Sanders took several “goodwill” trips not only to the USSR, but also to Cuba and Nicaragua, where the Soviets were trying to expand their influence in our hemisphere. In 1985, he traveled to Managua to celebrate the rise to power of the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista government. He called it a “heroic revolution.” Undermining anti-communist US policy, Sanders denounced the Reagan administration’s backing of the Contra rebels in a letter to the Sandinistas. His betrayal did not end there. Sanders lobbied the White House to stop the proxy war and even tried to broker a peace deal. He adopted Managua as a sister city and invited Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega to visit the US. He exalted Ortega as “an impressive guy,” while attacking President Reagan. “The Sandinista government has more support among the Nicaraguan people — substantially more support — than Ronald Reagan has among the American people,” Sanders told Vermont government-access TV in 1985. Sanders also adopted a Soviet sister city outside Moscow and honeymooned with his second wife in the USSR. He put up a Soviet flag in his office, shocking even the Birkenstock-wearing local liberals. At the time, the Evil Empire was on the march around the world, and threatening the US with nuclear annihilation. Then, in 1989, as the West was on the verge of winning the Cold War, Sanders addressed the national conference of the US Peace Council — a known front for the Communist Party USA, whose members swore an oath not only to the Soviet Union but to “the triumph of Soviet power in the US.” Today, Sanders wants to bring what he admired in the USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua and other communist states to America. For starters, he proposes completely nationalizing our health-care system and putting private health insurance and drug companies “out of business.” He also wants to break up “big banks” and control the energy industry, while providing “free” college tuition, a “living wage” and guaranteed homeownership and jobs through massive public works projects. Price tag: $18 trillion. Who will pay for it all? You will. Sanders plans to not only soak the rich with a 90%-plus tax rate, while charging Wall Street a “speculation tax,” but hit every American with a “global-warming tax.” Of course, even that wouldn’t cover the cost of his communist schemes; a President Sanders would eventually soak the middle class he claims to champion. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right? Former mayoral advisers from Burlington defend their old boss. They note that Sanders was never a member of the Communist Party and deny he was even a small-c communist, even while acknowledging he named their city softball squad the “People’s Republic of Burlington” and the town’s minor league baseball team the “Vermont Reds.” What about those communist sister cities he adopted? “Bernie established them to support people-to-people exchanges which might support peace in the long run,” said Bruce *Seifer, who was one of Sanders’ central economic planners directing Burlington businesses to “reinvest their profits in the community.” In an interview, Seifer claimed that it was “no different than President Nixon opening relations with China.” Please. Sanders and his Sanderistas are all still pining for what Debs called “the Greater Revolution yet to come.” What’s revolting is how this hardcore commie’s campaign has gotten this far. With his ascendancy in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders is no longer just a fool; he’s now a dangerous fool. While it may be hard to hate the old codger, it’s easy — and virtuous — to hate his un-American ideas. They should be swept into the dustbin with the rest of communist history.
keep these posts coming RocketsLegend; they're making us all laugh! as for a bit of history, the good ole USA has had an established communist party since 1919. there's no need to fear an oncoming communist takeover.
Poor Rockets legend. Granted he pulled this from some winger website, but he is the type of guy who I assume thinks all Democrats incuding Hillary are socialists. You can run into these yahoos frequently in more rural or less educated parts of Houston even.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/KillerMike">@KillerMike</a> on how he ended up supporting Bernie Sanders: "Smoking a joint and reading his tweets." <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DemDebate?src=hash">#DemDebate</a> <a href="https://t.co/UszbIRTnVQ">pic.twitter.com/UszbIRTnVQ</a></p>— Deanna Pan (@DDpan) <a href="https://twitter.com/DDpan/status/688953174871420929">January 18, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
no way he could get elected after reading articles like that. idiots will be idiots and believe anything and everything they read.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/17/news/economy/oxfam-wealth/index.html The world's 62 richest billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population, according to a new report from Oxfam International. more in the article...
