I've brought this up in the Feel the Bern thread but if Sander's ideas are moderated / compromised a lot how is that a revolution and not just a continuation of the moderate left Obama Admin. that liberals now despise?
I'm a mildly disappointed Obammaniac. It seems that he didn't push hard enough, often enough. But when you go back and look at some of his impassioned speeches, like the jobs bill speech or gun legislation speech, I'm just not sure how much you can get done from the bully pulpit against a gerrymandered and thoroughly owned Congress. A Democratic President needs to be in every contestable Congressional District campaigning; with hard policy positions not just platitudes.
It's different because Bernie will actually bring the more liberal ideas to the forefront. The problem is that liberals seem to be scared of actually espousing their beliefs, so in the general public's mind most of the issues have been defined by right wing politicians who misrepresent the beliefs and policy ideas of actual liberals. They've demonized it. We don't know how much Bernie would be able to actually get done, but for the sake of the "revolution" the actual issues will have a platform that they've never had before. I think that's one of the reasons why he's suppressed expectations so far. Everything he stands for has gotten the demonization treatment and people didn't have a balanced opinion. But Bernie has presented the issues in ways that allow people to say, "oh that isn't really so horrible of an idea..." They may go on to think it won't work, or whatever, but it's getting a fair exposure. That does a lot of good in helping create an environment where some of his ideas might actually pass. If the general perception is moved from the ideas are evil, or beyond any sort of reality into the realm that may be something valid in them, then it is more likely that the congress would work to get closer to what Bernie proposes. But bringing the issues in a positive light to a greater general audience is a valid goal for the revolution part. It's why he's different than Obama.
Absolutely...any "revolutionary" change is going to be incremental, and I realize the irony in that. He would definitely help move the conversation in that direction, not that he hasn't already.
Perhaps this is better in the Feel the Bern thread but I will point out again since you were an Obama supporter back in 2008 that he espoused many of the same ideas that Sanders' has. For Obama's trouble he's been demonized by many on the left when he's faced entrenched and almost unrelenting opposition. Once Sanders' actually has to try to figure out how to work the GOP and moderate Dems how likely are liberals going to be so understanding? Is just having a platform that raises the issues with little or very slow change enough to those who are calling this a revolution? Buck has already pointed about the irony of an incremental revolution. I have a hard time seeing how much of the Left has turned against Obama that they will be so willing to accept an incremental revolution.
If Bernie stoops to the anti-republican mantra such as our current sitting president, he will quickly fall out of favor with me. I dont see this with Bernie, which is why I believe he will do much better than Obama. Obama preferred the divide and conquer method which only energized the Republican base, resulting with the extremist in congress.
[Premium Post] I differ philosophically with Bernie on virtually every issue. The man has never held a position of responsibility in the real world in his life and he simply doesn't know what it's like to make hard decisions. He speaks from pure ignorance on financial matters, which despite this fact, the topic strangely dominates his speeches. He means well, but he simply lacks the education to know that what he proposes will actually have the opposite effect as his intentions. Those in poverty should be lifted up out of poverty to have better lives. That should not be done by dragging the responsible earning class down. Expand the pie, don't shrink it. Provide training and resources for the taker class to succeed. You know the old saying, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. But teach a man to fish and the Democrats lose another voter. But despite these differences, I do respect Bernie because he is authentic. He is pure in his history of advocating for the causes that he believes in. The same cannot be said of FBI Suspect Hillary Clinton. She flips and flops and changes her stance based on the prevailing political opinion of the day. She represents truly the worst in politicians. She puts herself above her country, she is dishonest, and she panders to people groups and popular opinion like a shape shifting reptile. In addition to this, she has serious health issues which will ultimately doom her run for President. More on this later. GOOD DAY
Guessing it is because this is a thread discussing republican candidates and as far as I know he isn't a republican candidate?
I agree - Bernie Sanders will not be able to be an effective president because the president essentially only has veto power when it comes to passing legislation with an empowered opposition. Republicans will never agree to increasing taxes on the upper brackets in order to bring more scientific investment to the U.S. and restore its place as the leader, restoration of social programs to be aligned with modern pricing, and much more. Clinton is the better candidate for that. Republicans will have a harder time stonewalling her and labeling her as a radical liberal with an agenda like they did Obama. Instead they will attack her character and investigate her for every thing they can think of. But I think that's better because what will happen is that ultimate the frustration will boil over and I think 8 more years of congress doing nothing will result in a massive shift away from the right and back to compromising.
FIFY, and yet still don't agree. If that's truly the case... maybe... In a do-nothing Congress and full of obstruction (soon likely be either side?), maybe what we need is a radical President. Someone that can get the public very passionately angry (Trump) or very optimistically engage (maybe Bernie) instead of sitting on the side (all moderates) not carrying much about what the government is doing.
On topic, Kasich defunds planned parenthood in Ohio. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/politics/john-kasich-planned-parenthood-bill/index.html Not limiting the tiny percentage of their work that relates to abortion, but 100% full stop defunding them. Will see if it helps him in the primary; definitely hurts his trying to be a uniting moderate for any general election though (not that he has any chance to represent the GOP at this point).
If as a Governor, you have to endorse funding for an organization that kills unborn babies and then carves them up and sells of their parts to the highest bidder in order to be a "uniting moderate," then clearly it is better not to be one of those. Kasich will not be the Republican nominee, nor should he be. But at least he has gotten this right, in any case.
As a moderate I strongly disagree with this. Many self-identified moderates very much care about what the government is doing. I've been called a contended moderate if anything I'm a frustrated moderate that so much our discourse is driven by extremist and so much of the electorate is swayed by extreme and frankly unrealistic rhetoric. As I've said this before I think much of this is that more people don't understand how our government works or history. Many tend to view things too much through the lens of ideology which is why Obama is simultaneously viewed from the Right as an uncompromising Leftist while from the Left as being too compromising to the point of the selling them out.
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Kasich is very unabashed that Christianity influences both his personal views but also his governing philosophy. While I might not agree with him on this instance I will give him credit as I think Christianity has also motivated him to reject other parts of GOP orthodoxy to embrace things like the ACA.
Obama in 2008 came in with a revolution that wasn't really based around ideas (thought there were some) as much as finding common ground and using that to work together. I loved the idea of getting things done and thought that revolutionary strategy would work. It was the whole new concept of government that was Obama's revolution. Bernie's revolution isn't about that. It's almost entirely about ideas and policies. His revolution isn't about changing how Washington works, it's about actually showing that his policies have some merit. Obama had to persuade members of his own party to go along with him, and compromise with him. That's because the words "liberal", "socialist", and "progressive" had been made to seem like evil concepts that would tarnish a candidate with those labels and make them unable to keep their job. What Sanders is doing is removing the negative stigma from those labels. When those labels in and of themselves aren't valid tools, and policies will actually have to be debated on their merits then obstruction may not be quite as easy to take to the extreme. That may not even be Sanders goal with his revolution, but the mere fact that his revolution is based completely around policy and he's being given a stage to present a balanced explanation of those ideas, then he can achieve the kind of revolutionary victory that people want. It's basically a way of removing some of the weapons from the opposition to get them to work together more. The weapons being removed are the negative hype around the words "liberal" and "socialist"
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kasich: "many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up for me.” <a href="https://t.co/M70FE7GIDs">https://t.co/M70FE7GIDs</a></p>— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/701808775968256001">February 22, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
