Bernie Sanders will not be the nominee. It is called MATH.

[RBInMaine]

Last edited Sun May 8, 2016, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Congratulations to Bernie on running a campaign that exceeded expectations, but he will not be the nominee. He is down by some three million popular votes and about three hundred pledged delegates. He doesn't have a real path to the nomination regardless of anything about super delegates. Forget that. This primary will end with Bernie having fewer popular votes and fewer pledged delegates, plain and simple. The Bernie folks are to be given great credit for all they've done and for their enthusiasm. But November will come down to Hillary versus Trump, and if the Bernie people are truly PROGRESSIVE, it should be a no brainer. Trump is a right wing nutjob, and Hillary is progressive. (And please, no tired comments that she isn't progressive by citing one or two less progressive positions. I am talking the big picture, and its undeniable. From the social issues to an invest-and-grow middle class economy, she is PROGRESSIVE.)

Bernie folks have invested very emotionally in that campaign. Disappointment is understandable. But reality must be faced. There is no real path for Bernie to the nomination. He would have to win the rest of the primaries with at least sixty five percent of the vote every time, and that isn't going to happen.

The question for the Bernie folks will be "Do you want the insane egomaniac Trump or not?" Again, if you really are progressive, it's a complete no brainer.

[Betty Karlson]

1. Clinton can't win without millennials: stop bashing them -

and stop denigrating their concerns. Those who hesitate (or are downright reluctant or opposed) to voting for Clinton do so because they don't believe SHE is a true progressive - and feel conned by Third Way and the rest of the DNC.

The big picture is of a candidate who has always said the progressive thing, right after all other available positions had been tried and tested - and worse: DONE.

[apcalc]

5. I see no millenial bashing in that post.

I love millenials. It makes me hopeful for this country to see their concern for ultimate equality for all, environmental awareness, eagerness to get it done. (the ones I know anyway 😉 .
I also understand the feelings to get it done NOW. Been there.

Please get out and vote. There is still significant opposition
'From the other side' who are actively working to suppress voting. They want to destroy the safety net, want to privatize schools and all government services, destroy the environment, roll back LGBT and civil rights, turn the country into a monotheistic theocracy, etc etc etc.

Millenials must vote in significant numbers, all of us must. Find out the rules for your state and get out and vote. We have got to encourage change that is as fast as possible. Please do not just sit and complain . Time is of the essence. Get out there now.

It is a long, constant battle. Positive change is hard enough alone, but when groups are actively working against what you believe ( Republicans in my thinking just now) it is brutally slow.
It can start with a rally, get enthused, vote! , register other like minded individuals.
Begin the process, and take it a step further.

It is true, change is incremental.

That works both ways. Negative changes in income distribution, climate, to name two , did not happen overnight. We can stop the negative slide and begin to move the meter in the other direction.

Please get out and vote. It matters.

[Betty Karlson]

13. I'll vote all right. But never for the status quo.

as for the Millennial-bashing: look at the question: "name one president from your lifetime you have voted for."

Millennials may have voted only for ONE president in their lifetime, and have disagreed with some of the compromises he made over the last eight years. Why wouldn't young voters want to express admiration for FDR, or for the other Roosevelt (who went monopoly-busting)? Take into account that our situation now bears some eery resemblance to the situation in the early 1930-ies - up to and includng the emergence of fascism (Trump) - as well as to the final days of the gilded age, with corporations running rampant.

[apcalc]

22. I loved FDR

and Eleanor, who helped him understand poverty, moved him in lots of good directions.

[CrowCityDem]

26. Everytime I hear that, I wonder why it goes unsaid that there is MUCH worse than the status quo.

[Betty Karlson]

27. You really don't get it, do you?

Right now we have an epidemic of suicides among young people. Right now we have mass-incarceration as part of conscious efforts to marginalise minorities. Right now we have stagnant and regressing wages. Right now we have the detorioration of a global eco-system. Right now we have too many wars.

The idea that we should be content with all of that because there could be twice as many suicides, more mass-incarceration, more blatant discrimination of every kind, the re-introduction of slavery or something close to it, uninhabitable parts of the earth, or a new world war, that idea is completely detached from reality. It is extremely elitist and arrogant, not to say acquiescing to evil, to vote for the continuation of all of the above, just as long as it doesn't get even worse.

Worse for whom? Because that kid that takes his own life, he already stopped hoping for a better future. Those lives that have been broken by arbitrary incarceration, they won't be won back by saying that it could have been worse. Be content with $7,50 an hour - it could have been $5 - is that how we arrive at living wages? It doesn't matter to the people in Flint that "at least, your house didn't drop into a sinkhole", because there is still inflamed water coming from their taps. And for all those thousands of Americans, and millions of Iraqis and Syrians who have lost their lives, it doesn't matter whether the war could have been scale worse: the result was their death anyway.

----

Try to think the above, whenever someone says they won't vote for the status quo. It will make you a better person.

[CrowCityDem]

29. It's when the choice is the status quo, or something worse. Saying 'never' doesn't help then.

[Betty Karlson]

31. That choice is not yet here.

Bernie Sanders can still be nominated. And no amount of defeatist "ha ha now you must vote for the lesser of two evils" nonsense from your side can change the fact that he SHOULD be nominated. Even you - implicitly - admit that the status quo is bad.And that it must be dscontinued.

[woolldog]

33. Betty

He can't still be nominated. The race is over and is frustrating as it may be to you, the majority of Dems have chosen someone else this time.

[Betty Karlson]

37. If he enters the nomination with more pledged delegates than Clinton, he should be nominated

no matter whom the superdelegates said they would support beforehand. And that is still a possibility.

As long as California hasn't had a chance to say whom they want as nominee, no clear majority exists at all.

[CrowCityDem]

35. No I didn't. I was merely framing the question to show the absurdity of saying "never".

[Betty Karlson]

38. "there is MUCH worse than the status quo" implies that the status quo itself is bad.

And if NEVER sounds so absurd to you, why has Camp Clinton been saying: "these solutions Sanders is offereing will (here it comes ) never happen"?

Clinton can't have her cake and then eat it as well as tell us that we should eat cake.

[CrowCityDem]

42. There's a difference...

between saying a particular policy is never going to happen, and saying that you would never support the status quo. One recognizes the reality that Congress has a certain makeup, while the other completely ignores that there can be worse alternatives where maintaining the status quo is actually a victory.

[Betty Karlson]

46. The status quo is just a set of particular policies.

So no, there isn't much difference, and your argument amounts to 'special pleading' - which is a rhetorical (and political) fallacy.

[AgingAmerican]

40. The political science definition of 'Conservative' is "Satisfied with the status quo"

She doesn't have to be right wing. She chooses to be right wing.

[CrowCityDem]

41. By that measure...

conservatives aren't conservative, since they want to completely tear down what this country stands for. There are dictionary definitions, and working definitions.

[AgingAmerican]

43. By the political science definition "Measure"?

Political science = reality

[Betty Karlson]

47. True: most self-identified conservatives are really reactionaries.

And Cliton, even when she (occasionally) identifies as a progressive or a moderate or both (having cake and eating again?): in spire of that identification, she is really a conservative in that she is happy with the status quo and working to preserve it.

[oasis]

44. A GOP Supreme Court will knock us out of status quo into status woe.

[AgingAmerican]

45. A GOP Supreme Court would knock us deeper into the status quo

[Betty Karlson]

48. ^this^ and +1000

[B Calm]

3. What kind of excuses will you give when Trump beats Hillary?

Using your math. .

[oberliner]

14. Why do you think that will happen?

Isn't Trump even more flawed?

[Festivito]

4. No, it's called ACCOUNTING that would project to a particular nominee.

The path for Bernie would now require several landslide victories.

I'm not sure which states do not allow Independents to vote in upcoming elections. This hurts Bernie. I hope that not including Independents in primaries, Independents that now comprise as much as 40% of voters, does not hurt Democratic party chances in the general election.

40% jumping to Trump would be catastrophic for Hillary, Democrats, and I'm sure it would be incalculably bad for our nation.

http://polichart.com/interactives/bern-path

[quaker bill]

6. yes, take what ever they win on their own

then add 500 to one side. it is math.

[Sancho]

7. The OP is correct; Hillary has won...

The primary can continue as part of a GE campaign, but bashing Hillary is a waste of time. The enemy is Trump.

Bernie gave us debates and some rallies.

Time to move on.

[merrily]

8. If so, then this OP of yours is even more pointless than the rest.

If he's lost, then you are, at best, beating a dead horse with a dull stick and being a sore winner. Neither is a good look or a good use of bandwidth.

[chwaliszewski]

9. +1

[beachbum bob]

10. Clinton now has 94 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the nomination

[Matariki]

24. Only counting super delegates.

which is lame.

[Vattel]

11. She is not a progressive.

Progressives don't support welfare reform. They don't want to keep marijuana use illegal. They don't support coups that remove a democratically elected president in Honduras. They are not cozy with Kissinger. Progressives don't want to punish immigrants who illegally cross a border because that is the only way they can feed their families. Progressives don't become pro-marriage rights in 2013. Progressives don't object to "parent 1" and "parent 2" replacing "father" and "mother" on official documents for the sake of same-sex parents. Progressives don't describe themselves as "against illegal immigrants." Progressives don't vote for the Patriot Act. Progressives don't support NSA programs that undermine privacy. Progressives don't expand fracking. Progressives do not vote for the Bankruptcy Bill. Progressives do not say that single-payer healthcare will never happen. Progressives don't praise the Reagans for their efforts to address AIDS. Progressives don't support the invasion Iraq. (No, she didn't merely vote for the IWR. She supported the invasion. On the floor of the Senate, she foolishly pushed all of Bush's bullshit talking points. On the eve of the war, she did not speak out against Bush's illegal ultimatum to Hussein. She implicitly endorsed it.)

Progressives are not hawks. (Besides supporting the invasion of Iraq, she pushed Obama for an even bigger troop increase in Afghanistan than he ultimately authorized. Worse than that, she pushed Obama to pursue violent regime change in Libya. She also refuses to recognize that Israel's bombing of Gaza was disproportionate, she voted against legislation to ban cluster bombs, she has rattled her sabre towards Iran for years, she supports a no fly zone in Syria and is apparently willing to thereby risk military engagement with Russia, and she supported violent regime change in Syria, urging Obama to arm Syrian rebels.)

Okay, I admit that one or two of these less progressive positions and actions wouldn't mean that, looking at the big picture, she is not, on balance, a progressive. But all of them?

[Karma13612]

30. +100 eom

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. Is voting for Hillary mandatory?

Right. I didn't think so.

She doesn't need us, anyway - or so we're told around here.

[DrDan]

15. it's also called "the will of the people"

[Lizzie Poppet]

16. "Hillary is progressive"

Stopped right there. Buh-bye...

[99Forever]

17. I used those winning Powerball numbers you gave me.

I'll still be having to work for my living this coming week and those following.

[grossproffit]

18. Math was put in place by the oligarchy. It was created to keep the masses in their place!

[eastwestdem]

25. If the BernieBros represent the masses --> this is a good thing.

Perhaps the oligarchy is smarter than commonly thought.

[PufPuf23]

19. The question for some may be "Do you want Hillary Clinton for 8 years or Trump for four years?"

I expect the number of Bernie Sanders supporters who would vote Trump approaches zero.

[grossproffit]

20. You'd be surprised. There have been more than a few loving Trump posts posted here.

[PufPuf23]

21. Pretty rare and likely someone disrupting for disruptions sake if at DU.

Traditional Democratic liberals aren't going to vote Trump.

[whistler162]

23. Guess it is that there new math thing

I keep hearing about.

[silvershadow]

28. Triangulation again? Just as I have been saying for months now- ever since the wheels

fell off of her bus. Let us first finish the primary, as our side isn't really into disenfranchising voters.

[Demsrule86]

32. He will lose New Jersey

And this pretty much ends any shot regardless of other primaries. He will likely lose Kentucky and California as well.

[pdsimdars]

34. I'm guessing you didn't do well in math. Or you're just lying.

[aikoaiko]

36. You're doing it wrong.

[LexVegas]

39. The losing side always mopes for a while. Let them have their grief. nt