Bernie Sanders

jillan

(39,451 posts) Fri May 20, 2016, 09:06 PM May 2016

104

Check out this Op-Ed from Kyrstal Ball. No wonder why she no longer works for msnbc. #FeeltheBern !!

I don't know why I was surprised seeing this from Krystal Ball, but it is one of the best op-eds on Bernie vs Hillary that I have read.

These are just excerpts, the points I thought really hit home. Much more at the link.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/krystal-ball/why-bernie-sanders-is-our_b_10064830.html

Why Bernie Sanders Is Our Best Chance to Beat Donald Trump

According to this logic, Bernie and his band of loyalists need to get pragmatic, face the music, have a reality check. Hogwash. Doesn’t anyone see what I see? Bernie Sanders is our best chance to beat Donald Trump and to prove to the young voters backing him that the Democratic party actually stands for something

Error in thinking #1: Sanders supporters care about the existing system.

.....you’re 24-years-old.... how much might you care about Harry Reid or Debbie Wasserman Schultz or some other Democratic partisan pearl clutcher’s pleas for party unity? These young voters are expected to back down for the sake of a party they tell pollsters they don’t identify with, in the service of nominating a presidential candidate who promises to maintain a system that has conspired to screw them at every turn.

Error in thinking #2: Uniting around Clinton is the best shot to beat Trump.

The very same people who condescendingly exhort Sanders followers to “do the math” on the nomination process seem to have left their own calculators at home when it comes to figuring out who can actually win this fall.

Here’s a reality check folks: Independents win elections. They like Bernie and they hate Hillary. That’s to say nothing of the fact that a majority of voters find Clinton untrustworthy, a reality I’m confident will not be helped by her general election “pivot” to yet another version of the real HRC. Will she pick Warren as her veep and double down on her newfound progressivism, or will she pick Tim Kaine and shift to the center to help assuage the fears of white men? The very fact that her team is so publicly mulling these choices reveals that they have no clue that their biggest problem isn’t making the proper electoral calculations, but rather that their entire campaign is based on electoral calculations.

Error in thinking #3: Winning is the only goal that matters.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I’m completely wrong about Hillary being a dreadful choice for November and that the moment voters discover Sanders is a socialist they will run into the loving arms of Donald Trump. Let’s pretend Hillary Clinton is a winner. Is this really what the Democratic party has been reduced to? Not fighting for the poor? Not standing up for the working people of this country? Not fighting with every breath to push the money and corruption out of a system that only works for a glossy few?

Make no mistake, the values that we say we stand for will be compromised by a Clinton nomination. After all, who will really believe we’re the party of the people when we unite behind the queen of the global glitterati? Who will buy that we’ll fight to get money out of politics when we back the most prolific political fundraiser in history? Who will take seriously that we’ll get tough on Wall Street when our nominee got paid big bucks to stroke their fragile egos?

So to the Bern-baby-Bern crowd I say, keep fighting. Your fight is worthy. Your cause is just. Your passionate existence irritates the Democratic powers that be because you remind them of all that they are supposed to stand for.