What the hell, Yang supporters??

[Blue_Tires]

Link to tweet

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I don't get that.

I expected it of the Bernie bros, but Yang seems like a pretty rational guy who wouldn't attract a lot of fanboys.

[maxsolomon]

2. Maybe they're not Democrats

as much as they're the "Bothsidesicans"?

[PatSeg]

7. That was my reaction as well

[Recursion]

25. I think they're mostly non-voters

I don't like that huge block of red, but I think it's almost entirely people who will not vote rather than vote R

[The Mouth]

3. Odd, indeed

Every Yang supporter I know of is "blue no matter who".

[Demsrule86]

4. I expected it from the Sanders crew, although I am sorry I was right...

but Yang supporters...I didn't see that coming. He has few supporters though and will not hurt us much. Sanders supporters could throw the election to Trump...that is more worrisome.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. I hope you're not assuming Sander's supporters are ALL democrats?

If there's something about him that pulls a moderate or even a republican lite, to our side for him, that's no guarantee that voter is sold on our platform and other candidates.

You can assume fair weather betrayal all you want, but by itself that poll doesn't show it.

[Demsrule86]

21. Oh please, I have been on twitter...seen the blackmail going on already.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. Yeah, everyone on Twitter is what they seem and no one would intentionally

smear distractions there to divide us.
No one.

Not even Russians. It's beneath them.

[Demsrule86]

35. Justice Democrats have already said that...and sure some are BS'ers or even Russians...but

some I recognize from last time.

[Hortensis]

52. Of course not. His base won't vote for any Democratic

nominee except him. Last time 24% of his primary voters voted Trump or third party (the other 3/4 WERE solid Democrats). This time, with fewer mainstream Democrats interested in Sanders, the "no" percentage has risen to 31% or more on this poll, but that should be higher now relatively speaking, suggesting he's lost some of his "die, Democrats, die" base to Yang.

The "Yang gang" reportedly averages young, and Yang is tech savvy and playing them with their own youthful memes. What those are we can surmise from these data.

[AtheistCrusader]

53. Time to stop thinking of them in terms of derision, and more in terms of votes denied to trump.

We have months to think of how to win them over, rather than push them away.

[redqueen]

55. Winning them over doesn't seem to be a goal here.

More like browbeating / guilting people into getting in line.

It's an interesting choice of methods. Not the one I'd choose.

[Hortensis]

58. Of course we'll win the "depends," and the majority would

do their duty as citizens without any special babysitting at all these days.

But the smaller percent, the "no"s? They're very different, and they're not new. In every election people like this claim to hold liberal values but vote against the liberal Democratic Party, making up whatever excuses they need to justify it in their own minds. Nothing we have ever done changes that. Thomas Jefferson learned that trying to talk to them was a waste of his time.

Again, in 2016 while the 3/4 of Sanders supporters who were Democrats voted Hillary in the GE, roughly half of the other quarter we're talking about voted directly for Trump and the others third party against Democrats. What kind of people do that?!

100% of this fringe faction do, who voted to sabotage progressive government and democracy itself in order to defeat Democrats and are promising to do it again.

Take them seriously enough to believe they mean it and move on, because they do.

[The Mouth]

61. "What kind of people do that"

We know very well the answer to that.

People who essentially hate the two party system.

People who want to blow the whole thing up.

Some people who are technically Democrats hate the DLC, all mainstream candidates and most of the platform. Some people who are technically Republicans feel the exact same way, except it's the RNC that they regard as full of shit.

I imagine, and hope, that a good chunk of them are sorry about seeing Trump in office. But there are just always some people that want chaos, who hate the status quo. There is ZERO reason to vote third party in the primaries, Green or Libertarian you know what your nominee is going to stand for, so why not fuck around in the D or R primaries?

I don't take it as a reflection on Bernie, except to the degree I wish he'd disavow the nutters and thugs more quickly.

[Hortensis]

64. Imo, you give them too much intellectual credit, but yes.

The excuses adopted are to dress up the reasons, which probably most don't understand. For those, we read up on what political psychologists have to say, and one thing is that they're not high in insight and self awareness. And I'm sure many who refused to vote against Trump didn't intend to elect him, just didn't consider what the effects of their own behavior could be, and still don't.

As for Sanders, I'm sure he despises these people. But he chose to run a populist campaign, and it's impossible to do that without drawing ALL the people drawn by negativism, antagonism, resentful opposition. Not that he would want to give any of them up. Remember, those famous nutters front for the thousands they express the feelings of. And that's another problem, btw. Studies show that leaders come to reflect their followers, not just vice versa.

Sanders is dealing with his image problems with nutters, though, by avoiding scrutinizing media amap (except for photo ops and videos of controlled events) and telling his followers the media are "rigged" against him. Instead, he's developed a very sophisticated system that delivers his messages directly to many millions of voters, bypassing scrutiny and analysis.

[The Mouth]

66. Great insights

Quite agree.

Personally, I place a lot of the blame on the two party system. When you only have two people, each disliked even by a lot of the people on 'their' side of the spectrum, unhealthy things result. But it is what it is.

[Hortensis]

68. Bad and good with everything, right? For 70 years

the two parties, with all their faults were more mixed, and by occasionally working together when needed they kept extremists and populist wannabe leaders on both sides in check. Sorting out is enabling extreme divisions, and that may finally overcome the dynamics that have supported them. I don't care how many parties we have as long as it functions as well.

I grew up in those times, though, always very poor, homeless often, but education was very inexpensive and social mobility awesome, albeit I was female. Nevertheless, all any modestly capable person had to do to have his own piece of the American dream was get a modest skill and take one of the mostly plentiful full-time jobs and keep it. Extremism couldn't grow most of the time because insecurity and anxiety were most often relatively low. Instead, that was the era that grew a large middle class,and turned it multiracial and at least bigender and also held great wealth accumulation and exploitation somewhat in check until too many voters were persuaded to vote to eliminate the regulations that protected them, instead of upgrading and expanding them.

So, number of parties, whatever. I think we should copy and improve on what our grandparents did well and avoid the mistakes, which we've learned from. So many in these times of great change were new ones. Like that the internet can be used as a giant weapon to destroy democracy instead of inevitably creating a golden age of electoral wisdom.

[Blue_true]

49. We need to get people that didn't vote in 2016 to vote.

2017, 2018 and 2019 elections are encouraging. Looks like Trump's evil and craziness has pushed more people off the sidelines. We likely won't need the Bernie Bros if we get out the vote. My guess is the Bernie Bros sat out the Generals of 2018 and 2019 and 2017 (special elections and Generals), so when we get turn out, they can't hurt us.

[Sloumeau]

5. I believe that a lot of Yang supporters are young and new voters...

so they like Yang, but have this, "I'm still learning, I'm open to different things" kind of attitude. A lot of them are not like say, Warren and Biden supporters--Mostly people who are hardcore Democrats.

[exboyfil]

28. Well the young ones better get their act together

because we just saw Pence happily sitting behind a preacher calling gay people demon possessed (on the WH channel even) and Trump happily cavorting with folks who want to take your most fundamental rights away.

I am an old white male heterosexual, and I am scared to death of another four years of this crap. I worry everyday for the lives of my daughters, my conservative son in law, and my nieces and nephews.

[world wide wally]

6. It becomes more and more apparent that a lot of Bernie supporters are just into hero worship

If they actually thought about policy and humanity, they would see the danger and support anyone running against Trump.
Grow up!

[Autumn]

10. 16% of Bernie's young supporters compared to 42% of Yang's young supporters . Damn that Bernie

[mathematic]

34. Did you miss that huge "depends on the candidate" for sanders?

Translated into english that means "bernie or bust".

[Cuthbert Allgood]

36. No. That would be the red portion.

The "depends on the candidate" means that it depends on the candidate. So some yes and some no.

Reading comprehension really isn't that hard in this instance.

[mathematic]

40. Reading the text isn't the hard part of reading comprehension

It's the subtext that people don't get. Which is why I cleared it up. You're welcome.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

43. You are absolutely just making up that subtext.

There were 3 choices. Yes, no, depends on the candidate.

There is no subtext there. Those are all mutually exclusive. You could argue that people are lying, but that isn't subtext.

But you continue making yourself happy if that's what gets you through a Friday.

[mathematic]

45. Wow the subtext isn't literally in the text? Tell me more.

On second thought, don't. Bernie bros were calling warren a snake just last week. I don't need to hear any more of that garbage.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

46. If "No" wasn't an option, you could certainly argue that "No" is the subtext to "Depends."

But since "No" is an option, you can't say that that actual textual option is a subtext for another option.

Again, you could say that people are lying and saying "Depends" when they mean "No" but that would mean:
1. you are claiming they are lying and you have no way to prove that, and;
2. you would have to walk back your doubling down on this nonsense you are making up.

And the BernieBro shit gets old, just so you know. You can't just shit on people because they disagree with you and then act all shocked because they don't just fall in line. For the record: I'll vote for whomever the Dem nominee is. But when you have people not necessarily strong committed voters, your shitty attitude goes a long way to having them decide to not vote.

[redqueen]

47. +1

And we should have learned this by now.

Don't alienate potential voters. You don't have to kiss ass, just don't be an asshole. It's not hard.

[Autumn]

48. Every Bernie supporter I know is vote blue no matter who. Many of Bernie's

supporters are not democrats and they have no loyalty to the Democratic party. People who aren't members of a party have no loyalty to a party. If you want people who are not members of your party to vote for one of your candidates you give them a reason to vote for your candidates. If you want them to join your party you show them that their concerns are important to you. "We can't do that", or "that's not going to happen" isn't going to get their votes. It's really that simple. Those non Dems have found a reason to vote for Bernie and Yang, they address their concerns and their issues. It's up to the other candidates to reach them and draw them in. They either do or they don't. That's something from volunteering on campaigns that I learned a lot time ago.

Translated into English that means that it's up to the politician and the party to get those peoples votes. They don't owe their vote to anyone.

[rogue emissary]

8. It isn't surprising since Yang's campaign slogan is "not Left not Right but forward."

[Blue_Tires]

9. Really? That's unoriginal as all fuck...

That slogan dates back to the 50s iirc??

[rogue emissary]

12. Most of his clips and commercials closes with the slogan.

[Blue_Tires]

13. It's still stolen from some other long-ago campaign

If I have time I'll dig it up

[rogue emissary]

18. Don't doubt that's it's stolen and not a fan of it.

Having a campaign slogan that suggests the left is just as bad as the right is disqualifying in my book.

[SharonClark]

11. Because they are Yang supporters

Not Democrats.
That could be true of some of the supporters of all our candidates.

[obamanut2012]

15. +1

[AtheistCrusader]

17. But that obvious point doesn't help the sour grapes narrative.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. You would. I would. Almost everyone here will.

But it's dangerous for you to assume a supporter of a particular candidate is automatically the supporter of an entire party.

It's a silly assumption, actually.

[Demsrule86]

22. Well let me just say that any who don't vote for the Democratic nominee are supporting Trump and can

fuck off...they join the ranks of other idiots who have enabled right wing judges and kneecapped the progressive movement for years.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. I agree with the reality of that, but shouting it from the rooftops, is not going to help

convert them down the road.

IF you've already got an in-road, exploit it, don't rub purity tests in their faces.

[Demsrule86]

31. There is no in-road with these folks other than elect their candidate which I will not do.

The end result will be to move the party to the right in order to remain competitive which is a damned shame.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. I'm not 100% sure you've thought this through.

Do you place Biden left or right of Sanders on most of our platform?

[Demsrule86]

39. Biden is a progressive. Sanders and Warren are definitely to the left...and we win in the

middle...always have. And as I look at the Senate, the House...reflect on the midterms and the most recent elections...it is still true. We won't win if we run left which is why I support Biden...I like his ideas and think some have a chance of becoming law if we get the Senate and some we can use EO for...see how the right wing courts deal with this. Warren is my second choice just because I like her guts...not voting on policy this year...I want to win.

[Demsrule86]

42. There are the ones with the purity tests...but I never post anything bad on social media except

against Trump..and sometimes racist scumbags on twitter.

[tiredtoo]

20. My thoughts on this topic

All candidates have supporters who will not support anyone but their candidate. In the Obama/Hillary era there were something like 18 percent of Hillary supporters who did not vote for Obama.
Rather than criticize these folks we should be working on pulling them into our tent. One way to do that would be to stop posting negative posts about any candidate, this only pisses the candidates supporters off and will have only negative affects. They will either not vote for another candidate or create a negative post about your candidate, maybe both.
My current candidate is Elizabeth Warren but when i watched the debate a few weeks ago, my thought was, I could vote for anyone on this stage.
United we stand, divided we fall.

[Demsrule86]

24. Sorry not wasting my time...if Trump isn't motivation enough than nothing I can say or do

will help. This will pull the party to the right as we are going to have to compete for more moderate to right voters to make up for those deserting us on the left... who must have their way or they take their ball and go home.

[AtheistCrusader]

33. We will regret this mentality if our candidate falls short in November.

I can't take another four years of this shit.

[Demsrule86]

37. I can't take responsibility for what others do...it was really too bad of Sanders to include Stein

voters...which makes what they did OK and it isn't. I will work my ass off and vote for the nominee and hope we can beat Trump...I saw today, he is at 49% so pretty depressed about this. But we need an EC win and if we choose our candidate wisely, I think we can do it...he/she must appeal to the Mid West.

[tiredtoo]

44. Those on the left deserting us were never with us

We should not expect their support. As far as moving to the right, we have been doing so for 30-40 years. That is what got us in the position we are in now.
Today's democrats are further right than Dwight D. Eisenhower was.

[redqueen]

57. Let's review

The party has been moving right (fiscally) for 40 years.

But those on the left were never with us?

[tiredtoo]

62. A little more detail

Yes, the party has been moving to the right for years. Today's Democrats are further right than Dwight Eisenhower.
"Those on the left were never with us"
I meant, the recent entrance of Bernie supporters (2016) were for the most part Bernie supporters. Much like the Nader supporters of years gone by. Had Bernie ran as a third party candidate, his supporters would have voted for him. They did not like the status quo Dems for various reasons. So in effect, they were never with us, they were with Bernie.

Also in the Obama-Hillary race, 18 percent of the Hillary voters did not vote for Obama in the general election. Had Obama lost the general would the blame go on the Hillary supporters?

[redqueen]

63. I'm just saying, if the party hadn't decided to go all third way,

maybe a lot of them would have always been with us.

[tiredtoo]

65. ok we are in agreement.

If my understanding of third way is the same as yours.

[redqueen]

56. That's not true. What you say and do can help - or hurt. nt

[Demsrule86]

41. I would vote for anyone on the stage too.

[Recursion]

23. Lots and lots of first time voters who would otherwise stay home

That's what you see in the online spaces, at least, a whole lot of "I've never even registered to vote before because I didn't think it mattered."

[Fiendish Thingy]

26. There are more Libertarians than Democrats in the Yang Gang nt

[redqueen]

27. Source? nt

[Cuthbert Allgood]

38. You think libertarians support a Freedom Dividend?

That seems WAY too big of government or libertarians.

[Recursion]

50. Milton Friedman supported it

It's an idea with an odd constellation of support across the political spectrum

[dawg]

51. Yes, but I expect Yang to enthusiastically endorse our eventual nominee if it isn't him.

I may be naive, but to me he seems like the kind of guy who sincerely wants what's best for the country. I just think his ideas are a little ahead of their time.

[Bradical79]

60. Yang already stated as much

I think he just draws a lot of his support from the usual crowd that is typically disgusted with politics, and are non-voters(or protest voters). He's not a serious contender, and these "No" people make up 2% or less of the total Democratic primary crowd.

[aikoaiko]

54. Some of our "alternative" are bringing in nontraditional support,

...but they might not have any allegiance or love for the Democratic Party.

[Tarc]

59. 42% of the "Yang Gang" are essentially cryptofascists.

Is why.

[redqueen]

67. Nah they're just apolitical or republicans.

They're the type that hates politics and politicians, and only got involved because Yang has the same outsider pull that Trump had, or they're republicans who think Yang is better than Trump.

What would make you think they're closet fascists?