What did Bernie say about Trump supporters?

[crazytown]

VICE, Dec 5, 2017
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjz5dw/bernie-sanders-tax-reform-tour-ohio

"The reason [Trump] won Ohio and many other states in this country... [is that] there are millions of people who are hurting," Sanders told the (crowd, before emphasizing that Trump campaigned on bald-faced lies—but, hey, we've all been tricked before. In my interview with him the next day, he elaborated on why it's so important to him to address Trump voters with compassion.

"It is clear that there is an element of Trump supporters who are racists, sexists, homophobes, and there’s nothing I’m going to say that’s going to appeal to them," he said. "But I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense. He said he was going to take on the establishment, and he was going to provide heealthcare to everybody. You know what, it’s pretty much what I said."

Trump RNC Acceptance:-

“I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country, and they are forgotten, but they will not be forgotten long. These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I AM YOUR VOICE”

And Trump was lying his head off:-

Link to tweet

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. The majority of Trump voters are solidly middle class or above, reliable Republican party voters,

and the majority of them don't regret their votes. Centering the white working class who were lured by racist dogwhistles is a shitty way to treat the Democratic base and illustrates the dangers of a campaign based on populism.

"But I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense."

No, Trump said things that were racist, offensive and straight-up lies. Everybody hurts, but many of us don't use that as an excuse to hurt others.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. How do his SUPPORTERS not SEE what this says?

For

fuck sake

[billpolonsky]

16. How did you not read the next paragraph?

"But I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense. He said he was going to take on the establishment, and he was going to provide healthcare to everybody. You know what, it’s pretty much what I said."

"The difference, of course, is that Sanders seems to have a plan to provide benefits like health insurance to large swathes of Americans. The question—which may not be answered until 2020—is whether Trump spoke to those voters because of his vague populist promises or because of his willingness to embrace the nastiest aspects of the culture war."

Kinda puts things in a different light don't it?

Fer fuck sakes....

[George II]

3. It appears to me that what Mayor Pete said was 100% correct.

[thesquanderer]

17. Yup. Pete and Bernie are in sync about this. Ro Khanna should keep his mouth shut. (nt)

[Autumn]

4. I never watched any of Trumps rallies. My brother said Trump used Bernie's speeches

as crib notes. Trump thought it sounded good and ran with them and tossed in some racism and a bit of patriotism and he bagged the Republicans. The difference is Bernie meant what he was saying.

[crazytown]

5. The difference was Trump was lying.

He doesn’t give a ...

[Autumn]

7. That's what I said, Bernie meant what he said in his speeches,

Trump just used parroted part of what Bernie has always spoken about.

[WeekiWater]

6. This is pretty bad. I can't be anymore polite than that.

"But I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense. He said he was going to take on the establishment, and he was going to provide heealthcare to everybody. You know what, it’s pretty much what I said."

[Voltaire2]

8. What exactly do you disagree with?

[Autumn]

9. What is bad about that? It's a fact that in some red states republicans live in poverty and lack

healthcare. And in other places, their jobs have gone away and they all face an uncertain financial future. Trump talked a lot about Bernie's campaign platform. Healthcare, draining the swamp looking out for people and other points. But the difference was, Trump didn't mean a fucking word of it.

[Go Vols]

12. Its what I got out of it

Trump repeated what people wanted to hear to get elected and then done none of it.

[Autumn]

20. That's just what Trump did. nt

[Trenzalore]

13. I would like to invite you to a blue collar bar in the rust belt of PA

You will quickly realize why those who supported Trump did and it isn't because he offered hope.

[Autumn]

18. As blue collar worker retired from manufacturing I would like to invite you to

the bar we liked to stop at after work. There are a lot of people in the rust belt who are Democrats. Not all blue collar workers are racist Republicans. What a ridiculous thing to say.

[crazytown]

14. When Bernie says 'Trump Supporters' I don't think he meant

Republican voters as a whole, I think he meant voters attracted to the Republican Party by trump.

[Autumn]

19. That's your belief but you don't know for a fact that he meant voters

attracted to the Republican party by Trump. A lot of voters in the rust belt chose to sit out the election. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were The Blue Wall until 2016. I don't think all those voters in what was the Blue Wall suddenly became racist. Democrats made gains and held critical seats in two of the Rust Belt states that Trump flipped in 2016. What happened with the racist voters that Trump won in 2016 in the 2028 midterms?

Before 2016, in six of the previous six presidential elections, Michigan and Pennsylvania had voted Democratic. In Wisconsin, it was seven of the previous seven. So long as these three states remained in the “blue” column, Hillary Clinton would be the next president.

We now know, of course, that this didn’t happen. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin each went “red.”
Two years later, these same three states appeared to swing back in the other direction.

Michigan: Voters in Michigan elected a Democratic governor, re-elected a Democratic U.S. senator, and picked up enough state Senate seats to end the GOP’s supermajority. Though some votes are still being counted, Democratic candidates also appear to be well positioned in the race for state attorney general and in the closely watched race in the 8th congressional district, which appears set to flip from “red” to “blue.”

Pennsylvania: Voters in Pennsylvania re-elected a Democratic governor, re-elected a Democratic U.S. senator, and erased the GOP’s supermajority in the state Senate. Democrats also appear to have flipped four congressional districts in the state from “red” to “blue.”

Wisconsin: Voters in Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor (for the first time in a while) and re-elected a Democratic U.S. senator. Though the race hasn’t been called, the Dem also appears to be ahead in the race for state attorney general.

This is not to say that Trump will necessarily lose these states in two years – a lot can happen in 24 months – but if the “blue wall” crumbled in 2016, Democrats took steps to put it back together again in 2018.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/democrats-find-their-footing-several-rust-belt-states

[WeekiWater]

15. "Trump talked a lot about Bernie's campaign platform."

Half dozen of one.....

[hedda_foil]

10. What he says is true. Many voted for Trump because he promised to provide for them.

It's likely that the majority of Trump voters did so because he shared their bigotry and encouraged their hatred of all those who were not like them. Those haters were probably the majority of his voters, but they were not the ones who would have voted for Bernie.

Both Bernie and Trump seem to have accurately recognized that millions of Americans had lost all chance of a decent job with decent pay that would provide their families with the middle class lives they had expected to live. Both proclaimed that they would fix the financial inequities that left them overworked, underpaid and without a way to improve their lives and those of their children. I believe that Bernie means everything he says, though whether he could achieve any of his goals seems unlikely. Trump knew how to sell snake oil and make his listeners believe it tasted like ambrosia. That's his one and only skill but he's very, very good at it. He knows exactly how to tap into people's vulnerabilities and that's what he did.

Of course he was lying and of course the vast majority of educated voters including everyone here at DU could see straight through the lies to his overwhelming narcissism, bigotry and venality. That's not the point.

The point is that many, many of those who voted for him were NOT that well educated and believed he was what he said he was. They weren't sophisticated people and he told them what they most wanted to hear. They absolutely believed he would make their health care better and cheaper. They completely believed that he would bring back the well-paying jobs they had lost when the plants moved to Mexico and China and God only knows where else. When he told them these lies, he touched them where they lived with their pain and fear and sense of loss. He made them feel validated gave them hope that he (alone) could make their lives better and punish those that they blamed for what they had endured for years.

They were hurting and they were vulnerable to Trump's faith healer brand of assurances. He told them they were right to be angry and frightened about losing their middle class status, much less the possibility of upward mobility for themselves and their kids.

In other words, Bernie is right about the fact that some of his voters went over to Trump because both were promising to treat them fairly and improve their lives. If the two candidates' voters were displayed on a chart, some subset of them -- maybe 20-25% -- overlapped. And it's that group who Bernie was referencing.

I voted for Bernie in the primaries and for Hillary in the GE. And I worried that she might lose to a man who displayed all the qualities of a fascist because she didn't seem quite to grasp the depth of the problem so many Americans face. Certainly the Russians and Cambridge Analytica put Trump over the top and Hillary still won the popular vote. But the inequalities at the heart of that election remain just as critical today. In fact, Trump has made sure they're even more central to voters choices/

One of the many, many reasons I'm supporting Warren is that she recognizes these issues are legitimate while also understanding what needs to be done to help remedy the imbalances the country is suffering from. I'm not supporting Bernie for many reasons, primarily his age and the fact that I don't think he has the skills to fix the issues he has diagnosed.

That's my take on the situation at least.

hedda

[Trenzalore]

11. I am sure there may exist Trump supporters like he hopes for

A majority are either racist assholes or religious zealots.