Put yourself in Bernie's shoes

Many of the comments I have seen here have really reflected people's hopes and aspirations (in some cases bordering on delusional), but I think it would be useful to put ourselves in Bernie's shoes and ask what we have done. I will present the options as I see them.

1) Do not endorse Clinton before the convention vote. Carry on. Go through the motions, lose. Endorse Clinton after losing at the convention. This might not have been a bad option, but he would have probably lost the platform concessions he was able to get. These are not worth much, but they are something.

2) Go through the convention, lose, and run third party. The likely scenario is that he would get about 20% of the vote in the general election, maybe 25%, and Trump would win the election. Those that think he would win running as a Green are guilty of magical thinking. Sanders really does not want Trump to win.

3) Go full bore on election fraud. I believe that there was serious election fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections and in a number of governorship elections, senatorial elections and congressional elections as well as this election. However, if Bernie suggested that some of the Democratic primaries were rigged, the corporate media would laugh him out of town. They will not take election fraud seriously, because it is outside of the Overton window and proof of election fraud would reveal that the corporate media are really bad at their job. If you want to prove election fraud you have to the goods in triplicate or quadruplicate and they have to be unassailable. Statistical arguments will not cut it. Sanders does not want to be written off as a delusional old socialist so this was not an option.

None of these options are very good so he chose another bad but not quite so bad option:

4) Endorse with a speech that forced HRC to at least mouth the talking points that he has been making, while keeping the campaign alive in case the HRC campaign implodes. This option sucks but it is not as bad as the others from Sanders' point of view. It still keeps a very tiny bit of hope alive, it does not help Trump, and it makes HRC put herself on record as favoring Sanders' talking points. She will still do what she wants, but her speech will at least be on the record.

In the absence of magical unicorns with golden wings, Bernie had several bad choices and salvaged what he could. His body language said he was not happy, but he did what he thought he had to do.

Now a word about the Democratic party. The leadership of the Democratic Party is awful and the Democratic Party has been as responsible for the miserable turn to the right in this country as the Republicans. So does Bernie think that buying DWS donuts will make everything OK. No. Bernie is no fool. However, the Democratic party can change. Right wingers systematically took over the Republican Party starting with the loss in the 1964 election and made it into a different, much worse, party. There is no hope for DWS, Rendell, Reid, etc., but Bernie is calculating (maybe just hoping) that we can change the Democratic Party, making these assholes irrelevant. We need to use our brains more than our emotions and we need to get off our asses at the state and local level to replace incompetent conservadems with more competent people that don't worship corporate interests. Whether this is a better strategy than building up the Green party is not clear to me, but they are not completely mutually exclusive

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Meteor Man's picture

It's Bernie's life. It's Bernie's legacy. Nobody but Bernie knows what his genuine options are better than Bernie.

If Bernie thinks he can do more good from inside the party structure more power to him. Maybe Bernie and Lizzie Warren can team up.

It's all a crap shoot. Bernie might be rolling Snakeyes or trip Sevens by staying with the Dems. Time will tell.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Roy Blakeley's picture

In the UK the Labour party is going through some of the same things, with Corbyn being popular among the rank and file but the Parliamentary Labour Party (in many cases corporate neolibs) against him. The left parties in the US and Europe have become largely pseudoleft parties who impose austerity and reduce worker's rights. In Europe many countries are multiparty and there are more genuinely left parties in many countries. It is easier to start a new party in many European countries because there is some form of proportional representation and that allows new parties to have impact sooner. People will vote for a new party if they don't think it will be a wasted vote.

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After listening to Bernie for ten years and learning about him, his life, what he's accomplished, what he stands for, I never thought he'd turn out to be a politician just like the rest of them. I take responsibility for being duped again.

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featheredsprite's picture

I cannot play that game and have scooted over to the Greens as a safe haven.

The best plan I can come up with involves supporting a lot of progressives for Congress and then giving Jill enough votes to force the election into the House.

In contingent elections [in the House of Representatives], each state gets one vote. Period. So Montana has just as much influence as NY.

Let us support progressives for Congress and let us fight for those sparsely populated states.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

Roger Fox's picture

Politics is a game and Bernie knows how to play.
I cannot play that game and have scooted over to the Greens as a safe haven.

You just showed a lot of strength in that comment. I commend your intellectual honesty, thank you. I'm knee deep in campaigns, 14 since 2004. Sometimes I know whats going to happen, but mostly i engage in conjecture.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

darkmatter's picture

The likely outcome of a Sanders/Stein run on the Green ticket is a Trump win.

Okay, then what? You have a wounded Democratic party, and the end of the Clinton era, unless Hillary would want to run a third time in 2020 (wouldn't put it past her, but doubt she would "clear the field"). On the other side, you would have a third party on the national stage with a disproportionate number of young voters. Unlike in 2000, I doubt the Green party would recede into the background; there is just too much neoliberal water under the bridge by this point. I think the Democratic party is too corrupted to make renovating it more cost-effective than abandoning it and starting afresh.

As for (4), you have to game that out as well. So in this scenario, we will have a deeply untrusted, unpopular Hillary as president. What would be her chances of successfully defending in 2020? I think it would be an uphill climb. So we're avoiding Trump now just to give a more savvy right-wing con artist a leg up in 2020? How is that better than starting the difficult work of building a real choice and a real alternative now?

As for your analogy about the post-Goldwater changes in the Republican party, be careful. The transformation was not nearly as total as you seem to believe. The mid-twentieth-century Republicans were anti-New Deal, anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-union, and so on. They were the party of Wall Street and big business. THAT NEVER CHANGED. They just discovered a strategy to exploit racism and religious fervor in order to gain office, and once there, they happily chipped away at the New Deal, etc., and they could do more and more of it year after year.

Conversely, the ideological divide between the progressive left and the neoliberal DNC is significantly wider than the difference between Madison Ave. conservatism and its southern-fried counterpart ever was. In my view, the distance between the corporate and progressive wings is so vast as to make the "reformation" of the party a futile effort. Just my view, but I think the worst outcome is to find out in 2023 that we should have been building a new party all along. There is no law that says a party must last forever. Parties, like people, are born, live, and die.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

With respect to your first point, there are many bad Democrats that would run in 2020 if Trump wins in 2016. They are, in general, not as crooked as the Clintons but their policies are just as bad. A possible exception would be Elizabeth Warren who seems to be positioning herself to run. She would be a better President than most other realistic options but I was very disappointed in how quickly and vigorously she threw her support to Clinton.

With respect to your second point, it is worth remembering that there was a 95% marginal tax rate under Eisenhower. (This rate was actually cut by Kennedy.) The 1956 Republican platform was incredibly progressive by today's standards, strongly supporting social security and union rights. Nixon signed some of the most important environmental legislation in history and even entertained the elimination of poverty with a negative income tax. Even Goldwater was very pro-environment. The Paul Ryan types were pretty rare. They began to proliferate in the late 1960s, not in office but in party events and jobs and gradually took over. I know some of these people from college. They went from being seriously out of step with the times to positions of power in state parties and the judiciary.

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supported a guaranteed basic income in the form of negative tax rates.

God, how far right we have moved.

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Roger Fox's picture

Ikes first year was 92%, there after 91%
http://taxfoundation.org/sites/default/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_hi...

Kennedy never dropped the top rate. LBJ did with the 1964 Revenue Act. 91% to 77% in 1964, 77 to 70% in 1965.

And Nixon never signed a piece of anti labor legislation.
Yes, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, OSHA, EPA. Nixon was our last liberal President.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

CaptainPoptart's picture

What your analysis ignores in assuming a Trump win, is that it would not be a three way race. If Bernie were to run as a Green with Jill as a running mate, Trump would definitely lose a significant segment of the never Trump vote to the Libertarian ticket. It would be a true four way race which in any case would shatter the Democratic Party and build the Greens into a national party in a single election cycle. Whether he could win the White House or not is another story, but it would change American politics forever and is thus worth attempting.

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I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings

darkmatter's picture

If you have an old structurally unstable house, you tear it down and rebuild. If you have good "bones" and an acceptable floor plan, you renovate. Replace or renovate?

That's the question. I'm now in the "Replace" camp....

In fact, I wish I had been in the Replace camp since 2000, but year after year, I kept thinking that finally this year we would see the Renovate finally take shape. But the roof never stopped leaking, if you know what I mean. Bernie was the last chance for renovation, and look what they did to him. It's so sad.

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NonnyO's picture

It would never hold the outside decoration long enough to do any good. Purify the rotten frame with fire..., and build from the ground up, but make sure the foundation is cement, not more timbers stuck in the mud.

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I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ..., where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. — President John F. Kennedy, Houston, TX, 12 September 1960

Roy Blakeley's picture

I doubt that Bernie wants to tear the house down and I doubt he could really tear it down. However, the mess may fall apart in any case. The economy is not stable and people are pissed. The working class has been screwed for decades. The outcome of a collapse is probably more likely to be fascism than progress, but I understand where you are coming from.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

Bernie as a Green candidate would take more votes from Clinton than Trump. He would also inspire a lot of people to vote that would stay home if he doesn't run, but there would certainly be a net shift away from Clinton. The probability of Bernie winning would be very small. Bernie has repeatedly said that he believes a Trump win would be awful. If Trump were not to win, the winner would almost certainly be Clinton with no net benefit in this cycle but a larger Green vote should be beneficial down the road. There have, however, been recent third parties (Ross Perot received 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992 putting Bill Clinton into office) but the system is stacked against them. Having said that I will vote Green if they make it on to the ballot in my state. Trump will lose quite a few votes to the libertarians in any case.

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CaptainPoptart's picture

that Clinton would be the top vote getter, and I'm not sure I agree with you. Bernie's trajectory is a constant upward line and as more people get to know him they support him. He would undoubtedly take more votes from Clinton, but would also chip away at Trump's base, while the Libtards with Weld on the ticket will siphon off middle of the road Rethugs. The net result is that Bernie may very well be the most popular candidate out there, third party or not. He has the polling numbers that back that up. Unfortunately that doesn't take into account the probable voter fraud that would occur, and in any event it won't happen, but is interesting to think about.

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I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings

Many of us Bernie supporters will vote for Trump now. Sanders and Trump have much in common politically.

My guess is Trump gets a substantial number of Bernie voters and Hillary gets what she deserves.

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is a bad thing. Bernie absolutely should have threatened to run third party if his supporters were disenfranchised by the establishment and the rigged primaries, the same way that Trump did when the Republican elites threatened to undercut him at the convention. When cheating is going on, you absolutely cannot ignore it. Haven't we learned anything from decades of dealing with Republicans? You always fight back, no matter what, otherwise your opponent shapes the narrative and controls the message. If Hillary was being cheated, do you think she would have just ignored it? That's how you turn yourself into Al Gore, circa. 2000. Bernie calculated that a discussion of the issues was more important than talking about what was actually going on with the process, which was probably a mistake, since you can't hope to win fairly when the election has been rigged. By not talking about election fraud, Bernie not only hurt his own campaign, but he also made us look like kooks and conspiracy theorists for pointing out repeated, documented instances of disenfranchisement.

Also, losing a presidential campaign while sticking to your principles and standing up for your beliefs is one way to spark a massive sea change in this country. Look at Goldwater. He lost to LBJ, but won huge victories for conservatives on every other level, including shaping the idea of what conservatism needed to be, which laid the foundation for Reagan. His campaign, sparked by grassroots activism, ushered in a wave of new blood into local and state offices. Bernie is following that model to some degree, but I think his endorsement of HRC yesterday undercut his message. You absolutely cannot be so afraid to lose an election that you sacrifice your core values and throw in with someone who is antithetical to your principles. Bernie shouldn't have endorsed someone like Hillary for the equivalent of table scraps. Yes, Trump is dangerous, but so was Romney, Bush, Reagan and every single other Republican for the last 50 years. Liberals have held their noses and voted for Humphrey, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama since the 1970s with the promise that we would work toward more progressive candidates in the future if we agreed to vote against the Republicans. What has that gotten us? One only needs to look at Bernie's endorsement of Bill Clinton in 1996 to see that many of the things he feared from a Republican presidency actually began to happen under a Democrat:

Medicare and Medicaid would certainly be destroyed, and tens of millions more Americans would lose their health insurance. Steps would be taken to privatize Social Security, and the very existence of public education in America would be threatened. Serious efforts would be made to pass a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, affirmative action would be wiped out, and gay bashing would intensify. A flat tax would be passed, resulting in a massive shift in income from the working class to the rich, and all of our major environmental legislation would be eviscerated.

Bernie also said:

Do I have confidence that Clinton will stand up for the working people of this country—for children, for the elderly, for the folks who are hurting? No, I do not. But a Clinton victory could give us some time to build a movement, to develop a political infrastructure to protect what needs protecting, and to change the direction of the country.

Were we able to build that infrastructure? No. We were undercut by the Democratic Party itself, establishment politicians who vote the party line, and Third Way Corporatist Dems. By endorsing and assisting in a Democratic victory, we strengthened the people we were fighting against. We got triangulating Bill Clinton who enacted Republican policies for four more years when he wasn't busy being impeached, then we got the war criminal George W Bush for 8 years anyway. If anything, a Democratic loss in November would make taking over the party easier.

The Left will be blamed for any electoral defeat, no matter what. So who cares? McGovern is still being used as a scapegoat by the Democratic elites. You'll never get what you want so long as continue to vote for candidates that do not reflect your values. I'd rather lose with Bernie than win with Hillary any day of the week.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

Goldwater lost massively and took huge numbers of Republicans down with him. There were massive Republican losses at all levels. The loss did get rid of lots of moderate Republicans which paved the way for the extremist takeover. The current right-wing Republicans are really not Goldwater Republicans by the way, and Goldwater actually supported Bill Clinton in 1996. The current group are Ayn Rand Corporate Republicans that exist to transfer money to their wealthy supporters.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

that your basic point is quite valid. I would also say that I could not endorse Clinton as he has done. The words would not come out of my mouth. Bernie made it clear from the first debate, however, that he considered all of the Democratic candidates to be far superior to any of the Republicans and that he would support the Democratic nominee so an endorsement was always likely.

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but now, while still hoping for a miracle that would give Bernie the nom, I am coming to accept that he had to endorse. He needs the little extra power it gives. No, WE need the extra power it gives him. Have you noticed how much more the media is willing to look at him? His "endorsement" speech is full of his policy. And I believe that every campaign appearance that he makes, while apparently being for Hillary, will be reminding the people of what they need & have a right to demand from their elected pols. He still needs to get out his message. And hearing his message will cause many more people to vote for only those who support his message. What good it will do with HRC & the current Congress, I'm less optimistic. But he will still be working hard in the Senate, and many more people will listen carefully when he says he supports a bill. Many more people will pressure other pols to support Bernie's legislation. He now has written a few blogs on HuPo, which I think is new. I believe he will be able to maintain a much stronger national voice that people will hear. This will be important for the Brand New Congress that we so desperately need.

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Roger Fox's picture

Cause we saw next gen tools in the campaign field ops. Mind blowing shit compared to what Obama offered.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

Lookout's picture

We need both. Debs ran what four times...he never won the election, but he helped bring in progressive agenda.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs worth the read

Eugene Debs helped motivate the American Left as a measure of political opposition to corporations and World War I. American socialists, communists, and anarchists honor his compassion for the labor movement and motivation to have the average working man build socialism without large state involvement.

also from wiki and worth the read (round and round we go)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to 1920s. The main objective of the Progressive movement was eliminating corruption in government. The movement primarily targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies (Trust Busting) and corporations through antitrust laws. These antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of legitimate competitors.

So those that think they can tea party the Dems...go for it. Others of us will go Green and try to build a party that isn't so corrupt.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Roy Blakeley's picture

The Democrats and Republicans have, unfortunately, rigged the system now so that having an effective third party is much harder.

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Roger Fox's picture

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.