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Vote for the change you want to see.
The Republican party got remade because trumpists showed up and outvoted the party elites. No reason it can't happen for the Left except for laziness and apathy.
If all the progressives furious about the state of affairs now had shown up for Sanders in 2016, I doubt we'd be in this hellish timeline. Sadly, he needed the young progressive vote to show up.
Did the DNC stop anyone from voting? There was nothing to stop us from outvoting the establishment. "Oh no, the moderators liked Clinton!" The RNC tried way harder with trump and failed.
Are we not as capable as goddamn republicans?
Do you understand how superdelegates work? they're not assigned by vote.
As well, the Bernie campaign was blocked from accessing the voter rolls because they reported a bug to the DNC that allowed them to view stuff the clinton campaign was doing. They did not exploit it, they just reported it.
Also, did you read that hacked/leaked memo where the DNC chair admitted to intentionally sabotaging Bernie's campaign? no one has ever contested the contents of that memo. in fact the DNC chair resigned over it. (and you're an idiot if you think Hilary wasn't pressuring the DNC chair to do just that. Hilary always has someone else to throw under her campaign bus.)
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. And then she went and hid under Hillary's skirts, like she was an enabled naughty child, rather than a malicious, feckless adult woman.
You do realize the super delegates never came into play right? I mean I'm sure they would have if they needed them to but it never got that far.
They were actively endorsing Hilary.
Yes, they came into play, even if they didn’t yet cast their vote.
That's their right as americans. Anyone can endorse anyone they want. That's called freedom of speech.
I don't see how that would have any effect on anything however though. Or how it's in any way untoward. If you're suggesting that one of these super delegates supposed endorsement of Hillary Clinton pushed leftists to vote for her though I'd love to see how you justify that argument.
As a private person, yes. As a representative of the DNC… only if the DNC allows you to. Same as how you’re not allowed to say “[I am an X for Y employer] and we support Mickey Mouse for President” without consequence (probably getting fired, unless you’re specifically authorized to announce it,).
As for how it affects primaries, you remember all the backlash people got for saying Biden was a bad candidate? All the calls for “party loyalty”? Same thing. That’s how it affects things.
Delegates are in no way employed by a party. The entire point of delegates is to endorse a candidate. So these hypothetical super delegates and their supposed endorsement in no way is equal to a direct employee of the party endorsing a candidate.
That's how what affects things? You're saying that leftist didn't vote for Bernie Sanders because liberals said that would be bad for the party? Well they're pretty shitty leftists then aren't they? Why is it so God damn easy for leftists not to vote? I mean the wind changes and suddenly they decide that voting is pointless. I have trouble believing you actually believe this. I have trouble believing any at leftist is so easily cowed as to not vote for their best interest because a capitalist says they shouldn't.
You do realize they actually did right?
I watched the DNC do everything they could to throw the election to the worst candidate they have ever run, simply because their donors didn’t want to give everyone health care.
That election turned an entire generation into people who don’t bother voting because nothing will ever change.
We didn’t even fucking GET a primary this time. How can I vote in a primary that doesn’t even really exist? The Democrats end up with the candidate they want one way or another.
The stupid ass Russian propaganda that you people swallowed afterwards turned you into a generation of non voters.
Oh please. The russians had nothing to do with Hillary fucking over Bernie. That was all her.
But keep assuming that you can blame the democrats failings on Russia. If trump wasn’t running the dems would lose this election because they lost so many votes.
Look at them running to dick fucking cheney and his goon daughter instead of the Muslim vote that can actually win them a swing state.
You gonna say that the Muslims in Michigan are falling for Russian propaganda about a genocide too?
Maybe you don't?
Sanders didn't win a majority of the votes so whether the super delegates would've over-ridden the votes is fairly irrelevant.
You can argue it wasn't a completely balanced playing field but there was nothing stopping us from winning the votes except for our refusal to show up rather than bitch online.
Iowa was a hair thin win for clinton, New Hampshire was an overwhelming win for Bernie.
And that's when they the DNC started fucking with the Bernie campaign. The superdelegates piling in was making it further impossible for Bernie to win.
The DNC should just stop pretending it actually cares what it's base thinks. it's not like they're legally obligated to run a primary anyway.
Also. you do know that candidates in the primary rely on equal access to the voter rolls precisely to reach potential voters and turn out the vote, right? that database was what they DNC cut Bernie off of.
what makes you think I didn't vote for Bernie?
"it wasn't a level playing field, but you could have still won!" is such a ~~bitch~~dick move, it's hilarious. we will never know what Bernie could have done had they not interfered in the primary. Similarly we won't know just how far the DNC would have gone to prevent a Bernie win.
they did enough to break Bernie's momentum and then Hilary fucking lost the main election. in part because she was an arrogant fool and ignored Michigan.
people like you. You're the people that practically gave trump the win on a silver platter.
The superdelegates weren't bound to Clinton. If Sanders had kept winning the vote they'd be hard pressed to over-ride the people.
I'm not saying you didn't vote for Bernie, I'm saying not enough people did. This blaming superdelegates is nonsense. Democracy is dificult, people die just to make a protest vote but somehow the fact that Clinton had a lead in uncommitted delegates is too much of a burden? Give me a break. If you want a revolution but can't actually get the majority of leftist voters to the polls, well, that's on us.
Are you acknowledging that there was indeed foul play, just to then handwave it away and say no one should object to said foul play because we lost?
Nope. Maybe re-read the sentence carefully:
At the end of the day, Sanders had 43% of the vote compared to Clinton's 55%. That doesn't involve super delegates, that's just not enough progressives showed up to win. Pretty simple stuff.
Like, I love the folks claiming we need a revolution etc are also stymied by the need to get the majority of Left leaning Americans to agree with them.
People like you are the reason Democrats can't unite fyi, reducing problems of people who did exactly what you're saying and got shat on once again
More young people voted in 2016 than ever before. We showed up. The boomers overwhelmed us.
Yup. Young votes don't show up to the general or primaries at anywhere near the same rate as boomers. And sadly, democracy caters more to those who vote.
Yes they did actually, do you not know or remember what fucking happened??
This response is ironic considering your post.
Failure to acknowledge how the DNC and super delegates operated in 2016 is a great way to ensure the rightward ratchet.
The super delegates do not change the fact that Clinton got 3,5 million more votes in the primaries than Sanders did. Or, to put it another way, Sanders got 43% of the vote compared to Clinton's 55%. Those are voters, not pledged delegates.
Blaming superdelegates is a great way to make sure we don't change a damn thing. (Also, the DNC changed the role of super delegates afterwards to make them less powerful.)
Everything you listed here is putting the cart before the horse.
Bernie was doing well until the DNC put all of its backing into Clinton and even ran negative ads against Bernie.
Get money out of elections if you want change. If you’re just looking to bash people to the left, carry on as you are.
No, the cart always has to be voters. Actually showing up to the polls has to be the cart. Anything before that is nonsense. Leftist will never ever ever have any power in this nation unless they show the fuck up. A lot of leftists don't want to show up they just want to sit back and complain.
This is nonsense. I worked on Bernie’s campaign in 2016. I saw what happened.
Oh cool! Tell us exactly what you saw then.
You saw what happened? You saw more votes go to the other candidate? Because that's what happened.
I find myself thinking, “how could trump possibly get elected (again)?” And then I have exchanges like this.
Well certainly yeah I agree that's exactly how he would win. Leftists thinking they should stay home in a snit. Leftist not showing up is exactly how Trump will win I agree. Which is why I would hope you would join me in telling leftist to get off their ass and vote. Instead you're making the counter argument for some reason.
I will never stand by what you are saying here in these comments. Never. By gaslighting the left, you gain nothing and only turn people away for life. Your words are exactly why I will never support the DNC; never own up to their corruption, blame the left, and continue to slide right.
I'm not actually trying to argue one way or the other, but
You're literally putting the cart before everything else, including the horse. Work on your metaphors a little.
You're totally right I should have put horse there.
"Oh no, the bad guys ran ads against us!"
If we can't overcome horrific barriers like that, how on Earth do you expect wr achieve anything meaningful? Literally all we had to do was get people to show up and vote.
Yeah dude idk if you understand politics at all, so there are people. And those people get informed. Often by ads. And you see, the Clinton campaign was skirting campaign finance law by funneling money through the DNC and then taking that money for her campaign to run attack ads against a primary opponent when that money was promised to states and to whoever won the primary.
So yes, the person who won broke the law in order to gain the upper hand to win but it’s our fault for not voting harderer. So many of yall DNC worshipers think it’s all the progressives don’t vote, or only vote in the presidential elections, meanwhile they literally turn out way higher than any other block of voters in EVERY election.
The problem is money. Literally so much money they had to illegally funnel it through the DNC instead of a single campaign to gain that money.
So according to your logic then, no one should worry about this logic as Harris has roughly half a billion more than trump?
https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race
I'd love to see a source for this. Especially as Clinton won 55% of the primary votes compared to Sanders' 43%, were the progressives secretly voting for Clinton? Or do those elections not count even though, especially to a progressive, they'd matter more?
Not saying money is the sole decider, but it helps. Also the difference between what you can donate to a candidate (like $3000) and what you can donate to the DNC (like $40000) is… quite large. Like 12x the amount of money… Kamala does not have 12x the amount of money as trump.
Also, you really think there’s just like… two blocks of voters in the primaries… and they’re exactly equal in number, and exactly spread evenly between all states and districts? Progressive/leftist/whatever you wanna call the “far left” makes up a fairly small amount, but one that literally turns out in higher percent than any other voting block. It does not mean they outnumber EVERYONE ELSE COMBINED.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/05/americans-at-the-ends-of-the-ideological-spectrum-are-the-most-active-in-national-politics/
Here’s some data from Pew Research on it. You can look for some others they’ve done on similar stuff.
Appreciate the Pew link! I'd note thought that it talks about the general election, not primaries.
If the progressives don't outnumber the moderates and centrists even within the Democratic party, then that seems a pretty good indication that American politics is roughly in line with American attitudes, which would mean democracy is working as it should.
Here's the thing, Sanders got 43% of the primary vote iirc and Clinton got 55. This happened, despite the middle age and elderly voters showing up in significantly larger numbers than the young, presumably progressive ones. If the young voters had shown up and their vote patterns held, Sanders would likely have had a comfortable win.
Funny how that comment is getting downvoted heavily.
You annoyed somebody