Americans: Bernie Sanders or Hilary Clinton

[abaris]

but the government is now entirely made up of millionaires who completely lack empathy. I'm pretty sure this also the case for the US.

Probably even more so. Millionaires being up billionaires asses.

[Crossless2.0]

I like Sanders and will certainly support him if chance he gets the nomination, but I think the chances of that happening are fair at best. And his chances of winning the general election? Let me put it this way. I have heard no fewer than four people in the past week refer to him as a communist (to clarify, these weren't media blowhards but everyday people in my circle of acquaintance). To be sure, they are getting spoon fed these notions by whatever news/opinion outlets they pay attention to, but it speaks volumes to me that such ideas have already started taking root. The Republican campaign strategy against Sanders will be childishly easy to craft if he is the nominee. Just keep hammering on that one point, repeat the lie until it becomes "truth", and divert everyone's attention away from any kind of substantive debate of the issues.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think it would be a slaughter of Goldwater/McGovern/Mondale proportions regardless of what idiot the GOP may nominate.

I mean -- Jesus! -- they've successfully painted Carter (a centrist), Obama (another centrist), and the Clintons (right of Obama) as dangerous pie-in-the-sky liberals or "worse". What they would do to Sanders is sadly predictable. Perhaps Sanders has more fight in him than I credit him with. I truly hope so. He's going to need it.

But anyone who thinks that merely having the right candidate elected to the Presidency will serve as a corrective and shift the political landscape even slightly leftward is dreaming. This is something that will have to happen throughout society, at the ground level. Where opinion goes, there go the politicians, "evolving" on the issues. And that will take a long time, I'm afraid. Years of the Right poisoning the well won't be undone any time soon.

Perhaps when big money is finally removed from the political system (hey, I can dream!), when there is eventually a core of truly liberal members of Congress who can't be marginalized and shouted down, and when more state capitols are in the hands of more liberal governors and congresses, then the stage will be set for a transformative liberal POTUS. Until then, any left-leaning President will face the same prospects that Obama has dealt with ever since he took the oath.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Who do you support and why?
I am not American but I like Bernie Sanders. He has a Bachelor of science with experience in film making, meaning he is more artistically and scientifically literate. He has lots of experience behind him and a voting record that backs up what he says. He is willing to take a strong stance on environmental change, make reasonable reform to immigration, and will stop much of the neoconservative foreign policy that was continued largely under Obama.
Also I see Hilary as largely like Obama in policy, good and bad, but even more so judging by her background and campaign she is largely  a big money Democrat. Also instead of the good background Bernie has she is essentially a trained arguer.

I've had enough of Southern redneck Presidents.  We sure don't need another one.  So it's anyone except another one of them.

[c172]

I'm an Independent, and have some conservative views on certain things. But the fact is, I need infrastructure. Plus, I want the latest push for gay rights, marriage and otherwise, so stick. Permanently. So, I will vote Democrat.

Early on, I liked Hilary, perhaps just based on the fact I liked (and continue to like) Bill. But Bernie seems a lot more matter-of-fact. A lot more angry. A lot more of a regular citizen. Honestly, it's what I had initially felt about Obama in his first campaign, but the Presidency has moderated him heavily. I'm hoping (and hopeful that) Bernie will better stick to his guns. I can't wait to see what sorts of appointments he would make.

[Chad32]

I would expect him to fight to change the system more than Hillary. The establishment fears Bernie. They don't fear Hillary.

[tjakey]

I will vote or Sanders, if he makes it to the finals, for no other reason but to listen to the Wingers in this country go completely bat shit crazy. Other than that though, I will probably be far away on election day and not bother. Anyone who thinks that this country can be saved by an election is, in my humble opinion, living a fantasy. At some point a system is too badly broken to be fixed. Progress will only come when that system is replaced by something new. Any election that does nothing but put Democrats and Republicans in the White House, the Senate, and the House, will just be more of the same old system.

Light me up a revolution. Put millions of Americans in the streets calling for resignations, trials, imprisonments, and wide spread removal of the elite in power. Have them rampage through the SC building, haul the Justices who voted for Citizen United before a tribunal and have them tried for treason. Actually Occupy Wall Street this time, haul that bronze bull out and throw it in the Bay, shut down the Market until the Big Banks are busted up, and have the CEOs doing perp-walks while Faux news goes dark because the FCC pulled their operating ticket in fear of the protesters paralyzing DC and chasing winger governors out of State Houses across the nation. Write and approve a new Constitution. The old one gave us the nation we see now, steeped in elitism, crony capitalism, war mongering, violence, racism, and misogyny.

Start any of that and I might think something is finally happening. Otherwise it will just be the US fading into the dustbin of history. The only real question is what comes next, and how it arrives. But it will not arrive on the back of a sham election put on by a sham democracy, were the voters are a people buried in propaganda and unable to tell fact from fiction.

[Pyrrho]

C/L you do know that the WashingtonTimes is a moonie website, right?  Don't put too much stock in anything those korean shits write.

Woodward and Bernstein wouldn't get a foot in the door these days.

They worked for a decent paper, The Washington Post.  Do not confuse The Washington Times with The Washington Post, or you will be confusing garbage with something worth reading.

[Chad32]

I will vote or Sanders, if he makes it to the finals, for no other reason but to listen to the Wingers in this country go completely bat shit crazy.  Other than that though, I will probably be far away on election day and not bother.  Anyone who thinks that this country can be saved by an election is, in my humble opinion, living a fantasy.  At some point a system is too badly broken to be fixed.  Progress will only come when that system is replaced by something new.  Any election that does nothing but put Democrats and Republicans in the White House, the Senate, and the House, will just be more of the same old system.

Light me up a revolution.  Put millions of Americans in the streets calling for resignations, trials, imprisonments, and wide spread removal of the elite in power.  Have them rampage through the SC building, haul the Justices who voted for Citizen United before a tribunal and have them tried for treason.  Actually Occupy Wall Street this time, haul that bronze bull out and throw it in the Bay, shut down the Market until the Big Banks are busted up, and have the CEOs doing perp-walks while Faux news goes dark because the FCC pulled their operating ticket in fear of the protesters paralyzing DC and chasing winger governors out of State Houses across the nation.  Write and approve a new Constitution.  The old one gave us the nation we see now, steeped in elitism, crony capitalism, war mongering, violence, racism, and misogyny.

Start any of that and I might think something is finally happening.  Otherwise it will just be the US fading into the dustbin of history.  The only real question is what comes next, and how it arrives.  But it will not arrive on the back of a sham election put on by a sham democracy, were the voters are a people buried in propaganda and unable to tell fact from fiction.

We may not be too far from that. The rich can't keep leeching a country dry of money forever. Eventually there will be an uprising.

[Crossless2.0]

Woodward and Bernstein wouldn't get a foot in the door these days.

They worked for a decent paper, The Washington Post.  Do not confuse The Washington Times with The Washington Post, or you will be confusing garbage with something worth reading.

And that's the only warning you get, abaris. Next time, you get smacked on the nose with the Sunday New York Times.

[abaris]

They worked for a decent paper, The Washington Post.  Do not confuse The Washington Times with The Washington Post, or you will be confusing garbage with something worth reading.

Oh, I misread. I thought it said Washington Post.