One Bernie supporter to others OP/ED

[dyresand]

For fuck sakes we have options... we don't have to vote Trump and we sure as hell don't have to vote Hillary.....

[CapnAwesome]

Blah blah blah, Trump is Hitler, blah blah blah.

[Tiberius]

(My emphasis.)  Fixed that for you, unless you have some evidence for thinking Hillary was in league with the party but Bernie was not.

Have you seen the email leaks from the DNC? Lots of DNC officials talking and plotting about how to sabotage the Sanders campaign, not so much (at all) for trying to make Clinton appear bad. Also, check up on how the burden of proof works. I'm not making a claim about Sanders, I'm making a claim about the DNC and Clinton, which I have evidence for. If you think Sanders was in league with the DNC, that is your claim, and it is up to you to provide the proof.

This is not about Sanders anymore, Brian.  It's about them.  They didn't win so they want to take their ball and go home.

No, it's about fair elections / primaries. The DNC has rules which state that officials have to be impartial during the primary process. The email leaks are evidence that they were anything but. The behavior during the primaries was further evidence of this, and now the ex-chair of the DNC stepped down and was immediately hired by the Clinton campaign.

No they did not. Do you know how many individuals in every state are involved in the voting process? Thousands, if not several thousand. Now, if it were so fucking "rigged" as you claim, then why would Bernie himself not say "fuck it, I am running third party".

There are plenty of ways the DNC rigged the primaries against Sanders without the need for thousands of individuals to be involved. As the email leaks revealed, there was collusion with the media, there were plans to get journalists to ask questions about his religious beliefs. The chair of the DNC was supposed to be impartial, and was anything but. The debates were limited and half of them were scheduled for the weekend when not many people were watching, meaning candidates that were less well known didn't get proper exposure. Even Politifact thought this was suspect: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statem...ie-wasser/

The DNC didn't need to enlist the help of thousands, they only needed a few in well positioned places. Though, as a recent report has highlighted, there may have been instances of voter fraud which denied Sanders a sizable chunk of delegates too.

As for why Sanders isn't running third party, I think he summed that up himself. He doesn't want Trump, and he knows that Clinton is the best chance to defeat Trump. He could run third party, but that would guarantee a Trump victory. However, that doesn't mean all his supporters have to vote the way he is, and some of his supporters were independents who don't feel an obligation to vote Democrat just because they supported a Democrat in the primaries.

He got several major rule changes and platform issues done. Primaries in BOTH  parties are messy and words are always exchanged prior to the nomination within the same camps.

It's great that the DNC made several rule changes and included progressive platform issues. What's not so great is that Clinton has a history of flip flopping, so some of us don't actually trust that she'll follow through with these issues once elected. A President has no legal requirement to follow the party platform once elected.

BERNIE was not wrong with his complaints, but it is absurd to call it a conspiracy, even backed off calling it rigged, but called it simply a bad set up. Of course people have their favorites in primaries. And even in the GOP there were words exchanged between Trump and Cruz and Bush. Yea it is fucking ugly sometimes. But still, I find it hypocritical to support Bernie, then not follow his lead at this point.

It's not absurd to call it a conspiracy when there are emails which demonstrate a conspiracy. This is not about having favorites in the primaries; it is about DNC officials actively trying to sabotage the Sanders campaign in favor of Clinton's. Words exchanged between Trump and Cruz and Bush are words exchanged between candidates, not official RNC officers. If emails leak from the RNC which show that party officials tried to undermine Trump's campaign, that would be a conspiracy as well.

Supporting Bernie means I think he is the best person to be the nominee. I don't think it's hypocritical to not agree with him about who I should support when he loses is. His vote is his vote. My vote is my vote. He has reasons for voting Clinton, and I have reasons for voting third party.

Hillary swamped Bernie with votes, there is no way it can be called rigged. Even with a flawed process, which you could argue, the total votes even if we gave Bernie the math some claim he should have had, Hillary still won the popular vote.

It's rigged in the sense that Clinton was pushed as the favorite by the DNC (against their own rules), and the other campaigns were given limited exposure in order for Clinton to be the main candidate. I'm not arguing the DNC completely undermined the voting, but they certainly helped limit the exposure that non-Clinton candidates got in the run up to the primaries, and also during them.

Even if Clinton won the popular vote, again, that's not how the nominee is elected. Like it or not, but popular vote isn't used in the USA for electing Presidents or nominees for the Democratic party. Winning a primary by one vote, can in some cases, give you a lot more delegates than the loser. As I've said before, there was a report released the other day which found that as many as 183 delegates could have been assigned to Sanders, but weren't due to various reasons, including voter suppression among other things.

[CapnAwesome]

"We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Well nothing quite does that quite like telling a large part of the country that they are racists and nazis who are stupid. You can't be a uniter and then tell people they are a bunch of stupid racists.

[Tiberius]

...at this point a protest vote for a third party is insane for the very reasons I stated in the OP/ED. It is absurd to value his run then turn on him, but more importantly, burn down the house and allow a very dangerous demagogue in Trump to win.

Again, as I've said before, this depends on which state you vote in. If you are in a safe state, you can vote third party as a protest vote and not affect the outcome of the election. If you like in a swing state...not so much.

I can't believe how some members whom I'd previously thought knew so much about American politics don't seem to understand how the electoral college system works. I'll say it again: the President isn't elected by popular vote!!! Not only that, but the electoral college votes aren't even awarded by the majority winner (e.g. >50% of the vote), they are awarded to the person with the most votes. A candidate could win 40% of the vote in a state, and still win all the electoral college votes in that state, provided their opponents didn't get more than 40% of the vote each (e.g. they get 39% and 21% respectively).

[Cecelia]

I always find it curious how people support Trump. Apparently LGBT rights, women's rights, and the first amendment (don't forget, Trump wants to limit freedom of press by opening up libel laws) don't matter to Sander's supporters. All that really matters is defeating the establishment. I suppose they should have supported Trump from the beginning if that's all that really mattered. Policy isn't important, so long as the big bad Hillary is beaten.

People always bring up things outside of the control of candidates. Things like Saudi Arabia. It's beyond the influence of Hillary Clinton to change how things work in Saudi Arabia. Refusing to accept money for her charitable foundation on that basis is a ridiculous expectation. Do you really think it hurts Saudi Arabia if Hillary refused to accept their money? It wouldn't. You wouldn't see any changes, because it wouldn't hurt them one bit.

What matters is how Hillary would govern this country. She didn't name a VP who wanted to jail gay people for applying for a marriage license. That was Donald Trump. She didn't call for punishing women who got abortions. That was Donald Trump. She didn't call for opening up libel laws. That was Donald Trump. She didn't call for a database on Muslims, that was also Trump. I don't see how any reasonable person could want a person like that to be President. Especially if they supported Bernie Sanders.

[ReptilianPeon]

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I always find it curious how people support Trump.  Apparently LGBT rights, women's rights, and the first amendment (don't forget, Trump wants to limit freedom of press by opening up libel laws) don't matter to Sander's supporters.  All that really matters is defeating the establishment.  I suppose they should have supported Trump from the beginning if that's all that really mattered.  Policy isn't important, so long as the big bad Hillary is beaten.  

People always bring up things outside of the control of candidates.  Things like Saudi Arabia.  It's beyond the influence of Hillary Clinton to change how things work in Saudi Arabia.  Refusing to accept money for her charitable foundation on that basis is a ridiculous expectation.  Do you really think it hurts Saudi Arabia if Hillary refused to accept their money?  It wouldn't.  You wouldn't see any changes, because it wouldn't hurt them one bit.

What matters is how Hillary would govern this country.  She didn't name a VP who wanted to jail gay people for applying for a marriage license.  That was Donald Trump.  She didn't call for punishing women who got abortions.  That was Donald Trump.  She didn't call for opening up libel laws.  That was Donald Trump.   She didn't call for a database on Muslims, that was also Trump.  I don't see how any reasonable person could want a person like that to be President.  Especially if they supported Bernie Sanders.

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"It's beyond the influence of Hillary Clinton to change how things work in Saudi Arabia."

No it's not. That shows how little you know about Saudi. Saudi only survives because the West supports it. Hilary did not have to sell them tens, maybe even hundreds, of billions in weapons.

Strongmen rule Saudi. It's a very tribal country. Lots of divisions that would flare up with out strongman leaders. There is an uneasy alliance between the Wahaabis who put al-Saud in power and al-Saud. King Faisal was murdered by Wahaabis who thought he was too reformist.

There is also a large Shiite population - especially in the Eastern province. You could ask our resident Saudi member Atlas all about the problems of Saudi. Without the backing of the West Saudi would fall about.

"Do you really think it hurts Saudi Arabia if Hillary refused to accept their money?"

Yes it does. The Saudis need the United States in order to survive. They need to know they have friends in the United States government. Hilary as president helps Saudi more than Donald as president that's for sure.

Refusing to accept the money sends a strong statement to al-Saud. But Hilary is like "I'm going to be all chummy with the terrorists that rule Saudi and they are going to get lots of favourable arms deals in exchange for the money". The Saudi royal family are extremely selfish people - they give weapons and money to terrorists and would rather offer money to send Fascist Imams to Europe than actually help the refugees in meaningful ways.

They won't donate to the Clinton Foundation without strings attached. Only an extremely naive person would think that. So, in summary, yes, Hilary can help effect change in Saudi.

There's a reason al-Saud tried to sabotage the Paris climate talks. They know they won't survive without the oi so Hilary could easily call for a boycott of Saudi. Sanctions even - after all they are more of a threat than Iran. Atlas, our resident Saudi, has said everyone is Saudi is panicking about what to do when the oil age is over.

[Cecelia]

Only an extremely naive person would think that change could be forced so easily.

[ReptilianPeon]

Only an extremely naive person would think that change could be forced so easily.

Well it can. Where there is a will there is way. Remember that old saying?

Just look at Iraq. Yet somehow the country that is actually to blame for 9/11 isn't suffering any repercussions. Very sad.

[Cecelia]

Yeah, Iraq is totally a bastion of LGBT rights. And let's not forget what it took to actually get Iraq to make changes (and those changes haven't really been that vast). Violence against homosexuals in Iraq is still rampant.