[Megathread] Bernie Sanders 2016

[Macaquerie]

Understood, no worries.

It's a gossip site so I can't overstate the "this may be 100% fake" ness of the post; I only posted it because he's been right 100% of the time this election season and it's a fun juicy tidbit.

I actually wonder if it's Melania who's the one having the affair, if true. Shrug.

Even if the rumor is entirely made up, it's practically impossible that she hasn't had some kind of affair since she married Trump. What proportion of trophy wives actually stay faithful to their decrepit husbands? I wonder what the Trump supporters would think of something like that. #DonaldCuck

[Merkava]

I'm not quite sure enough to give percentages. Less specifically, the vast majority vote Hillary. A sizable portion stay home. A small percentage vote Trump.

I'm mainly hoping that a debate like this would invigorate the ones who might stay home. Drive up her poll numbers a little bit if they realize Trump is a real threat, since the erosion of support from Bernie's people is a huge factor in her decline. Anyone who would cross over and vote for Trump is beyond convincing at this point.

Agree on the numbers.

I think it could be great for Bernie and Hillary if he plays it right. But everything I've thought or predicted this entire election cycle has been almost totally wrong.

[Shadowferal]

I'm withholding judgment on the Sanders-Trump debate until I see how it plays out.

*nods*
On the surface it's a brilliant opportunity (more so for Sanders) for Trump to show how right-ward he is of Sanders, while Sanders shows how left-ward he is of Trump. And it's happening just before June 7th? Great publicity. It would have been stupid to pass it up. (It's no wonder that Sanders responded almost immediately)
However, as you said how it plays out will tell how smart a move it may have been.

At this point in time Clinton seems to be having problems doing damage control.

[Deleted]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-te...s-for-charity/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0YH1D5
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...-debate-223594
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/po...ate/index.html

Well, if Hillary doesn't have the balls to debate, let's have a Sanders-Trump -debate then. Either on Fox News, or, something that's much more unlikely since Trump doesn't understand the internet, on TYT;

[Deleted]

The fight between grandpa Bernie and grandma Clinton continues!

[ringpriest]

I mean, you're right and your wrong (in my opinion of course). The war on drugs has been an embarassingly, colossal, historic failure and an utterly pointless waste of time and resources. And yes it's had a terrible effect on minorities, especially black communities. It should go away. Couldn't agree more.

I could never agree it is, nor will ever be, a central issue of our time though. It's second tier. It is worth asking a politicians stance. But voting for or against them? Only in a narrow case. So many Ron Paul supporters, it simply was not. They willfully ignored generally everything horrible about what passed for his life, because he got up and said "i'll legalize weed".

On the other hand, personally, I do believe society should stand for some things and set some guidelines. I don't like the idea of people recreationally using drugs. Any drugs. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't drink coffee. I come from a very long line of doctors, and health has always been a central facent of my life, even growing up, so the idea of putting chemicals in your body recreation-ally seems outrageous to me.

I'm not sure if society should ban weed use or not. I mean realistically the genie is out of the lamp with Alchohol and certain stimulants already. Weed is probably consistant with that. But something sits very uncomfortably with me about society saying it's okay for folks to put chemicals in themselves for recreational reasons. I think the effect of Khat on societies in East-Africa / Yemen should be very cautionary. Tens of millions of Americans are already stimulant addicts (Caffeine). It think society should work against that getting any worse.

But I guess in terms of political priorities, it is way down the list. It would be a reason to vote for A over B, is items 1-13 are all a tie. It's a tie breaker issue.

I know people on the left and all flavors of libertarian (I did used to live in Denver) for whom addressing the War on Drugs is the issue they vote on; the closest similar issue I can think of is abortion in the segments of the religious-conservative right who are passionate about it. For me, it's not a single-issue thing, but its fairly important - it slides into a lot of other issues I care about: due process, law enforcement abuses and corruption (civil forfeiture that benefits the officer in any way, even at great remove, is hugely destructive to policing), privacy, civil rights, prison privatization... the list of interrelated stuff is massive.

Perhaps the biggest reason some voters are so fixated about the War on Drugs is that it feels like something important that can actually be addressed through our electoral system; there is a whole host of stuff from foreign interventions to tax law to corruption, that isn't going to meaningfully changed based on voting (particularly voting R or D), but for whatever reason, the sometime-successes against the growth of the WoD (maybe because of its extremely obvious failure, maybe because politicians on both sides have suggested scaling it back) feel like one where "We the People" could actually win via the ballot box.

Going in detail into social conservatism (actual conservatism, not the stuff we have now) is probably beyond the appropriate scope for the thread (and certainly beyond the time I have at the moment), but I'll just observe on the practical front that we cannot effectively ban marijuana - we're trying right now, and have tried hard for what, over 40 years? And the only actual result is... damaging, grossly ineffective, and in the process of being rejected by the public.

[Nfinitii]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-te...s-for-charity/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0YH1D5
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...-debate-223594
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/po...ate/index.html

Well, if Hillary doesn't have the balls to debate, let's have a Sanders-Trump -debate then. Either on Fox News, or, something that's much more unlikely since Trump doesn't understand the internet, on TYT;

I think a Trump Bernie debate would be very entertaining, I don't want it on TYT though, I really don't like them.

[Dextroden]

I guess Bernie got tired of losing to Hillary and wants a drubbing from Trump now. Ought to be fun.

[hrugner]

I felt the same, but I think there's an upside. If Sanders plays this well and only hits Trump, it's an avenue for unity.

Some of his supporters won't vote if it's Hillary v. Trump and some will even vote for Trump. However, if Bernie is aggressive enough in denouncing Trump to his face, it could make Hillary more palatable to Sanders supporters.

It all depends on how Sanders plays this.

I'm assuming this is the plan. Regardless of how the rest of the dem primary goes, Bernie is as hampered as any other liberal with Trump on top.

This also gives the dems a nice segue into adding post primary debates onto their schedule. Throwing Bernie and Hillary on a couch while one of them is running against Trump and discussing the topics brought up in Dem/Trump debates would give them a good place to show how close their general policies are while mocking Trumps general uselessness in debates.

[mvaliz]

I'm more than betting that Trump is just going to use this to bash Hillary, then lie/pander to the Bernie supporters saying crap like "Democrats abandoned you, ect"

I really hope Bernie doesn't fall for it and calls him on his bullshit.

[Dextroden]

I'm more than betting that Trump is just going to use this to bash Hillary, then lie/pander to the Bernie supporters saying crap like "Democrats abandoned you, ect"

I really hope Bernie doesn't fall for it and calls him on his bullshit.

I'd be more inclined to believe they'd use this chance to double team Clinton and boost Trump. You know, since they are both running against the Democrats. Why fight your biggest ally?

[infinitemeridian]

Seems to me like Trump is just going to nod his head and agree while Sanders rants about the "establishment" and "corruption" and "wall street". This served up with a nice side of Hillary bashing from both sides will be an attempt to move Sanders supporters to Trump.

Sanders is kind of an idiot to actually not see this I think (Unless he's got something up his sleeve, which I doubt).

[therayeffect]

Whose fault is it if he was unknown in the south? The media has no obligation to make sure all voters understand his platform. And there is zero evidence that anyone has ever been discouraged from voting because of early reports of super delegate support.

I'm worried that salty Sanders supporters will refuse to jump on the campaign or vote for Trump under some idiotic notion that a terrible 4 years under him will bring about their "revolution." As for her policies. She is more liberal than Obama and her husband in every respect. So if allowed to do the job she isn't going to be undoing progressive achievements. That is what a Trump presidency will do.

The report released today has absolutely nothing new in it. She made a poor choice and did nothing illegal. Many on this board have been waiting with bated breath for a smoking gun for more than a year now. Nothing.

"Nothing illegal." She broke 'rules' which is codeword for laws. She literally sent an email saying she was doing it to 'avoid her personal emails being exposed'.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...r_hillary.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...used-cooperate

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Column...r-Email-Server

etc. 'She violated their 'rules' LOL, they don't make rules. I mean, you can call it what you want but an investigation is an investigation for a reason. To be honest I just wish they'd hurry up and get it finished. It's extremely important that We the People get to decided who should be President based on proper facts. I do not think a person who clearly LIED about what she was doing should be President. LIED. I don't think Trump should be President either but show me where he's broken the law. If this was anyone else, we'd be in jail. They're even trying to say 'Powell did it too!!!!' but that doesn't make a person innocent and he's not running for President. This report is a disaster, there's no way to sugar coat it even though the people who wrote it tried very hard to do so.

And see, you're assuming she will do positive things. Her past is literally filled with doubts about her sincerity. She's literally been for like every position and chronically lies about everything.

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Seems to me like Trump is just going to nod his head and agree while Sanders rants about the "establishment" and "corruption" and "wall street". This served up with a nice side of Hillary bashing from both sides will be an attempt to move Sanders supporters to Trump.

Sanders is kind of an idiot to actually not see this I think (Unless he's got something up his sleeve, which I doubt).

Nah, I think he's brilliant. While she's sinking under a tide of truth, Sanders can stand up to Trump and show that he is the best candidate over the other two. The main hope for Democrats should be that Hillary gets indicted before the Convention and they can sweep her out the door and hoist Sanders up and get away from this corrupt establishment.

[mvaliz]

I'd be more inclined to believe they'd use this chance to double team Clinton and boost Trump. You know, since they are both running against the Democrats. Why fight your biggest ally?

Bernie is running as a Dem, and everything Trump is goes against everything Bernie is for. Trump is no ally of Bernie ever, at all... Especially when Donald Dump accused him repeatedly of the protests at his rallies

[Dextroden]

Bernie is running as a Dem, and everything Trump is goes against everything Bernie is for. Trump is no ally of Bernie ever, at all... Especially when Donald Dump accused him repeatedly of the protests at his rallies

Oh, they are the best of allies. Trump wants to win and Bernie wants to damage the party and then act confused as to why no one is backing his dumb ass.

[Gray_Matter]

The latest poll for California has Clinton and Bernie in a dead heat. Personally, I think this is probably a more accurate poll compared to the other ones but I haven't looked at the demographics of it yet:

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/oth...Voters0516.pdf

The other one released today has Clinton up by 18 points:

http://abc7.com/politics/poll-clinto...imary/1351808/

And a nice article for all of you conspiracy theorists out there:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...ainst-sanders/

[hrugner]

And a nice article for all of you conspiracy theorists out there:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...ainst-sanders/

I'm not convinced that an election in which nothing is on the line stands as a good example of what an engaged population would actually do. But who knows, was the percent of WA primary voters pretty similar to those primaries in other states? Looking at it very briefly, 700k is about 17%, 10-20% lower than most other primaries. I'm guessing it's not very representative.

I don't disagree though, Sanders would probably do much worse in a primary than a caucus. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to push the caucus system out of Washington yet despite trying every year.

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Oh, they are the best of allies. Trump wants to win and Bernie wants to damage the party and then act confused as to why no one is backing his dumb ass.

That's really far fetched. Slightly more so than the "Trump called Clinton to ask if he should run before starting his campaign" conspiracy theory.

[Dextroden]

I'm not convinced that an election in which nothing is on the line stands as a good example of what an engaged population would actually do. But who knows, was the percent of WA primary voters pretty similar to those primaries in other states? Looking at it very briefly, 700k is about 17%, 10-20% lower than most other primaries. I'm guessing it's not very representative.

I don't disagree though, Sanders would probably do much worse in a primary than a caucus. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to push the caucus system out of Washington yet despite trying every year.

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That's really far fetched. Slightly more so than the "Trump called Clinton to ask if he should run before starting his campaign" conspiracy theory.

But nowhere near as far fetched as "Clinton is rigging everything guis!" conspiracy.

[hrugner]

But nowhere near as far fetched as "Clinton is rigging everything guis!" conspiracy.

No, that's pretty much the same brand of bug nuts.

[Dextroden]

No, that's pretty much the same brand of bug nuts.

Nah, it still wins. Just because that has been a neverending theme of this thread and his attempt at the nomination.

"Bernie didn't win?! Fucking cheaters!"