END TO END BERNERS: The Official Bernie Sanders 2020 Crew thread

she is a perfect example of a candidate trying to say all the right things about identities and failing at strong moral positions

I've also come to believe Senator Sanders is a stronger and more reliable candidate than Senator Warren and hope that in May, when I can vote my preference, he is showing strongly enough to make casting that vote for him simple and obvious. Warren's life in politics has been relatively short by comparison and her experience has not prepared her adequately for a national campaign, which is both an exhausting marathon and a daily obstacle course.

Warren's wavering is the strongest argument for the evils of campaign consultants.

I have been appalled by the campaign Warren is running. She’s a populist from Oklahoma who many of us saw fight elite bankers for years. Somehow Joe Rospars decided that ‘Warren is Hillary 2.0’ was the right branding choice.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 15, 2019

Rospars also runs Blue State Digital that's providing services to Klobuchar and Biden, which I don't understand from a conflict of interests perspective.

Didn't she just pivot too early? Maybe a result of the unexpectedly short Kamala and Beto campaigns, wonder if that jumbled up their timeline and forced the recent mis-steps

Making calculations and pivoting are exactly what make her look less attractive than Bernie. She was told by 'experts' that this is what she must do to win the presidency. I'm sure there were ample charts, graphs, electoral maps, and quotes from focus groups to reinforce the lesson. Bernie's from a small state where retail politics are more effective, so he's learned a whole different set of skills.

Maybe don’t perform the autopsy, yet? She’s still polling decently, and has fewer skeletons
than the other frontrunners.

Plus, the narrative has shifted against her in the last few days in a way that is so consistent in language that it makes me think that somebody or somebodies are willfully coordinating attacks or influence against her.

Warren's life in politics has been relatively short by comparison and her experience has not prepared her adequately for a national campaign, which is both an exhausting marathon and a daily obstacle course.

This is a slightly condescending position considering what she endured in 2010-2013 from the Obama White House and congressional Dems and GOP-ers. She knows what that heat's like plenty

Missing out on the Rogan appearance can't have helped either, would have been a good way to get her across to a large audience that might not get to see her at length otherwise

She was told by 'experts' that this is what she must do to win the presidency. I'm sure there were ample charts, graphs, electoral maps, and quotes from focus groups to reinforce the lesson. Bernie's from a small state where retail politics are more effective, so he's learned a whole different set of skills

You're projecting. What makes you think Sanders is any less indebted to advisers -- and so what if he were? Also, your last sentence undercuts the larger point about his, ah, 'electability.'

Kinda been thinking about the ways that real or imagined Sanders/Warren feud is in essence a debate about authenticity and bona fides, always resolving per sexist prerogative in favor of curmudgeonly known quantity over woman or any quality.

* over woman of any quality

Guys whose careers date to the seventies can afford to be purer and "authentic."

I miss more women commenting on these threads.

I get the entire idea of having to broaden your appeal and become quote-unquote presidential when running a campaign, but... run on who you are! your stances! what you've done!

Warren has a good resume based on her national career, just emphasize that above all else. I think she could flip any criticism on lack of experience compared to Sanders with the pitch that she's the candidate who looked to him as a mentor. Should pitch with that, expand on it, and then criticize based on where she's done something different

I feel like she panicked in 2016 and decided a stronger extant democratic party was a better goal than representing the things she was credible on

I mean, just tell the story about how you got fucked on the CFPD because the system doesn't want real consumer protection!

she can absolutely be pure and authentic, counting her arrival on the national scene as day one

There has to be something to the team stuff definitelyl, Gray and Turner certainly message disciplined and I'm not sure Warren's team has that. The idea Bernie somehow magically doesn't have a team is obviously wrong! He has a good team

Dudes tend to forget that the rockist argument about authenticity is available to them because the terrain on which their picks fought was a whiter, male-r terrain. I like Sanders because of what he says NOW, not because He Was Always Right, a slightly obtuse argument based on the homogeneity of his state. Yet I recognize Warren's base of support is thinner than his.

i'm a woman and i didn't doubt warren's authenticity until about the past few months, when she started waffling. i wasn't a supporter but had more respect for her. i have no doubt she'd be doing better had she stayed consistent, not a question of being able to afford it. that is the basis of the statement about the quality of her team/advisors. not just having one, but having one that gives her bad advice, apparently.

there is certainly something to the idea that had sanders been a woman saying these things for the past 40 years, he would not be where he is. but what do we do about that

Has there been a change in her team at some point in the last few months?

again, I find "authenticity" in a candidate, as I would in a pop star, dubious at best.

i am not sure. i must also confess i am not the best judge of time because i've been very busy and this primary has dragged on forever, so when i say a few months it may have been a year. xpost

interesting parallel with Corbyn where he lost his perception not of "authenticity" exactly but 'believability', as he allowed himself to get manoeuvred into the proceduralist/managerialist position and the perception that Labour had any kind of resolve evaporated

What makes you think Sanders is any less indebted to advisers -- and so what if he were?

I can only watch how Bernie acts and listen to what he says and if there is evidence of calculation in that, then the calculations have changed very little in the past five years and apparently those advisors are advising against his pivoting or muddling the core message. They aren't trying to remake him from a shouty old man into something else, or scripting quips for him to artfully (or not) drop into debates or interviews.

All the beloved 'image management' apparatus that I associate with political consultants seem to be missing from Bernie's campaign. I doubt he is paying any consulting firm large amounts of money to tell him to be himself, do and say what feels right, and stick to what has gotten him this far. Because why would he need that advice?

If he has advisors to tell him where to concentrate his GOTV organizing efforts to get the most results, or researching who he should be contacting locally who know the lay of the land and can run a good volunteer effort, then that ain't the kind of consulting I object to; it's just good solid political horse sense to pursue that information and act on it.

If he is triangulating on issues, it's so damn subtle I can't tell he's doing it. In which case, I don't care .

Let me answer this question, I think, once and all.

I'm a gay Latino in his forties. To have been an Elizabeth Warren in the 1970s and 1980s required a series of compromises and comeuppances: remaining a Republican twenty years after Nixon, marrying poorly, believing in middle class shibboleths. It's harder to be a woman and think your way out of corners. How fortunate to have been a moderately radical man coming of age in Vermont -- he didn't deal with the institutional sexism of Ivy League institutions; then, years later, surrounded by the men whom you think are your peers, the condescension and outright hostility of Treasury secretaries in the administration of the president who signed the Lily Ledbetter Act.

I don't agree with the Chuck Todd-blessed conventional wisdom. She hasn't "stumbled" explaining M4A or whatever. From the late summer to November she rose to frontrunner because the specificity of her policies were recognizable and detailed enough to scare the shit out of Wall Street like Sanders' broad gestures didn't, and, to be fair, because American media can't take a Democratic Socialist seriously. Elizabeth Warren is a Capitalist to Her Bones because like FDR that's what she knows; as a woman, that's the system under which she, to quote Hart Crane, made her meek adjustments. She's a traitor to her class, like FDR, hence the incomprehension of the Larry Summers-Tim Geithner class struck dumb by their inability to buy her off.

Anyway. That's my own meek defense in a Bernie thread.

It comes down to a simple axiom: it's so easy for straight white men to be pure. So fucking easy.

Yet Sanders is my #2 without hesitation.

God knows anti-Semitism was unknown in Sanders's youth and adulthood.

Why aren't more of them?? xp

I have to note one of your otherwise sapient remarks on the comparative travails of Sanders and Warren:

he didn't deal with the institutional sexism of Ivy League institutions

First, he went to the University of Chicago, but secondly, the Ivy League in 1960, when he entered college, was just as notoriously and stubbornly committed to limiting the admission of jewish students as they were to limiting women. This does not even touch on the even more profound racism of the Ivy League schools at that time.

But however much it helps to understand the genesis of a person's methods of coping with the world, it does not change those methods. If one may commend Warren for rising this far against a stiffer headwind perhaps than Bernie had to march against, our understanding does not alter their respective strengths or weaknesses as they stand before us today. I trust both of them in terms of the policy direction they wish to take the nation, and in terms of their strong commitment if they enter office. atm, I trust Bernie more to hew to a campaign path that will have more success with voters, not because he's a better person, but because he is running a better campaign.

This is why, to some extent at least, we also have to look at the campaign teams as much as the candidates, many of who have the same discipline as Bernie but perhaps not the same background

Also to clarify, I don't have any issue with the fact Warren used to be a Republican. We should celebrate that people moved left, not chastise them for it

it’s one of my favorite things about her

Its actually the same reason I think its right for Bernie to go on Rogan, right for Bernie to go on Fox, the more people that move from right to left the better and there are some great vehicles for doing that out there

See also, Peter Daou's journey!

Let me answer this question, I think, once and all.

great (can't quite bring myself to say 'booming') post

lot of good discussion tonight itt

So easy to advocate socialist principles in America! Who knew?

scores and scores of white dudes killing it with Bernie's playbook since the 70s, too numerous to mention

lmao

"president tom hayden"

About 1,400 results (0.37 seconds)

skinny fat dudes with the iq of a dog who are 6 beers deep for bernie

— losing it, (@prophethusband) January 24, 2020

yesterday’s conversation sucked ass and has made me suspicious of many of y’all bc it feels like a few queer ppl were just steamrolled by y’all making the same points over and over. i’m still mad. i’m going to be even more mad when this inevitably happens again, so i’m not talking to any politician stans about politics for the rest of the decade. enjoy your thread 4 straights (plus morbs)

My initial reaction when this Rogan thing blew up in this thread yesterday was to express sympathy to the viewpoints of Brad, Alfred, Eliza, but defend Bernie (“he can’t return endorsements/votes so what does it matter, btw fuck Rogan”). I am glad I didn’t right away, because seeing the bullshit they have had to put up with is a bummer.

I mean these posters initially expressed the mildest disappointment/anger that politics in 2020 might require their compromise with Rogan and his fans, who in my intentionally limited experience, are flat earth stoner MMA meatheads with pretensions of grandeur, only to be basically told that their feelings were invalid and that they should basically shut up and Feel the Bern. I can totally see why one or more of them wouldn’t want to engage with ILX political threads any longer but I hope that isn’t the case because I get a lot from reading them.

I have reached the point where Bernie is my preferred candidate, but this shit doesn’t make me feel very good about it.

“he can’t return endorsements

Actually he could!, he retracted Cenk Uygur's endorsement and there was debate over whether he should have done (although Cenk asked him to retract)

Actually that was the other way around, Bernie endorsed Cenk and took some heat over it, and Cenk asked him to retract

this discussion has reminded me of my own most important maxim, which is that I sometimes regret posting, but I absolutely never regret not posting

politics ain't beanbag

brad OTM

good morning

i'm sorry for losing my cool and making a shitty comment upthread. i stepped way out of line and i'm super embarrassed. going to take a break from politics threads for a while.

like a few queer ppl were just steamrolled by y’all making the same points over and over

they made their point. they had opportunity to respond however they wish. I don't think anyone here expressed approval of Joe Rogan's transphobia in any way. The conversation moved on from there. I'm not sure what you are mad about or how you think other ilxors acted badly by engaging in the thread. But, it's how you feel and feelings are going to be felt, so what can you do?

yeah i was needlessly flip on this thread. easy to do on the internet but that's no excuse.