Suddenly, there’s a bunch of posts and articles all over the intertoobz about why it isn’t right for Hillary people to tell Bernie people that it’s time to get out.
It feels a lot like, what’s that defense mechanism called again? You know, the one where you accuse someone of doing the very thing you would have done? Oh, yeah. Projection.
Then there’s this crap from David Axelrod via Greg Sargent:
“He’s pushed her on a lot of issues in a positive way, and I think that his young supporters will be bitterly resentful if anyone tries to shove him out of the race.”
Yes, they probably would be resentful. But it’s not like 2008 when the party will deliberately withhold delegates from his win column from two large states, gift uncommitted delegates to his opponent, re-engineer the rules so that he gets those delegates back but only at half strength until the Sunday before the convention so it looks like he’s always behind, and then doesn’t get a full first ballot roll call vote at the convention so that nobody knows how close the earned delegate count actually is so that it won’t provoke a justified floor fight.
If all that happened to Bernie, his young supporters would have a very good reason to be bitterly resentful.
Funny how David Axelrod was totally onboard with all of that when it happened to Hillary in 2008. He wasn’t overtly worried about her supporters being bitterly resentful. It probably had something to do with her being a woman and assuming she was ok with being shoved aside and not complaining about it. I’m not sure he gave a damn about her supporters’ feelings in the least tiny bit. That’s why some of them left to join the Tea Party. That went well. So, you know, David can piss off for all I care.
But I can’t see Hillary’s people treating other candidates’ voters like s^&*. It’s not what decent people do. It does not result in party unity. And if Hillary approved of that kind of thing that David Axelrod encouraged in 2008, I would very much question her motives. Is she so determined to win that she’ll risk destroying any sense of fairness? Would she be willing to completely discount the votes and sentiments and will of millions of voters (like her voters in 2008, made up over half of all the Democratic voters in all of the primary states including CA, MA, NY, NJ, PA, TX, FL, MI, etc, etc)? Because if she would do that, then what else might she ignore during her presidency? Long term unemployed people? Desperate homeowners? Working people in general?
I only ask.
Fortunately, there’s no reason for any of us to have to contemplate scenarios where Hillary and her people would scream at Bernie’s people to “GET OUT, YOU STUPID <fill in the stereotypical offensive epithet here>, YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!!”. (We have pictures, Greg)
The primaries are going well. Everything looks on the up and up and Bernie will have his say at the convention and a honest to goodness first ballot roll call vote.
In the meantime, it is very important that Bernie doesn’t sink to the level of a Republican and damage Clinton and the party just so he can stay in the good graces of his supporters who may or may not be some of the same obnoxious Obots who had to have their way in 2008, got it, and got burned because they weren’t paying any damn attention to the fact that their candidate’s favorite presidents were all Republicans.
They are allowed to be disappointed. I have been disappointed many times in Democratic primaries. I always got over it and voted for the nominee. But I drew the line in 2008 because of all of the nasty crap that happened with the full consent of the party, Obama, the media and DAVID AXELROD.
WE were cheated, bullied and disrespected. Bernie’s voters are simply losing. BIG difference.
This part was particularly offensive:
It’s not yet clear whether the Clinton camp thinks it will have to make any meaningful concessions to Sanders in order to unite the party and bring in his supporters. But during her victory speech yesterday, Clinton struck the right preliminary tone for navigating what’s ahead. She stopped short of declaring the nomination locked up, while suggesting that “more voices” across the country still deserve to “be heard,” and thus that the contest should continue for the foreseeable future. Her surrogates may be tempted to heap disdain on Sanders and his supporters for wanting him to keep going, particularly if her pledged delegate lead expands. The Clinton campaign should discourage that.
We don’t need a lecture from Greg Sargent. We had enough of that crap in 2008, along with the Convention media narrative, “Why is Hillary not releasing her delegates? Doesn’t she know she’s harshing Obama’s melloooooow??” (I was in Denver, Greg. I talked to “journalists”. They all parroted the same damn thing)
No one has to tell Clinton or her far more sensitive supporters how to behave towards our friends who are still feeling the Bern, especially not some tut-tutting male blogger at the Washington Post.
I have full faith in Hillary Clinton to do the right thing for the party, to which she has been far more loyal than it has been to her, and for all of the voters, both hers and Bernie’s.
When she wants your input, I’m sure she’ll ask for it.
Update: Why are Clinton people so cranky? Why don’t you put up with 20+ years of lies and innuendo from the nutcase right and then find that the guy you thought wasn’t going to hurt you is using the same personal attacks that could have been written by some back office flunky at Fox News.
And add to that the media is determined to never say anything nice about you. Even the surrogates of the most determined, successful, accomplished, over qualified candidate in the last 20 years would start to get a bit peevish.
Especially after having gone through it once before in 2008. It’s generally true that women have to work much harder to get to the same position as a man. But this is like asking her to run this gauntlet twice without any help whatsoever. It makes what Obama had to go through look like a cake walk.
The better question is, why is Bernie doing it? What can he possibly hope to gain by it?
Filed under: General | Tagged: Bernie Sanders, David Axlerod, greg sargent, Hillary Clinton, Obots, primaries |
The Confluence 
Yes, we were supposed to nominate Obama in 2008 because of the young people who are now disillusioned. We were supposed to take a back seat and we were “expected” to show up and vote for Obama but somehow whenever Hillary is running she’s the one that is supposed to pick up the slack. Tweety even said last night that it was for Elizabeth Warren to bring Bernie’s supporters on board with Hillary. I just about blew a gasket when I heard that. I guess if you want something done ask a woman to do it because apparently men are incapable.
The only admonishment I have heard towards Bernie is for him to start acting responsibly and quit acting like a Bernie Bro.
I think it will take Elizabeth Warren to bring the party together, and Obama, and Hillary, and Joe Biden. I think this because Bernie Sanders is no Hillary Clinton, and I don’t believe he is interested in party unity, so he won’t do much if anything at all to bring his supporters on board. He hasn’t the character or personality or will to do it. He’s just that way. Ornery, disagreeable, bitter, and spiteful.
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/20/yes_bernie_sanders_is_not_a_democrat_and_hillary_represents_the_very_worst_of_the_party/
You’d almost believe Obama didn’t legitimitze his own rein as phony when he appointed the woman who spouted Cheney’s lies then proceeded to warmonger herself.
Why Bernie wanted O primaried from the left. Heroic fight against the party over principal people.
Then he should have primaries from the left back in 2012.
Why wait?
BTW, we don’t use the words corporatist, neoliberal, hawk or warmonger around here. They tend to short cut the thinking process and turn people into philosophical zombies.
we don’t like the walking dead around here.
Thank you RD.
No zombies zone…
We don’t forget 2008…
It’s a Revolution Messaging troll. The same one posted in the other thread. Then there’s another Revolution Messaging bot called Truth Teller.
Yes, if all of this was such a problem why didn’t Bernie run in 2012? He himself even said Obama needed to be primaried. Why didn’t he do it?
The old coot just became a Democrat this year, I believe. And the only reason he did that was for the money. (spoke by an old coot, btw)
Great post RD. That crap from 2008 just burns me, if I think on it.
I will never understand the deeply embedded misogyny that continues to rear its ugly head over and over. And then to expect “the woman” to bring about unity! Are men ever going to evolve? Maybe after we get our first woman President? Nah, not even that soon.
I never actually met him, but I would think that Lincoln was fairly evolved, at least for a man. Maybe a couple of others: Shakespeare, Keats, and the like.
From my perspective, I think that the DNC wanted Obama because he is Black and articulate, and it made them feel virtuous to support him. Every mild crticism of Obama was decried as racist by his supporters. Donna Brazile fixed the nominating process by giving more delegates to districts where there were large African-American populations, under the transparent and absurd guise of “districts which went strongly Demoratic in the last election deserve more delegate votes.” I figure that this algorithmic bias set into the system gave Obama at least a hundred delegates that he would not have otherwise gotten under the old rules. And then Donna invalidated the Florida and Michigan primaries, which was certainly done in order to reduce Hillary’s delegates, at least until it was too late. If she had not done that, Hillary would have had another couple of hundred delegates in the early stages, and Obama would never have made that up, even with the caucuses in which his supporters engaged in a wide variety of illegal acts.
That process was rigged from the outset. Caroline Kennedy, whom I have always liked, said that Obama reminded her of her father. The Democratic Party powers, and then most of the social media types thought that they were getting a combination of JFK, MLK, and whatever Biblical figure they most admired. And Hillary was, yes, a woman, and also a Clinton. And the populist left wing of the party has always resented the Clintons. They wanted Jesse Jackson, or later John Edwards, or Howard Dean. If there hadn’t been an Obama, they would have created him. The pathetic thing is that after so many of them were disappointed at the results, they fell for another projective fantasy. And I do believe that if Elizabeth Warren, whom i am not particularly fond of as a political figure, had run against Hillary instead of Sanders, she would have had the same people supporting her.
As I understand it, Hillary isn’t calling for Bernie to drop out. (I won’t ask where Axelrod thinks he’s coming from. I remember him well.) She’s calling for him to stop aggressively attacking the Democratic Party as he has over the past few days (re: the Clooney fundraiser, insinuating a Clinton conspiracy re: the lost votes in NYC, etc.), and to stop making public insinuations about her conduct and decisions that are not backed up by evidence. Big difference.
I read today that Black Lives Matter wants her to pardon everyone incarcerated in the 90s under the 1994 crime bill of her husband’s. Can’t wait to see what the media is going to do with this one. Things are getting weirder and weirder today.
From their flyer in PA:
“Demand Hillary Clinton pardon all victims of the ’94 crime bill. The President has the power to pardon any federal prisoner. Hillary supported the ’94 crime bill that directly and indirectly contributed to mass incarcertation [sic]. Demand Hillary atone by committing to pardon all current and former federal prisoners unjustly convicted or sentenced as a result of the ’94 crime bill.” Atone? For the actions of her husband when she was first lady?
Here’s a great explanation about what that crime bill actually did: http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/clintoncrimebill.html
Why aren’t they asking Obama? He’s the president now.
Sanders voted for the crime bill, Hillary Clinton wasn’t even in congress back then.
Well, shozbot. What in Madoka-kami-sama’s holy name did I do to twist Spammy’s knickers THIS time? 🙄
The Bernie Operatives, and Bernie, are really bad with math. Hillary Clinton has won more delegates than Bernie Sanders in all three months there have been primaries and caucuses, Yet Bernie Bloggers keep claiming that Bernie is gaining on Hillary Clinton based on momentum. I get nervous at the thought of that type of math think running anything to do with math or money.
It’s not that they’re bad at math…they choose to ignore the math. Sanders doesn’t care a wit about the Democratic Party; he tried to use it like a tool. At this point, I am really concerned that Bernie and the Bernie Bros are irreparably damaging Hillary in search of their Holy Grail. Bernie Sanders (2016) = Ralph Nader (2000).
But let’s be clear, he isn’t damaging her by continuing to run. He’s damaging her by repeating right wing and personal smears.
His supporters are not being rational in their objections to Hillary. It’s not like 2008 when we had legitimate concerns about Obama that no one was paying attention to and later turned out to be right. No, this is about throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Hillary. If you listened to the hardcore Bernie bot, you’d think that she singlehandedly started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they could pin WWII on her, they’d do it.
Also, the crime bill, she’s to blame.
Welfare reform, her fault.
Trade policy, she’s lying.
There’s no mention of newt Gingrich, George bush or even Barack Obama. Everything bad that has ever happened in the past 23 years has been hillary’s fault and no one else’s. She’s the only politician in the 21st century who has had any agency at all. She’s ruined America all by herself.
Are these people for real??
That’s the problem here. Bernie has not only told them to cut the crap, he’s actually piled on.
And that’s wrong. He should have stuck to arguing about real differences between them, challenged her to adjust her perspective and stopped feeding his trolls. He didn’t.
Did my comment from yesterday fall into Spammy’s clutches, or did it simply not get sent at all, due to some equipment failure? 😕
Lots of comments being eaten by spammy lately. I have no idea why.
Let me release it.
I just checked. There’s nothing pending. Did you forget to hit Post Comment?
I even checked the trash bin. There are only a couple of lonely trolls in there. Probably the same ones who swore I wouldn’t be smart enough to prevent them from posting.
They really are stupid this year.
*sigh* Maybe I hit the wrong button. Alas, I’ve forgotten what I said.
Um, I think you were done.
I’ve tried and tried, tried and tried again, rinse and repeat, repeatedly, over the past 8 years to figure out why the Democratic party screwed such an eminently qualified candidate out of what was rightfully hers. The only answer I can come up with, other than misogyny, the race to the bottom, bribery from the medical insurance industry (haha to them) and such, is that the Democrats were consciously trying to sew up the black vote for the next generation or two. And that, thankfully, they appear to have done.
Hey, Grampa–Putin wants to talk to ya! No need to check out the invite! Don’t ask how long and where and when–after all, it might involve a photo op and a couple of juicy quotes about evil women! Just hop on a chartered plane, you old eco-Greenie you, and GO!
RD, if you’re going to hear Hillary speak in Pittsburgh on Fri., please post about it!
The media disappears what happened in 2008 with delegates and how close they were when they compare Bernie now with Hillary staying in. I’d like to see Bernie stay until the end because I think each state left deserves a voice in the process and I think it keeps the Democrats visible. However, if that time will be spent with Bernie stumping about disenfranchising independent voters and implying corruption, then he does need to go.
This can bring the party together: A Sanders People’s PAC to elect liberal Democrats – http://bit.ly/244UJHx
This seems like an excellent idea, and an honorable way to proceed, assuming that such a PAC would not ultimately find itself at odds with Hillary supported candidates. Clearly, we desperately need to win back the Senate, and make inroads on the House majority the Republicans think that they have gerrymandered into permanence.
RD-Such a delight to read your posts..I’m having ’08 flashbacks when this place helped keep me sane..or at least not feeling like the lone voice in the Hillary Wilderness.
How grand is this,all these years later,to be able to celebrate Hillary’s triumphant return?Reports of her demise were greatly exaggerated.
This is one old PUMA who’s been lurking lo these many years..I think we’re about to pounce. 🙂
What a lovely comment and it has been a long 8 years but Hilary and the PUMAS are standing tall and stronger than ever….all the way to the White House.
“He’s damaging her by repeating right wing and personal smears.”
He’s also damaging the Democratic Party by implying that their clear favorite is a crook. Someone needs to have a little talk with this crotchety old man. Or talk to him a lot harder, more like.
When was the first time he listed himself as a Democrat rather than an Independent? I’d bet it was fairly recently, as in when it came time to fill out the paperwork to get on the ballot. I’m no Jill Stein partisan, but at she has the guts to run as what she is.
With friends like Bernie, who needs Republicans?
I don’t have a problem with him running as a Democrat. Like I’ve said before, he’s been a better Democrat in the senate and the house than some actual Democrats.
I’m not going there.
BUT if he chose to run in this party, he needs to help other Democrats. If he wins the nomination, and after 2008, anything is possible, he’s going to need a lot of them on his side. So, he’d better be careful to not damage the brand he chose to run with.
Trump noted that Sanders was the first to call Hillary unqualified, saying, “Now I can call her unqualified, too!” He said he wants Sanders to stay in the race, now that Sanders is attacking her so hard.
Thank you so much for posting this. Bernie’s followers have taken me from a place where (even though I was a Hillary supporter) I found Bernie likable, to where now I can’t stand to hear his voice and see his face. The Bernistas are in absolute denial — they cannot accept that Hillary actually has more pledged delegates, so they pretend that she’s only ahead because of superdelegates, that Bernie’s about to catch up…. People have such a hard time believing that, yes, Bernie is getting big crowds, but we are out here voting for and supporting Hillary.
Don’t forget the Bernouts who are cocksure Hillary’s going to be indicted for Whitetravelbenghazimailgate(TM) any day now. *roll*
Do the Clintonphobes and their unending bogus scandals remind anyone else of Wile E. Coyote and his schemes? 😉
Yeah, and they’re hoping she’ll get indicted…because having a President Trump would be soooo awesome!
This was their modus operandi in 2008 too. But they got away with it because of Obama. If she had gotten her Florida and Michigan delegates from the beginning, he would be where Bernie is now. But the obots had to have their way.
I have to admit that, if nothing else, I’ve been able to let go of my frustrations about how 2008 turned out, and have grown to like Obama. But Obama is, at least, presidential. Bernie is a troll who cannot come anywhere near the office.
I won’t be letting go of my frustrations with Obama-ever.
That election had profound consequences for the country and for me personally. I’ve been aversly affected by just about every Obama policy. It’s pretty incredible. The blows just keep on coming. Someday soon I’ll list them all.
Obama was the worst choice for president in 2008 because of the financial crisis. He came to office without a working coalition. By that I mean he hadn’t been in the senate long enough to know who to call to push things thru. He relied on his economic advisors who were too tight with Wall Street. Go read that book Confidence Men by Ron Suskind to get an idea of who runs the Oval Office. It’s not shocking to those of us who watched him run in 2008 but it did make my blood boil all over again.
I think he will go down in history as the president in charge when working people became precariots in a more or less permanent capacity and the American economy experienced a generational slump. Just wait. Some day, when it’s safe to criticize Obama without having accusations of racism thrown back in your face, historians will not be so kind to his legacy.
If you haven’t been unemployed in the last eight years, you will have no idea what I’m talking about.
But his administration was awful. And we could see it coming in 2008 and got drowned out by his asshole supporters. This year, they turned to Bernie. I like Bernie. I just wish he didn’t start sounding like a Repiblican about Clinton.
Ah, I see. It’s true that his presidency didn’t have nearly as negative of an effect on my life (and the ACA helped my family), so my perspective on things is a bit different. And I vastly prefer him to Bernie. But the most important thing that I know we can agree about, is that HRC would make a far better president than either one of these guys.
He ignored the unemployed.
During his administration, the jobs created have been part time, temp and contractor. I’ve had all three since I was laid off.
Nary a peep from Obama.
I don’t know if I’d want the legacy of increasing the number of American precariats attached to my presidency. The non-Bernie Bros Sanders supporters seem to be keenly aware of income instability. Or at least the ones I’ve talked to have been.
Who made the actual decisions to deny acting on the actual evidence of Hillary’s growing victory in the elected delegate count? Obots? Or the Establicrats such as Dean and Pelosi and Reid? I believe it was the CFP Establicrats. (CFP stands for Corporate Fascist Pig . . . and I am comfident that when you consider the agenda of Forced Trade Supporters like Pelosi and Reid, you will consider the letters CFP entirely fitting).
Also, Clinton and Obama were called to a no-press-allowed meeting of the Bilderberg Society taking place at Chantilly, Virginia at just before the Dem Convention. I believe they, and Clinton especially, were given their orders by the CFP World Rulers gathered at the Bilderberg Society conference and instructed that Clinton would not be allowed the nomination, and not be allowed the elected delegate count which would put on display the CFP Establicrats’ selection of Obama over Clinton.
By the way, several years ago a guest author ( and commenter) over at Sic Semper Tyrannis named Professor Clifford Kiracofe went into some detail about Obama’s early sponsorship by the shadowy new-Big-Money dynastic Crown and Pritzger families. He also worked for a CIA connected front group of some kind (I remember reading somewhere) before going to South Chicago to do some turd-building and turd-buffing of his image as a Community Organizer. He was then moved from place to place in Illinois politics and groomed all the way by rich powerful handlers. His way forward was swept smooth and pre-guided for him just like sweepers sweep a path ahead of the curling stone in that Canadian game called curling. He himself wasn’t thinking of running for DemPrez Nom in 2008. He himself was thinking of spending more time in the Senate to build up the appearance of gravitas and experience. But Reid met privately with Obama and instructed Obama that if Obama ever wanted to run for President, he would have to run in 2000 or never. So that was Reid shoving Curling Stone Obama out onto the ice in 2000 to begin with. And Reid was not an Obot. Reid was a major Corporate Fascist Pig Decievocrat operative. So the Obots are getting too much credit for the steady grooming and advancing of Obama.
If this is all true, why are the Dem Establishment operatives (and their masters) willing to accept Clinton now? What was wrong with her in 2008?
As Riverdaughter has noted in various articles, she was not nearly as pro-WallStreet as Obama was in 2008. During the depths of the housing price crash, Clinton authored a policy article and got it on the Op Ed page of a Major Paper ( my fault for not remembering which one), calling for a revival of the New-Deal-Era style HOLC for saving people’s mortgages and houses. That was exactly when the Wall Streeters and their Mainstream Corruptocrats determined that Obama was The One to make them the Big Money. That was precisely the moment they turned against Clinton finalistically and conclusively.