10 ms·

Bernie Sanders: Where the Democrats Go from Here

116 points by baptou12 10y ago

spraak 10y ago
Where /do/ they go from here then?
Ericson2314 10y ago
Of course, larger macro economic forces make Trump's economic promises very hard to carry out. But his shortlist of candidates for cabinet and other major roles also cast doubts whether his administration will even end up trying. The progressive wing of the democratic party now has more leverage within that party. Furthermore, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/business/economy/can-trump-save-their-jobs-theyre-counting-on-it.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/business/economy/can-trump... does paint one of the nicest images of Trump voters, implying the Rust Belt voters who most dramatically swung republican vs 2012 and 2008 voted Trump in on a Sandernist mandate. So 2020 could be interesting, but man waiting through 4 more years of gridlock will suck. If it weren't for supreme court I'd love to strike a bargin of "4 years your stuff, 4 years ours", so we'd actually run a good policy experiment.
- criddell 10y ago
  Gridlock? I was thinking that by controlling the house, the senate, and the presidency, the Republicans are going to be able to push through all the legislation they want. Combine that with new Supreme Court justices (and probably one or two more in the next four years) and Trump could effect more change than any President has in a long time.
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    Yeah that's the thing. They ought to be on their own, but if the democrats return the favor (and I do also feel we were way too nice in 2008) and filibusterer everything, Congress will still have a hard time doing anything. The supreme court is the exception to this.
    - zanny 10y ago
      Democrats don't filibuster republicans. Republicans filibuster democrats. They didn't do jack to stop NCLB or the Patriot Act or either of the war authorizations under Bush.
      - mountaineer22 10y ago
        Are we talking Patriot Act re-authorization or original signing?
  - mountaineer22 10y ago
    Neither political party seems to work like the Borg.
    - derrickdirge 10y ago
      A dissenting republican is a far rarer creature than a dissenting democrat, in my experience.
fowlerpower 10y ago
I think we need a post mortem in the Democratic Party. Look I supported Hilary but there were so many things that went wrong. Let's talk about the fact that we suppressed our own vote. Emails came out that the party wanted Hilary to win at all costs enough to sabotage Sanders. Well that sort of thing doesn't help anyone, because a candidate not picked by the people will loose. Trump may have been someone that the party despised but he won the vote, they did not push him out. There are so many other things that we did wrong, why wasn't Elizabeth Warren in this? I know because the party wanted Hilary to win it. There are many other things that can go into this post mortem. I've come to grips with the fact that we lost and I'm looking ahead at what we can do next time.
- Burritamos 10y ago
  Hillary won a majority of the popular votes in the primary as well as the majority of pledged delegates (i.e. not just superdelegates). I don't think I understand how that counts as 'suppressing' your vote. Mind expanding on that a bit?
  - Alex3917 10y ago
    Things Hillary and her campaign did during the primaries: - Rigging the primary/caucus schedule so that all the states favoring Hillary would be the first to vote. - Rigged the debate schedule by purposely scheduling them at odd times when no one would by watching so that Bernie couldn't get his message out. - Cheated in the debates by receiving the questions in advance, and was given extra time by the moderators. - Got the media to censor all virtually all coverage of Bernie. E.g. on the days when he had big primary wins, the media covered the speeches of every other candidate except him. - Illegally disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in New York and Arizona alone by removing them from the voter roles, or else removing their party affiliation. Disenfranchised millions more around the country by, e.g., forcing California voters to vote provisional and then just throwing out their ballots without counting them. - Circumvented campaign finance laws by having donors send money to the state parties, but then requiring the state parties to send all of that money to her campaign. All while trashing Bernie for not raising money for the down ticket races.
kogus 10y ago
I like and respect Bernie Sanders a lot, but I can't help but feel that he's deliberately interpreting Trump's victory in a way that vindicates his own beliefs. I somehow manage to be both amused and disgusted as I watch the media contort itself trying to explain Trump supporters as idiot racist protest voters. Their heads simply cannot contain the idea that many of his ideas have legitimate affirmative support among a near-majority of clear minded individuals. Occam's razor is helpful here; people voted for Trump because they supported Trump. As a country we kind of have to get over that. Large parts of the country want to take a dramatically different direction on economic issues from immigration to trade policy, and they voted for the candidate that represented their wishes. For the record, I think both candidates were catastrophes waiting to happen (albeit in different ways). I voted libertarian.
- throw_away_777 10y ago
  There is substantial evidence that a lot of people voted for Trump because they did not like Clinton. If Clinton was a popular candidate I don't see a path to Trump winning, but she was a historically unpopular candidate, only Trump had a less favorable approval rating of any other presidential candidates since approval rating has been measured.
  - cheiVia0 10y ago
    Is there any evidence that Sanders gained so much support for the same reason, that people didn't like Clinton? At the beginning of the race, I assumed Sanders would be like the "RON PAUL 2008" campaign, with a small but vocal group of supporters. I did not think a self-described socialist would be viable in a general election. (Remember how Obama was called a "soshulist"?) Suppose DNC didn't pick the favorite, and there was a mainstream alternative to Clinton with a favorable approval rating (e.g. Biden). Would Sanders still have garnered this much support? Had Sanders been the nominee, I would have voted for him: not for his leftist stances but because he seemed like he could be trusted with not running the country into the ground. I stayed home this election.
    - gremlinsinc 10y ago
pmontra 10y ago
Clinton got some 5 million votes less than Obama 2012 and 10 million less than Obama 2008. Trump got less votes than Romney 2012 but more than McCain 2008. An average performance was enough to win because Clinton wasn't able to get the Democratic Party electors to vote. Check the summaries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... and continue to look at the trends.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  There's also the problem of geographic polarization: more enthusiasm among Clinton voters in California or New York doesn't actually net her any more electoral seats, but she doesn't seem to have cared at all to campaign in states like Wisconsin and Michigan that ended up swinging against her.
  - moyta 10y ago
    Bernie did a much better job of calling and canvasing, none of this is rocket science though. Hillary could have done this, she had waaay more time and money to do this kind of outreach with.
    - JBlue42 10y ago
      I think because of the two-year crapshow that is our presidential election process that most people wouldn't welcome further calls or advertising. I doubt there would've been much change in the results had you had the presidential election right after the primaries vs our normal election day. Trump had his narrative and people have known Hillary's for a while and definitely already an opinion of her. I can't really fathom the idea of there having been flip-floppers or undecideds more so than the stories I've read of people who had never voted coming out of the woodwork to do so (for Trump). Even more sad is that this entire thing was decided in a year with a 20-year low voter turnout. After so much venom spilled, and a little more than half of people decided to vote. I think that says something about both parties.
woofyman 10y ago
1) Stop triangulating 2) Repudiate neoliberalism 3) say what you believe even if it's not popular
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
tl;dr: Bernie uses this tragedy to toot his own horn
itgoon 10y ago
Both the RNC and DNC are screwed. Yes, the Republican candidate won (and brought a lot of senators with him), but he isn't "their man". Both establishments put up their chosen people, and both establishments lost. They've grown too insular, too much about the being "True Conservatives/Progressives", and less about representing people. Who are they to decide what we believe?
- mountaineer22 10y ago
  This is spot on. Both Sanders and Trump attempted to "hijack" the mainstream political parties. Trump obviously more successful (to become the party nominee). Sanders is not a "Democrat" and Trump is not a "Republican".
throw_away_777 10y ago
The democratic party really needs to start prioritizing the needs of working class Americans. Too many policies clearly benefit corporations and the rich, at the expense of workers. Obama has been a huge disappointment, he talked of hope and change but delivered more of the same. Democrats also need to prioritize the needs of America over the rest of the world. Whatever else you say about Trump, it is clear that he puts Americans first.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Democrats also need to prioritize the needs of America over the rest of the world. We need to say this clearly: American citizens must not be the fuel for the American empire, and this should not be considered a nationalist statement as such. Human sacrifice is just bad like that.
ausjke 10y ago
Just fix one thing: hypocrisy Just do what you say, for example, _GIVE_ your college seat to others who has a different skin color or whatever though their GPA is only 40% of yours, instead of just saying you're for AA but you took no actual meaningful action. Just _Moving_ to the neighborhood that you want to help directly and do not buy house in a conservative district then saying you're welcoming lots of section8 house nearby, that's just not good enough. Also let your employer know that you can _GIVE_ your chance to those who have a difference skin color but not as experienced as you. And _DONATE_ 20% of your after-tax income to help those in-need instead of asking the federal to print more money for food-stamps. Last but not least, just _PAY_ more premium out of your pocket so others can get a basically free-ride for medical care, etc,etc. Just _DO_ it instead of say it, the one who benefited because your generous _actual_action_ will speak to others, so you can safely save the ideology part and let them speak for you, just DO what you want to say, instead of keeping saying it and expect others to do it for you and you feel good about saying those words. If Democrats DO what they say, all issues will be fixed quickly.
- cryptarch 10y ago
  Do you trust that donations to charity organizations do significant good? Because I'd just as likely give money to a charity as to a beggar, which is to say: no chance at all. What did they do to deserve my money, and why should I trust they'll spend it better? As an aside, your text formatting very much distracted me from your content and left a patronising, annoying impression on me.
  - sunsu 10y ago
    There are many charities with great, documented, track records. There is only one US government and it's track record of efficiently and effectively allocating resources is horrible.
    - parenthephobia 10y ago
      I can't help thinking that the government might be better able to e.g. distribute medicaid if half (or more) of the government wasn't constantly doing everything in its power to prevent, disrupt or impede it. That's not usually a problem that charities have.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Democrats need to be like NFL coaches, who scientifically dissect losing games Monday morning. As a life-long democrat, I blame the corruption in the DNC. I base my opinion on reading DNC emails, and favoring international news sources and a few people I trust on the web. In addition to the DNC's failings, I have lost almost all faith in US news media. I hope that something positive comes out of this. I look to the future.
dreta 10y ago
Don’t think Trump, or HRC were best choices, but i’d still pick either over Sanders. Sanders presidency would’ve been a disaster to the economy. He would've made starting a business, and employing people even harder than it is now. By rising the minimum wage he would’ve ruined the lower and lower-middle class by the time he’s out of office. Not to mention that Sanders’ gripe with the 1% is more populist than anything Trump or HRC ever said. As soon as he lost to HRC, he bought a 3rd house for $600,000. He sold out to HRC after he got shafted by the DNC. He can talk about the status quo all he wants, but he’s a part of it.
- moyta 10y ago
  Sander's policies were far from economy destroying, they were classic New Deal Democrat policies that rebuilt America in the 1930s and put millions back to work building the dams, roadways, and infrastructure that keep our society running today. Then, at the tail end of 1941 we had spent the better part of a decade rebuilding our infrastructure and were ready to join in on WW2, so we used all these dams, roadways, etc to build the arms & the Liberty Ships to transport said arms.
  - dreta 10y ago
    It’s not at all agreed upon that the New Deal helped the recovery. It’s just as much argued that it prolonged the Great Depression. It’s baffling to me that you’d state that like it’s a historical fact.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      It's agreed upon among everyone who wasn't in the Mount Pelerin Society.
    - moyta 10y ago
      How else do you rebuild an economy that just had a huge bubble pop in one major industry, has the dust bowl going on, and has knockon effects destroying the entirety of peoples savings? Greece tried to tighten their belt and tax their way out of it, just led to compounding double digit economic contraction. Instead, when we have bubbles pop, we usually inject money into the economy to keep economic carnage like that at bay, and in the 1930s we created a jobs program so as to put those funds to effective use. This has worked well for the US, as compared to Greece.
Tistel 10y ago
No ones likes Trump. Its just that people dislike Clinton more. The DNC fielded a toxic loser that everyone outside of Manhattan and LA could smell from a mile away. Look into the Clinton Foundation, they are cartoonishly corrupt and bad at hiding it. Trump made a lot of promises (like all politicians do) and will most likely come up short on all of them. Look to the future. The US will be fine, you guys have been through worse.
pitt1980 10y ago
There are many types of diversity. Diversity of occupation, diversity of musical taste, diversity of outlook, diversity of residence, and of course varying kinds of racial and ethnic diversity. You could list thousands of kinds of diversity. The original thinking behind the Electoral College was that geographic diversity was important. The Founding Fathers were not majoritarian, but rather they believed in placing special weight on diversity of this kind. The prevailing view was “if too many (geographically) diverse voices veto you, you can’t get elected, not even with a majority of the votes.” That view was a strange and perhaps unlikely precursor of today’s veto rights/PC approach on campus, but there you go. Democrats now control at least one legislative house in only 17 states, and the reach of the party is shrinking dramatically. So by the 18th century standards of diversity, emphasizing geography, the Democratic coalition is remarkably non-diverse. You can see how much of Hillary Clinton’s majority came from the two states of New York and California. That also means the Republicans are not just a “Southern rump party,” as some commentators used to suggest. If you think of education as serving a smoothing function, the less educated are in some ways considerably more diverse than the educated. The Democratic Party today is more likely to stress the relevance of ethnic and racial diversity, if the talk is about diversity. (Gender diversity too, but that requires its own post, maybe later to come.) Non-Democrats are more likely to count other forms of diversity for more than the Democrats do. I see Democrats as somewhat concentrated in particular cities and also in particular occupations, more than Republicans are. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is another way in which Democrats are less diverse. When it comes to views about the relevant forms of diversity, the views of non-Democrats are more diverse than the views of Democrats, I would hazard to guess. A non-Democrat is more likely to focus on something other than racial and ethnic diversity, compared to a Democrat. Correctly or not, many Americans do not think racial and ethnic diversity is the diversity that should command so much attention. That is one place to start for understanding why so many 2012 Obama voters switched to Trump this time around, or maybe just stayed home. A few days ago I saw figures that 29 percent of Latinos voted for Trump (possibly that number has been revised). I suspect many of those voters do not see Latino vs. non-Latino as the diversity line that interests them most strongly. I haven’t offered any criticism of the Democratic point of view on diversity, even though you may feel that my description of it is trying to lower its status. (You are right, noting I don’t wish to defend the R. point of view, but the R view does not need as much status-lowering either.) It may well be correct to have a less diverse view of diversity. If you were to start with an argument for that view, you could cite the long history of American slavery and segregation, plus continuing racial wealth inequality, as reasons for focusing so much on one kind of diversity rather than others. Still, when I speak with Democrats, and with Progressives in particular, they view themselves, as a kind of assumption, as the people concerned with diversity. That is a significant cognitive mistake. When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, it was the forces of diversity — some diversities, many diversities — that won. It was the people less concerned with diversity overall that lost. Again noting that some important notions of diversity do cut the other way, most of all racial diversity. And I do wish to stress that the presumptive argument for “diversity” simply isn’t there, although that conclusion is hard to swallow that if you have imbibed too much contemporary political rhetoric. In fact, I view the amazing diversity of the election and the electorate as having gotten the better of us. It is an example of how diversity can go wrong. I believe that until Democrats and Progressives can grasp their lack of diversity intuitively, they will struggle to make their way forward in the new political climate of the United States. They will not understand how anyone could view them as divisive, since they automatically think of diversity as being on their side, rather than something they oppose. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/coalition-diversity-whose-diversity-diversity-just-win.html#comments http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/coa...
socialist_coder 10y ago
Why is this flagged? This is a great weekend discussion.
- grzm 10y ago
  I think a lot of HN users are exhausted by the political discussions and are flagging such topics as a matter of course, especially given the HN guidelines regarding submissions on political topics. Quality of discussion likely doesn't enter into it.
socialist_coder 10y ago
I think part of the issue with Democrats vs Republicans is that the Democrats are basically gerrymandering themselves by clustering in ~10 states. Let me explain: if you are a liberal living in a red state, it sucks. Lots of them move away, and they move to one of the bastions of liberal culture. That person's vote is now completely wasted since their state is already > 50% democrat while their original state now has 1 less person able to cast a liberal vote. Not only is it liberals wanting to move out of their conservative hometowns, but it's also people moving to the larger cities. Many of those larger cities are in the same liberal states. And people who are willing to move to a big city for a job are probably liberal, or at least politically neutral. Another vote wasted. So you end up with the only people who still want to live in the rural states are just naturally more inclined to vote Republican. Compounding this problem, if a red state has a few cities that are heavily liberal, because of gerrymandering, the democrats have far less congressional representation than they should have. The republican state government sees to that. A crazy idea is that the 50 states would be reorganized, just like congressional districts. Many of the less populated states who share similar values merged together. Like the entire bible belt / midwest could just be 2 or 3 mega states. The southeastern states could merge up and be Dixieland or whatever. Boom: less senators, less EC votes, everyone wins! More realistically, we just have to get past the fact that each state has a minimum amount of power in our government. It should be scaled more with population, or the % that the candidate wins by should mean something (so all those wasted votes in heavily liberal states would actually count for something). Ending gerrymandering at the congressional level would also help solve this problem. I hope we see algorithmic districts in the next 10 years.

116 points by baptou12 10y ago

Where /do/ they go from here then?

Of course, larger macro economic forces make Trump's economic promises very hard to carry out. But his shortlist of candidates for cabinet and other major roles also cast doubts whether his administration will even end up trying. The progressive wing of the democratic party now has more leverage within that party. Furthermore, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/business/economy/can-trump-save-their-jobs-theyre-counting-on-it.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/business/economy/can-trump... does paint one of the nicest images of Trump voters, implying the Rust Belt voters who most dramatically swung republican vs 2012 and 2008 voted Trump in on a Sandernist mandate. So 2020 could be interesting, but man waiting through 4 more years of gridlock will suck. If it weren't for supreme court I'd love to strike a bargin of "4 years your stuff, 4 years ours", so we'd actually run a good policy experiment.

criddell 10y ago
Gridlock? I was thinking that by controlling the house, the senate, and the presidency, the Republicans are going to be able to push through all the legislation they want. Combine that with new Supreme Court justices (and probably one or two more in the next four years) and Trump could effect more change than any President has in a long time.
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  Yeah that's the thing. They ought to be on their own, but if the democrats return the favor (and I do also feel we were way too nice in 2008) and filibusterer everything, Congress will still have a hard time doing anything. The supreme court is the exception to this.
  - zanny 10y ago
    Democrats don't filibuster republicans. Republicans filibuster democrats. They didn't do jack to stop NCLB or the Patriot Act or either of the war authorizations under Bush.
    - mountaineer22 10y ago
      Are we talking Patriot Act re-authorization or original signing?
- mountaineer22 10y ago
  Neither political party seems to work like the Borg.
  - derrickdirge 10y ago
    A dissenting republican is a far rarer creature than a dissenting democrat, in my experience.

fowlerpower 10y ago

I think we need a post mortem in the Democratic Party. Look I supported Hilary but there were so many things that went wrong. Let's talk about the fact that we suppressed our own vote. Emails came out that the party wanted Hilary to win at all costs enough to sabotage Sanders. Well that sort of thing doesn't help anyone, because a candidate not picked by the people will loose. Trump may have been someone that the party despised but he won the vote, they did not push him out. There are so many other things that we did wrong, why wasn't Elizabeth Warren in this? I know because the party wanted Hilary to win it. There are many other things that can go into this post mortem. I've come to grips with the fact that we lost and I'm looking ahead at what we can do next time.

Burritamos 10y ago
Hillary won a majority of the popular votes in the primary as well as the majority of pledged delegates (i.e. not just superdelegates). I don't think I understand how that counts as 'suppressing' your vote. Mind expanding on that a bit?
- Alex3917 10y ago
  Things Hillary and her campaign did during the primaries: - Rigging the primary/caucus schedule so that all the states favoring Hillary would be the first to vote. - Rigged the debate schedule by purposely scheduling them at odd times when no one would by watching so that Bernie couldn't get his message out. - Cheated in the debates by receiving the questions in advance, and was given extra time by the moderators. - Got the media to censor all virtually all coverage of Bernie. E.g. on the days when he had big primary wins, the media covered the speeches of every other candidate except him. - Illegally disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in New York and Arizona alone by removing them from the voter roles, or else removing their party affiliation. Disenfranchised millions more around the country by, e.g., forcing California voters to vote provisional and then just throwing out their ballots without counting them. - Circumvented campaign finance laws by having donors send money to the state parties, but then requiring the state parties to send all of that money to her campaign. All while trashing Bernie for not raising money for the down ticket races.

kogus 10y ago

I like and respect Bernie Sanders a lot, but I can't help but feel that he's deliberately interpreting Trump's victory in a way that vindicates his own beliefs. I somehow manage to be both amused and disgusted as I watch the media contort itself trying to explain Trump supporters as idiot racist protest voters. Their heads simply cannot contain the idea that many of his ideas have legitimate affirmative support among a near-majority of clear minded individuals. Occam's razor is helpful here; people voted for Trump because they supported Trump. As a country we kind of have to get over that. Large parts of the country want to take a dramatically different direction on economic issues from immigration to trade policy, and they voted for the candidate that represented their wishes. For the record, I think both candidates were catastrophes waiting to happen (albeit in different ways). I voted libertarian.

throw_away_777 10y ago
There is substantial evidence that a lot of people voted for Trump because they did not like Clinton. If Clinton was a popular candidate I don't see a path to Trump winning, but she was a historically unpopular candidate, only Trump had a less favorable approval rating of any other presidential candidates since approval rating has been measured.
- cheiVia0 10y ago
  Is there any evidence that Sanders gained so much support for the same reason, that people didn't like Clinton? At the beginning of the race, I assumed Sanders would be like the "RON PAUL 2008" campaign, with a small but vocal group of supporters. I did not think a self-described socialist would be viable in a general election. (Remember how Obama was called a "soshulist"?) Suppose DNC didn't pick the favorite, and there was a mainstream alternative to Clinton with a favorable approval rating (e.g. Biden). Would Sanders still have garnered this much support? Had Sanders been the nominee, I would have voted for him: not for his leftist stances but because he seemed like he could be trusted with not running the country into the ground. I stayed home this election.
  - gremlinsinc 10y ago

pmontra 10y ago

Clinton got some 5 million votes less than Obama 2012 and 10 million less than Obama 2008. Trump got less votes than Romney 2012 but more than McCain 2008. An average performance was enough to win because Clinton wasn't able to get the Democratic Party electors to vote. Check the summaries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... and continue to look at the trends.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
There's also the problem of geographic polarization: more enthusiasm among Clinton voters in California or New York doesn't actually net her any more electoral seats, but she doesn't seem to have cared at all to campaign in states like Wisconsin and Michigan that ended up swinging against her.
- moyta 10y ago
  Bernie did a much better job of calling and canvasing, none of this is rocket science though. Hillary could have done this, she had waaay more time and money to do this kind of outreach with.
  - JBlue42 10y ago
    I think because of the two-year crapshow that is our presidential election process that most people wouldn't welcome further calls or advertising. I doubt there would've been much change in the results had you had the presidential election right after the primaries vs our normal election day. Trump had his narrative and people have known Hillary's for a while and definitely already an opinion of her. I can't really fathom the idea of there having been flip-floppers or undecideds more so than the stories I've read of people who had never voted coming out of the woodwork to do so (for Trump). Even more sad is that this entire thing was decided in a year with a 20-year low voter turnout. After so much venom spilled, and a little more than half of people decided to vote. I think that says something about both parties.

woofyman 10y ago

1) Stop triangulating 2) Repudiate neoliberalism 3) say what you believe even if it's not popular

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

tl;dr: Bernie uses this tragedy to toot his own horn

itgoon 10y ago

Both the RNC and DNC are screwed. Yes, the Republican candidate won (and brought a lot of senators with him), but he isn't "their man". Both establishments put up their chosen people, and both establishments lost. They've grown too insular, too much about the being "True Conservatives/Progressives", and less about representing people. Who are they to decide what we believe?

mountaineer22 10y ago
This is spot on. Both Sanders and Trump attempted to "hijack" the mainstream political parties. Trump obviously more successful (to become the party nominee). Sanders is not a "Democrat" and Trump is not a "Republican".

throw_away_777 10y ago

The democratic party really needs to start prioritizing the needs of working class Americans. Too many policies clearly benefit corporations and the rich, at the expense of workers. Obama has been a huge disappointment, he talked of hope and change but delivered more of the same. Democrats also need to prioritize the needs of America over the rest of the world. Whatever else you say about Trump, it is clear that he puts Americans first.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Democrats also need to prioritize the needs of America over the rest of the world. We need to say this clearly: American citizens must not be the fuel for the American empire, and this should not be considered a nationalist statement as such. Human sacrifice is just bad like that.

ausjke 10y ago

Just fix one thing: hypocrisy Just do what you say, for example, _GIVE_ your college seat to others who has a different skin color or whatever though their GPA is only 40% of yours, instead of just saying you're for AA but you took no actual meaningful action. Just _Moving_ to the neighborhood that you want to help directly and do not buy house in a conservative district then saying you're welcoming lots of section8 house nearby, that's just not good enough. Also let your employer know that you can _GIVE_ your chance to those who have a difference skin color but not as experienced as you. And _DONATE_ 20% of your after-tax income to help those in-need instead of asking the federal to print more money for food-stamps. Last but not least, just _PAY_ more premium out of your pocket so others can get a basically free-ride for medical care, etc,etc. Just _DO_ it instead of say it, the one who benefited because your generous _actual_action_ will speak to others, so you can safely save the ideology part and let them speak for you, just DO what you want to say, instead of keeping saying it and expect others to do it for you and you feel good about saying those words. If Democrats DO what they say, all issues will be fixed quickly.

cryptarch 10y ago
Do you trust that donations to charity organizations do significant good? Because I'd just as likely give money to a charity as to a beggar, which is to say: no chance at all. What did they do to deserve my money, and why should I trust they'll spend it better? As an aside, your text formatting very much distracted me from your content and left a patronising, annoying impression on me.
- sunsu 10y ago
  There are many charities with great, documented, track records. There is only one US government and it's track record of efficiently and effectively allocating resources is horrible.
  - parenthephobia 10y ago
    I can't help thinking that the government might be better able to e.g. distribute medicaid if half (or more) of the government wasn't constantly doing everything in its power to prevent, disrupt or impede it. That's not usually a problem that charities have.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Democrats need to be like NFL coaches, who scientifically dissect losing games Monday morning. As a life-long democrat, I blame the corruption in the DNC. I base my opinion on reading DNC emails, and favoring international news sources and a few people I trust on the web. In addition to the DNC's failings, I have lost almost all faith in US news media. I hope that something positive comes out of this. I look to the future.

dreta 10y ago

Don’t think Trump, or HRC were best choices, but i’d still pick either over Sanders. Sanders presidency would’ve been a disaster to the economy. He would've made starting a business, and employing people even harder than it is now. By rising the minimum wage he would’ve ruined the lower and lower-middle class by the time he’s out of office. Not to mention that Sanders’ gripe with the 1% is more populist than anything Trump or HRC ever said. As soon as he lost to HRC, he bought a 3rd house for $600,000. He sold out to HRC after he got shafted by the DNC. He can talk about the status quo all he wants, but he’s a part of it.

moyta 10y ago
Sander's policies were far from economy destroying, they were classic New Deal Democrat policies that rebuilt America in the 1930s and put millions back to work building the dams, roadways, and infrastructure that keep our society running today. Then, at the tail end of 1941 we had spent the better part of a decade rebuilding our infrastructure and were ready to join in on WW2, so we used all these dams, roadways, etc to build the arms & the Liberty Ships to transport said arms.
- dreta 10y ago
  It’s not at all agreed upon that the New Deal helped the recovery. It’s just as much argued that it prolonged the Great Depression. It’s baffling to me that you’d state that like it’s a historical fact.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    It's agreed upon among everyone who wasn't in the Mount Pelerin Society.
  - moyta 10y ago
    How else do you rebuild an economy that just had a huge bubble pop in one major industry, has the dust bowl going on, and has knockon effects destroying the entirety of peoples savings? Greece tried to tighten their belt and tax their way out of it, just led to compounding double digit economic contraction. Instead, when we have bubbles pop, we usually inject money into the economy to keep economic carnage like that at bay, and in the 1930s we created a jobs program so as to put those funds to effective use. This has worked well for the US, as compared to Greece.

Tistel 10y ago

No ones likes Trump. Its just that people dislike Clinton more. The DNC fielded a toxic loser that everyone outside of Manhattan and LA could smell from a mile away. Look into the Clinton Foundation, they are cartoonishly corrupt and bad at hiding it. Trump made a lot of promises (like all politicians do) and will most likely come up short on all of them. Look to the future. The US will be fine, you guys have been through worse.

pitt1980 10y ago

There are many types of diversity. Diversity of occupation, diversity of musical taste, diversity of outlook, diversity of residence, and of course varying kinds of racial and ethnic diversity. You could list thousands of kinds of diversity. The original thinking behind the Electoral College was that geographic diversity was important. The Founding Fathers were not majoritarian, but rather they believed in placing special weight on diversity of this kind. The prevailing view was “if too many (geographically) diverse voices veto you, you can’t get elected, not even with a majority of the votes.” That view was a strange and perhaps unlikely precursor of today’s veto rights/PC approach on campus, but there you go. Democrats now control at least one legislative house in only 17 states, and the reach of the party is shrinking dramatically. So by the 18th century standards of diversity, emphasizing geography, the Democratic coalition is remarkably non-diverse. You can see how much of Hillary Clinton’s majority came from the two states of New York and California. That also means the Republicans are not just a “Southern rump party,” as some commentators used to suggest. If you think of education as serving a smoothing function, the less educated are in some ways considerably more diverse than the educated. The Democratic Party today is more likely to stress the relevance of ethnic and racial diversity, if the talk is about diversity. (Gender diversity too, but that requires its own post, maybe later to come.) Non-Democrats are more likely to count other forms of diversity for more than the Democrats do. I see Democrats as somewhat concentrated in particular cities and also in particular occupations, more than Republicans are. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is another way in which Democrats are less diverse. When it comes to views about the relevant forms of diversity, the views of non-Democrats are more diverse than the views of Democrats, I would hazard to guess. A non-Democrat is more likely to focus on something other than racial and ethnic diversity, compared to a Democrat. Correctly or not, many Americans do not think racial and ethnic diversity is the diversity that should command so much attention. That is one place to start for understanding why so many 2012 Obama voters switched to Trump this time around, or maybe just stayed home. A few days ago I saw figures that 29 percent of Latinos voted for Trump (possibly that number has been revised). I suspect many of those voters do not see Latino vs. non-Latino as the diversity line that interests them most strongly. I haven’t offered any criticism of the Democratic point of view on diversity, even though you may feel that my description of it is trying to lower its status. (You are right, noting I don’t wish to defend the R. point of view, but the R view does not need as much status-lowering either.) It may well be correct to have a less diverse view of diversity. If you were to start with an argument for that view, you could cite the long history of American slavery and segregation, plus continuing racial wealth inequality, as reasons for focusing so much on one kind of diversity rather than others. Still, when I speak with Democrats, and with Progressives in particular, they view themselves, as a kind of assumption, as the people concerned with diversity. That is a significant cognitive mistake. When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, it was the forces of diversity — some diversities, many diversities — that won. It was the people less concerned with diversity overall that lost. Again noting that some important notions of diversity do cut the other way, most of all racial diversity. And I do wish to stress that the presumptive argument for “diversity” simply isn’t there, although that conclusion is hard to swallow that if you have imbibed too much contemporary political rhetoric. In fact, I view the amazing diversity of the election and the electorate as having gotten the better of us. It is an example of how diversity can go wrong. I believe that until Democrats and Progressives can grasp their lack of diversity intuitively, they will struggle to make their way forward in the new political climate of the United States. They will not understand how anyone could view them as divisive, since they automatically think of diversity as being on their side, rather than something they oppose. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/coalition-diversity-whose-diversity-diversity-just-win.html#comments http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/coa...

socialist_coder 10y ago

Why is this flagged? This is a great weekend discussion.

grzm 10y ago
I think a lot of HN users are exhausted by the political discussions and are flagging such topics as a matter of course, especially given the HN guidelines regarding submissions on political topics. Quality of discussion likely doesn't enter into it.

socialist_coder 10y ago

I think part of the issue with Democrats vs Republicans is that the Democrats are basically gerrymandering themselves by clustering in ~10 states. Let me explain: if you are a liberal living in a red state, it sucks. Lots of them move away, and they move to one of the bastions of liberal culture. That person's vote is now completely wasted since their state is already > 50% democrat while their original state now has 1 less person able to cast a liberal vote. Not only is it liberals wanting to move out of their conservative hometowns, but it's also people moving to the larger cities. Many of those larger cities are in the same liberal states. And people who are willing to move to a big city for a job are probably liberal, or at least politically neutral. Another vote wasted. So you end up with the only people who still want to live in the rural states are just naturally more inclined to vote Republican. Compounding this problem, if a red state has a few cities that are heavily liberal, because of gerrymandering, the democrats have far less congressional representation than they should have. The republican state government sees to that. A crazy idea is that the 50 states would be reorganized, just like congressional districts. Many of the less populated states who share similar values merged together. Like the entire bible belt / midwest could just be 2 or 3 mega states. The southeastern states could merge up and be Dixieland or whatever. Boom: less senators, less EC votes, everyone wins! More realistically, we just have to get past the fact that each state has a minimum amount of power in our government. It should be scaled more with population, or the % that the candidate wins by should mean something (so all those wasted votes in heavily liberal states would actually count for something). Ending gerrymandering at the congressional level would also help solve this problem. I hope we see algorithmic districts in the next 10 years.