3 ms·
The possibility of Bernie Sanders as a very 2016 Kremlin-Trump operation
- hakfoo 8y agoBefore we go all conspiracy theorist, maybe we need to ask "why are things so fragile that they can be broken by (supposedly malicious Russians|insurgent surprise candidates)". If a man with negative charisma and negligible name recognition, advertising himself as a Socialist, pulls 40% in the primaries, maybe there's something fundamentally defective about the winning candidate. You can make an argument for interference getting someone a few points in a close race, but you can't bootstrap from zero to serious contender on it alone.
- ddingus 8y agoThings are not that fragile. The winning candidate simply did not do the work needed to win the general election. One could also argue the platform was not aligned well enough with human need, want, pain, the future, to prove compelling enough to win, over come campaign, candidate weaknesses. Fact is, the number of Americans unable to associate their vote to a more positive economic future has been growing for decades now. The reason the socialist did so well in the primary is his platform, policy vision did speak to a net positive future for all Americans and that proved more than sufficient to over come what many would see as candidate deficiencies. Going from 60 points down to a near win against a well oiled, effective political machine speaks to the real need out there. The Russians did not have any meaningful impact on the election when what little has been presented to us is weighed against factual easily observed events. It is time to reconsider economic policy. Long overdue, and I would cite health care as number one case in point.
- dang 8y agoGarden-variety politics is off topic on HN. Please don't post like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html