I'm actually a little surprised at how fast Trump walked the idea back, for this reason.
So he's declining? That's too bad.
Wait, did Trump walk it back? Where does it say that?
You all know what I think of Old Man Bullshit, but this one really surprised me. Yes, why not participate in a pointless publicity stunt to help out your Republican opponent? What an awesome and totally selfless move, Mr. Integrity. Drum gets it right. At this point hopefully at least some people are starting to realize that they've been taken for a ride.
Walking it back. Not the most solid sourcing, admittedly.
5: Why would this hurt Hillary? Because Trump gets a sparring partner?
And there are a bunch of more recent articles and statements saying that Trump is still negotiating around a debate.
Christ, what a bunch of assholes.
I mean, if Trump weren't Trump it would make it look like Clinton wasn't the presumptive nominee. But Trump being Trump, it just makes Clinton seem above the fray.
7 Because the both get to slander her, each outdoing the other. And DWS. And the Democratic Party.
I'm pretty sure Trump wants to play Cruz-and-Carson with Clinton and Sanders*, and a debate with Sanders would be a place to try that. But there's no benefit to Sanders playing that game at a debate, which he absolutely knows. And without cooperation it's hard to see how well Trump could pull it off.
On the other hand going after Trump hard helps Sanders in California and helps the Clinton in the general election. Even without social dominance games - which wouldn't hurt Sanders and wouldn't help Trump - a couple more "SICK OF HEARING ABOUT YOUR DAMN EMAILS" moments from Sanders would be a win-win for the Democrats. And I'd believe that Sanders would be able to attack Trump pretty successfully, especially since Trump hitting back wouldn't cause any real problem for Sanders.
*I also think that there's at least a 50/50 chance that Trump backs out for some pretend reason. He was just tough talking and trying to play that game, and having Sanders respond immediately with "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" will probably shut him up quickly.
It looks like the Sanders campaign is already shooting out a whole bunch of "what are ya? a chicken?" comments at Trump too, which makes me think that Trump really did swagger into a trap.
I really don't want Clinton to lose, but if she loses to Trump for any reason other than Bernie making an actual third party run, it won't be Bernie's fault. Trump is such a fucking deplorable candidate that she really should wipe the floor with him, and it's the fault of her team if she doesn't.
I like Clinton and Sanders.
I think if this debate did happen, Sanders would wait for Trump to say something bad about Hillary, and then spring to her defense. "We have our differences, but at least she's not you."
I further think that Trump sees this coming, and is too wily to fall into the trap.
Yeah, my hope is that this might be a good way for Sanders to talk some of his stupider supporters down from the ledge.
The point, for Sanders, of doing it before California is to increase his lead there. And thus his leverage. There are only a few different places he can go for more votes: people planning to vote Clinton; people planning to vote Trump; and people planning to stay home. (Ok, put people not planning anything in the third category). Sanders would likely do well in all three sets with a strong push of the themes he's been emphasizing for a month, and he's not likely to get much in any category by spending time defending Clinton -- and might lose some of the folks still with him.
I've come around on Sanders coming around, but he can't do it now, before the end of voting, without betraying the people still working for him, against Clinton, in the last states that haven't voted yet.
5: Drum has been a ludicrously slow learner this election season.
Drum has finally shown some signs of having a clue as to what Trump has been doing, but if Trump offers an even slightly new wrinkle, Drum is left behind again.
Trump knows he helps himself by talking up Sanders. That's all the debate offer was meant to accomplish. I doubt that Trump ever dreamed that Sanders would be smart enough to jump on it immediately.
Of course Trump knows that he hurts himself by actually debating Sanders. What possible gain is there for him in debating the Democrats' second-banana?
Maybe Trump figures that Bernie would take the opportunity to go after Hillary instead of Trump himself -- except Trump's not an idiot. He has actually been paying attention to this election. He's seen Bernie again and again talk about how vastly preferable Hillary is to Trump. He's seen how Bernie has explicitly objected to cheap shots against Hillary. Can anyone see Bernie standing still for it when Trump brings up Bill's infidelity or Benghazi or e-mails?
Bernie would have the freedom to go off on Trump in a way that Hillary has trouble doing. And he'd have every political reason to do so. Can anyone really believe that Bernie would help himself in California by teaming up with Trump against Hillary? That's insane!
Here's Drum being clueless:
Trump is the master of modern publicity, and he knows perfectly well that a debate like this would (a) help Trump and (b) hurt Hillary. That's it. That's all it would do. And Bernie is all in.
So the question is: When Trump - the "master of modern publicity" - backs down, will Drum realize that there is something wrong with his theory here?
18 - I say this with love, but you are way too involved with playing tenth level imaginary politics chess in your head.
Trump benefits because getting on stafe with Sanders is an opportunity to hurt the person whom he knows will be his opponent. End of story.
19.2: How?
Drum - with your endorsement - fails to articulate any kind of theory. But even while failing to offer a theory, Drum can't talk about the subject for a few sentences without stumbling all over himself.
Trump, Drum tells us, is a master of media and knows that through some unstated mechanism, a debate with Sanders would help Trump.
Except Trump isn't going to debate Bernie. So is Trump not a master of the media? Or is Trump aware that debating Bernie would be a poor move? Or does Trump not want to help himself?
My theory is that Trump is pretty darn good with the media, and that his impending choice not to debate Bernie is because it would be an incredibly stupid thing for him to do.
But what's your theory? What is Drum's?
Trump doesn't have to team up with Sanders, and doesn't have to -- and wouldn't -- bring up stupid stuff. But what he can do is talk about how Clinton is the candidate of wall street/free trade/Iraq. What's Sanders going to say about real stuff?
Trump gains by saying the same things about Hillary that Sanders has been saying.
I expect Trump to stay backed down too, unless it looks like Sanders is getting some kind of dominance traction. Not because the debate won't help Sanders and hurt Hillary, but because its a risk to appear with Bernie, and have Bernie steal some of his voters in California and some of his mojo
Debating Sanders is, I think, objectively bad for Trump because it puts him on a level with a loser.
19.1: True, but I do not see how 19.2 and 5 are also not engaging in the same sort of exercise. It's a campaign. If candidates want to argue with each other in front of audiences, they can and should do that. If that genuinely damages Clinton in a substantial way, then IMO it just means she's a fatally flawed candidate.
24, 14 - I see we're now about to enter the "but Al Gore couldn't even win his home state of Tennessee! How can you blame Nader?" stage of defending the indefensible actions of a lying narcissist candidate on the purported "left."
To be clear, Sanders himself still has a chance to walk it back and not be a complete motherfucker, but he's sure close to the line right now.
Look, I agree Bernie is a wanker, but this is not even remotely the same as running a 3rd party candidacy.
Hasn't Trump backed out, or was that not reliable?
Trump ... doesn't have to -- and wouldn't -- bring up stupid stuff.
Charley, I sometimes feel like people are watching an entirely different election from the one I'm seeing. The idea that Trump would have a television platform and not use it for baseless slander seems wildly at variance with the election so far.
But what he can do is talk about how Clinton is the candidate of wall street/free trade/Iraq. What's Sanders going to say about real stuff?
"Real stuff" is not favorable terrain for Trump against Bernie. The idea that there is no answer -- or that Sanders wouldn't be inclined to provide one -- for "real stuff" seems way off to me.
Regarding Wall Street, Bernie's not going to have any trouble saying what everybody knows: Trump is a corrupt plutocrat who supports massive tax cuts for the rich and promises to seek the repeal of Dodd-Frank. Hillary's sins are trivial by comparison, as Bernie has always publicly acknowledged.
Trump supported the Iraq War. In Bernie's worldview, the fact that Trump subsequently lied about it doesn't work in Trump's favor. Bernie is in a position to take on Trump about Iraq in a way that Hillary is not.
Those are easy. Trade is tougher, because if Bernie's not careful, he could look like he's making common cause with Trump, which he has to avoid at all costs. But Bernie is a politician, and will have no trouble changing the subject to more favorable ground.
Not because the debate won't help Sanders and hurt Hillary, but because its a risk to appear with Bernie, and have Bernie steal some of his voters in California and some of his mojo
Trump doesn't need California voters and, indeed, if Trump could hand a bunch of his votes to Bernie, he'd do so.
And even when Trump has actually been the safe front-runner, he hasn't campaigned like one. By any sensible standard, Trump is behind Hillary. Even a regular politician like McCain knew when he needed to roll the dice. If Trump has a decent chance of moving the needle by debating Bernie, of course he should do so.
But it's a sucker bet. Hillary is not going to be on the stage, and Bernie doesn't benefit in any way by trying to yank her into the conversation.
Meanwhile, Bernie will actually be on the stage, and Trump will be hamstrung trying to attack him. Trump's electoral goal has to be to hope that some of Bernie's embittered white man support will move to his column. Trump doesn't promote that goal by pummeling Bernie, and he certainly doesn't help himself by getting smacked around by Bernie.
Trump doesn't have to team up with Sanders, and doesn't have to -- and wouldn't -- bring up stupid stuff. But what he can do is talk about how Clinton is the candidate of wall street/free trade/Iraq. What's Sanders going to say about real stuff?
Unless he's deliberately trying to sabotage the country, he's just going to say "Sure, I have publicly disagreed with Secretary Clinton on that topic, but that is nothing compared to [insert relevant punch against Trump--there are plenty from which to choose]."
More generally, "I disagree with the Secretary about many vitally important issues, but as I have stated many times, I have great respect for the Secretary and for her lifelong commitment to public service. Whereas you are a dangerous buffoon." isn't a difficult posture for a skilled politician to maintain.
Criticism of Sanders for accepting this debate seems to rest on the assumption that he's of very poor character, and willing to sacrifice the country to strike his ego. And, who knows, he may be! But he hasn't remotely shown that yet, and it seems very premature to make that assumption.
25-27:
24 and 14 are indeed frivolous.
28: Trump's current stance is that he will debate Bernie in exchange for a $10-15 million donation to women's charities. But if someone raises that kind of money for a debate, Trump will find some other excuse not to do it.
30.last: Yeah, this is what I mean about people watching a different election from the one I'm seeing.
If that genuinely damages Clinton in a substantial way, then IMO it just means she's a fatally flawed candidate.
Look, this election is not some sort of value-free contest to determine whether or not someone is, in some abstract way, a good candidate or not by a process of destructive testing. It is about deciding who is going to run your country!
That's why I think Trump won't do it. He'd face a real risk of getting smacked around. The only potential upside for Trump is appealing to Sanders voters by dominating Clinton in absentia, on the issues that appeal to Sanders voters. Trump can play for those people just as well without standing on the stage with someone saying his other ideas are bad, or that facts exist.
politicalfootball is right on this: every political incentive Sanders has is to attack Trump, and attack him hard. And defending Clinton against frivolous/stupid attacks, like the emails or Vince Foster (sigh) or Benghazi or whatever boosts his popularity, even among people who don't like her. So unless Trump is going to try to have a balanced and thoughtful approach to suggesting why he thinks Clinton would be a bad candidate due to something where he isn't openly, obviously far worse (and he isn't) this debate would only hurt him.
Trump has been trying to treat Sanders like Carson to Clinton's Cruz for ages now, Sanders used that to manipulate him into being the first person to bring up the idea of a debate between them, closed the trap (seconds after Trump fell for it, literally before the episode even aired), and is now taunting him for being a chicken.
It's telling that the only reason that get put up against the idea that this would be great for the Democrats and bad for Trump is whiny 'But Sanders is a despicable moronic machiavellian supervillain mastermind who will suddenly turn out to be a nihilist out to destroy all that is good in the world despite his entire life history of acting completely differently!" nonsense.
34 to 29, but fits others as well.
I don't think Sanders is trying to damage the Democratic Party. I think he's trying to win votes in California. Some ways of doing that are more damaging to Clinton than others. Folks saying he'd use the opportunity of a debate to boost Clinton aren't seeing the same campaign I'm seeing -- they're seeing three months past, or three months hence, but not today. Today, Sanders needs to get people planning to vote Clinton (including superdelegates) to vote for him instead. By showing he's the better opponent to Trump, yes, but he can't walk back his criticisms of Clinton, and allowing her weaknesses against Trump to be obvious to all fits with Sanders strategy for winning.
Look, this election is not some sort of value-free contest to determine whether or not someone is, in some abstract way, a good candidate or not by a process of destructive testing.
My whole point here is that it isn't destructive testing.
Sanders winning California would be damaging to Clinton. Surely there's no disagreement, or 'watching a different campaign' in that.
Boost Clinton in the sense of going out of his way to praise her or argue against things he's criticized her for? Obviously not. But playing along with Murdered-Vince-Foster or Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi or Emaaaailsssss! wouldn't help him in California in the slightest. They'd do massive damage to him.
And "stop that goddamn nonsense this is important serious stuff" is something he's absolutely done before (and been rewarded for, lot), something that has helped him with voters, and something that would be a big part of making a case to superdelegates that he was a better choice of candidate. And it's something that would help whoever the nominee is* in the general election too. To think he'd be cooperating with Trump, who he openly despises, attacking Clinton requires assuming that Trump would attack Clinton in (1) a qualified/sane way; and (2) in a way that Sanders wouldn't be better off responding to with "oh that's rich coming from some loser whose entire strategy in life has been "run away before it fails completely" and couldn't even make money in an industry where the standard business model is that people walk in, hand you their money, and then leave with nothing". If you can think of a debate's worth of stuff like that I'd love to hear it, especially because even one hard hit on Trump would be what the news repeated on a loop for the week afterwards.
*Who knows! The race is close enough that we can't say who she will be.
38: Sure, it's reasonable to suppose that Clinton's general election campaign would suffer some level of harm if she loses California - as I said, if Trump could just hand Bernie votes, he would do so (contrary to your previous suggestion).
There would be other consequences to a Clinton loss in California, not all of them bad.
But if Hillary loses California because Bernie annihilates Trump in a debate, that has to net out to being beneficial to her - both because of the zero-sum nature of the general election, and because politicos are still trying to figure out the best approach to dealing with Trump. (Hillary has already won the Democratic nomination, so that's not an issue.)
If Bernie appears on stage with Trump, he damages Trump. Which helps Hillary.
If Bernie attacks Hillary in a debate with Trump, he damages his own political goals in California and beyond.
So even if we are going to assume that Bernie is, in Roberto's phrase, "Old Man Bullshit," the correct political move for him at this stage nets out to be beneficial for Hillary in the long run.
Trump knows all of this. The only way he debates Bernie is if (as you and MHPH suggested earlier) Bernie gets Trump in a corner where he can't be perceived as chickening out. That doesn't seem likely to me.
Yes, that's why Trump isn't going to do it. Instead, he can echo Sanders' themes from the safety of his rallies, without risk of his own flaws getting brought into the conversation.
Trump and Sanders both want Sanders to win California, the bigger the margin the better. They can't be seen as colluding -- they aren't colluding -- but each is running his own strategy towards that end. Sanders winning California because Clinton is part of a corrupt establishment that exports jobs and puts down the working class -- that fits Trump's narrative just fine.
I don't think Trump would hand votes to Sanders. If he wanted to, he could just do it: 'and I say to you independents in California, I've already won, so the most important thing we can do right now is keep crooked hillary out of the white house, and the best way to do that is to vote for Bernie Sanders in the California primary. Don't get me wrong, Sanders is wrong about nearly everything, but he's an honest man, he actually believes that stuff, unlike the lying clinton crime family . . .'
Instead, he wants to win big among independents, because that's his narrative: he can win the general because he can do very well with independents even in places like California. So, while he wants Sanders to win the Dem primary, he wants it to come at Hillary's expense, not his own.
Unlike Drum, Josh Marshall has been pretty shrewd about Trump - but I have had a hard time making sense of his
read of Sanders.
If Sanders wants to do a debate and a debate is an "amazingly terrible idea for anyone who cares about preventing Trump from being the next President," what could possibly keep a debate from happening?
26, 27:
That's exactly what I was saying in 14. This is nowhere near the same thing as a third party run (which indeed would be frivolous and destructive insanity).
The way I see this hypothetical debate, it's all contingent on Bernie's and Trump's actions. The best possible outcome is that Bernie completely and thoroughly shits all over the big myths of Trumpmania: namely that he is in any way threatening to the GOP establishment and that he stands for workers. Also nice to see would be a the dispelling of the myth that there is a significant overlap between the world views. If that happens, the debate will have been worth it.
What I worry will happen is that they'll get up there and Trump will agree with Bernie one on single-payer because 1) he's a pathological liar that will say anything the crowd wants to hear 2) he knows Bernie supporters are watching 3) he has a subtle understanding of a large voter bloc know as "contrarian idiots". If this were to happen, Bernie would need to drop all pretense of debate and accuse him of being a pandering liar.
Anyway, I worry very much about the latter scenario because the electorate and media have demonstrated an endless appetite for reasons to believe that "that ol' Trump guy sure is goofy but when ya think about it he maybe isn't so bad!".
The one thing that is hurting Clinton right now (not much, I think*) is that, having decided to break her deal with Sanders about additional debates in order to make the race seem over by starting in on Trump, she now finds herself sidelined while Sanders gets a lot of publicity about taking on Trump. But that's all on her, and not the fault of anyone else in the race.
*A debate would have helped following the recent "New Revelations That Aren't Revelations About The Clinton Scandal Where Nothing Was Scandalous" articles, too. It would have gotten her out in public and given her another opportunity to divert attention.
46: That was pretty stupid on Clinton's part. What's odd is that while the dynamic of Democratic debates sucking up the air for anything else seems pretty clear, conventional wisdom has completely failed to notice this. Is it a new phenomenon?
47:
No, it's the logical extent of the cries we've heard since November that to criticize your party within twelve months of an election is treacherous.
But what he can do is talk about how Clinton is the candidate of wall street/free trade/Iraq. What's Sanders going to say about real stuff?
The line I heard Trump use, which seemed brilliant, was something like, "Clinton, God . . . Why do we want to hear about the Clinton's again. Aren't we sick of that."
It seemed perfect for (1) not getting into policy at all, being a purely personality/theater attack and (2) being an angle which would not make lefties inclined to defend Clinton because they too are tired of her.
I don't have an opinion about the debate (except to agree that both it feels like a bad idea to me, and that it probably won't happen, and that it makes Sanders look good if her pursues it and Trump dodges). But I thought that was a good example of Trump knowing how to find a good attack.
I'll disagree, mildly, with 46 and 47. I don't think another debate would be that compelling. Only the already dedicated would tune in at all, and way more of those for Sanders than for Clinton -- and also professionals looking for an angle. Clinton has very little to gain, and what she has to lose -- a bad sound bite -- outweighs the nearly non-existent harm of backing out of the debate. Sanders partisans hope for a last shot at taking her down a peg. Everyone else has already moved on, and wonders why it isn't over yet.
I don't think the debate itself would be interesting, though to be honest I haven't found any of the democratic party debates interesting. I'm perfectly capable of looking up policy stances and so on, and barring a bizarre meltdown there's really nothing that would happen at one that would surprise or interest me. And I doubt that many people would watch it live. But the email thing could (probably would) come up and a decent line from Clinton, live, off the cuff (off the cuff is not off the cuff), and on television could get repeated a bunch or talked about. That would at least put her claim out there. And if that didn't happen commentators would at least feel obliged to mention something that did happen which would disrupt the full court press attention the new (not new) report would get.
49.1 feels like a really good attack to me too, though I'm not completely sure because that was basically my reaction to being faced with Clinton as a nominee a year ago. It still looks like one of the things that Sanders could immediately turn back around on Trump, though, since Trump's schtick is pretty one note. (And then segue directly from 'we're sick of racist loser clowns too' into 'what we need is...' and back to his stump speech.)
Hey, the RCP electoral map suggests that Texas might actually be in play for Clinton this election:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ca/california_trump_vs_clinton-5849.html
35- Is 100% right, and RT is, as usual, being a moron on the subject.
52: Their sense of what counts as a 'toss-up' is... interesting. And their only Texas poll is from early September so who knows. That could have absolutely shifted in either direction (not-Trump supporters sighing and moving to his camp after all; lots of people going "oh... oh shit no" -- I'd put more money on the former though).
I think you meant this link, though.
Some of you get points for the mental gymnastics necessary to convince yourself that someway, somehow, joining a debate with the Republican candidate after the nomination has been effectively settled, but that will still, by necessity, attack the Democratic nominee, is somehow a helpful thing for Sanders to be doing and not just an obvious vanity/destructive move. But, at this point, come the fuck on, there's really no appropriate response other than "keep fucking that chicken." I think sane people have woken up at this point. To Sanders' credit, I think he will eventually not let the debate happen, and Trump may want to hold is punches until the general election as well.
All the mental gymnastics required to convince ourselves that there was a real serious risk that Trump would be the Republican nominee were a good workout.
Wait was Tigre going on at some point that no way ever would Trump be the nominee?
Endlessly. And at one point accusing people who said otherwise of being Trump supporters.
Yes, I was wrong about that. Though the wrongness in retrospect wasn't driven by an absence of intuitive 10-level complicated political stratermergerizing to convince myself of some pre-existing belief, but an excess of that kind of thinking. Trump was surprisingly and enduringly popular with Republicans, and there were structural reasons why it was hard to unify around another more plausible candidate. It was that simple! Shoulda read Sam Wang. 11-level-chess political arguments are basically dumb.
Trump is genuinely scared of Sanders. http://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2016/05/nonverbal-communication-analysis-no_26.html
I'm not sure how much I buy that analysis - look at the video he seems a bit uncomfortable but I don't know that that's really fear and especially not fear of Sanders himself. I'd just say he looks uncomfortable because he's not talking about how amazing he is, for once.
I won't believe that body language link until evidentiary support is supplied by a first-rate astrologer.
(The body language analysis is self-evidently scammy.)
I guess I'll conclude the body language analysis is wrong if Trump shows up for a debate.
Isn't it the case that Sanders can't possibly win the nomination unless a big raft of super-delegates move over to him from the Clinton camp? There are only two ways that is "likely" to happen.
1. Winning California decisively (538 gives Clinton a 97% chance of winning) might scare the super-delegates into switching (how many? before late July? Uh sure.)
2. The second way is if Hillary is indicted over the email scandal, and the super-delegates get scared by that, especially if they fear it will happen after she's the nominee. I think it's very unlikely she will be indicted, somewhat less unlikely that the FBI recommends indictment but Atty. General Lynch turns them down, and a vanishingly small chance this will all happen before the convention.
Are these events likely enough to scare hundreds of super-delegates, most of them long-time establishment pols who of course support Clinton, to switch.
Answer: no.
The only reason Sanders might do the debate is if he thinks the debate will boost his chances of winning CA decisively. That is not going to happen. He could utterly destroy Trump in a debate and not appreciably increase his vote in CA. For every voter he'd gain he'd lose another.
(I am discounting doing the debate to altruistically boost Clinton against Trump in November, as some have proposed. No. Sanders is not a Democrat, doesn't particularly like Clinton, and has no reason to try to help her. If he wants to help her can do it during the general.)
Trump has nothing to gain from it either and he finally realized it.
It's hard for me to see which voters Sanders would lose. Despite their popularity in media quotes the number of Sanders-or-Trump supporters are minimal to practically nonexistent.
65- How does crushing Trump in the debate lose Sanders voters?
65: Hillary has won the nomination. Sanders knows it. No calculation of Sanders is going to be based on whether it improves his odds of being the nominee.
(If it was obvious that this would hurt Clinton, then why wouldn't Trump want to go for it?)
69: Roberto's fixation on 11-dimensional chess is so weird, since the necessity of Trump's decision was obvious, and easily explained in 100 words or less.
I suppose you could consider anything more complex than "keep fucking that chicken" to be 11-dimensional chess, but come on people, this isn't Twitter. This is a blog! We are sophisticates with attention spans that can run to dozens of words at a time!
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring that: "There is no drought."
I think Trump just won Megan's vote.
Hey, if all you had to back up abusive stuff you were saying was smugness and sneering you could do a lot worse for a catchphrase than "11 dimensional chess" or "keep fucking that chicken".
66
I'm guessing that there are some Sanders-to-Trump switchers, but probably more Sanders-or-sit-on-your-hands types. I don't think there are very many Trump-to-Sanders switchers either, largely due to the demographics of Trump voters.
So even a tiotal victory over Trump in a debate wouldn't do much if anything. Nothing he can do will be more than marginal, and not enough to overcome the proportional nature of the Dem primary. People are touting how he's statistically even, but that means a few more votes statewide and in the districts. Not gonna panic the super-delegates.
If he won all the delegates it might make a difference. Not a chance of that though. (The GOP primary is winner-take-all, much different. Maybe he should run in that.)
70: Trump's reasons not to do the debate are pretty simple, true. Sanders' reasons to want to do the debate are also pretty simple, and reflect very badly on him. The only way you get around the latter (obviously true) point is to engage in eleven-dimensional chess.
Uh huh. Those reasons being "in order to smear Clinton publicly in wildly counterproductive ways that he has never engaged in before", I take it?
Is "eleven dimensional chess" now a word for "having any reason whatsoever to think you aren't full of shit"?
I don't agree that Sanders staying in the race and trying to maximize his vote share, by itself, reflects badly. I don't think he should be telling people that he thinks he'll be the nominee, or that he would have won but for DWS and the rigged process -- these reflect badly. Allowing supporters to make ever more elaborate pledges of Bernie or Bust reflects poorly. He can undo most of this, and, as I've said above, I've come around on his coming around.
On the California point, though, the reason he is still in, unlike, say Ted Cruz, is that he is at least trying to create a movement. All his goals save one -- the nomination, which has been out of sight since Super Tuesday -- are advanced by staying in, and by getting as good a result on Last Tuesday as he can.
74: I admit, it took me until now to figure out that you're engaged in a sophisticated performance art tribute to Trump.
Just say whatever shit comes into your head no matter what you previously said, and win every argument by asserting that you have done so. Brilliant! If you're not available for the Trump vice presidency this year, you ought to consider assembling a Republican campaign for 2020.
76.last
How is staying in the primary "race" until the bitter end going to create a movement? Besides, who is going to take over his movement after he is gone? He's no spring chicken.
77
RT is quite sensible from the perspective of someone who cares about the party and about defeating Trump, so he is just unable to grasp that Bernie doesn't really give a rat's patootie about the fate of the Democratic Party, and if Trump is elected (which is still pretty unlikely aside from him having confounded every prediction so far) it will just heighten the contradictions.
77 - OK then! I assume we're now in the "death throes" days of Bernie defenses, aside from the true Bernie or Busters who are happily too dumb to show up here. Let's have more tortuous explanations as to why Mr. Integrity is not in fact a giant fount of bullshit. Maybe we can top one out at none paragraphs, explaining how the debate plan was actually a secret plan to help Hillary through the relentless genius of Bernietude.
To 76, I don't think staying in the race makes him evil. I do think the belief that he's starting a "movement" makes him potentially evil, and the way in which he's handled the end, including the offer to debate Trump, do reveal his narcissist/dick side. He still has some time to walk it back, but right now the guy is acting like a giant net negative for the country. Maybe (probably) he'll reform in time to not be a total monster, but mostly the guy is just such a fucking bullshit artist.
79-Last. No he is completely incoherent. If the Sanders Trump debate really would damage HRC as he stupidly claims Trump would be there with bells on. Trump isn't dumb about these things, that is why he actually has a shot at achieving RT authoritarian dream for himself and RT has none.
Bernie doesn't really give a rat's patootie about the fate of the Democratic Party, and if Trump is elected (which is still pretty unlikely aside from him having confounded every prediction so far) it will just heighten the contradictions... is exactly the bullshit that he's been spouting endlessly in the face of Sanders saying the exact opposite and acting in ways that contradict this gibberish.
Saying he's 'unable to grasp' it is pretty fucking rich.
79: Indicate exactly who who has expressed Bernie-or-Bust here or argued for it or fuck right off, shithead.
I lost my patience with your assholery when you started accusing people of supporting Trump and I'm not feeling any more cheerful about this horseshit.
Only Trumps stupidity can save us from Sander's evil?
78, 79:
I'm kind of reserving judgment at this point about Bernie not dropping out for two reasons.
The first is that credibly winding things down and moving forward is genuinely difficult from where Bernie is sitting. I can't really buy into the argument that Hillary sticking around this long in 08 was just as dangerous as what Bernie is doing. In 2008, I don't think anyone seriously worried (am I wrong?) that Hillary voters were going to abandon the party en masse to vote for John McCain. I think it's pretty clear that a McCain Presidency didn't represent a real existential threat to American democracy. McCain is batshit and all, but the guy had his limits. But most importantly, the ideological gulf between the average Obama voter and the average Clinton voter wasn't as prominent as the one we're seeing between the Sanders and Clinton camps right now -- nor were the positions of the actual candidates. So it wasn't hard for Hillary to give a full endorsement of Obama without appearing to be insincere or alienating her followers.
It's obvious that the Sanders campaign is a different spot, and I don't think I need to explain why. For this reason, it's understandable that he's taking a while to drop out. But I think that the people who are worried that he's being treacherous are generally blind to just how thoroughly fucked a lot of people are under the status quo -- a status quo that Hillary Clinton doesn't appear enthusiastic about seriously challenging. And so I think it's reasonable, from the standpoint of someone who cares about the future of the Democratic Party, for Bernie to hold out for the biggest, fattest concessions he can possibly get. As much as everyone wants him to drop out and go hide, the anger and alienation many younger and poorer left-wingers feel is real. Bernie didn't drum this disdain for New Dem-ism up from thin-air, as I get the impression that some seem to think. So he's got to be a lot more cautious and a lot more careful about dropping out and endorsing Clinton (if he chooses to do so and I think he will). It's much, much harder to do it credibly and enthusiastically than it was for Hillary to do it for Obama in 2008.
I'd be surprised if Tigre is on Bernie's mailing list, but most of the emails I've gotten for the past two or three weeks have been about down-ballot Democratic candidates running for congressional seats. He's endorsing and encouraging donations for Democrats down-ballot races. That would certainly be a funny thing for a narcissistic sociopath who doesn't give a fuck about the Democratic Party to do. I never said that what Bernie was doing wasn't higher-risk than just dropping out, but I think the seeds that he's planting are going to pay off in a big way.
82:
I never said Bernie-or-Bust, but I did say I was going to vote for Jill Stein and made it super duper clear that that's only because there isn't a snowball's chance in South Texas of my state going for Hillary, so I may as well contribute to the popular vote total in hopes that a third party gets federal funds.
87:
I think Sanders is a lot more pragmatic than he's given credit for. For all of the complaints that he's a crazy idealist that's willing to cut off the nose to spite the face, it's really hard to argue that he has ever gone anything without a strategy for accomplishing progressive goals. But mainstream Democrats for the past 35 years have described anyone that doesn't work within the Reagan framework as hopelessly impractical.
Oh for God's sake. Haven't we all known that Bernie was an unserious gadfly ever since he hired to private jet to Rome to visit the Vatican and stalk the Pope?! In the midst of the NY primary (which Sanders lost, btw: and he lost big, by margins that can only be described as 'huge') his campaign put it out there that Pope Frankie was 'feeling the Bern.' What utter nonsense. I believe the Pontiff met Bernie in a lobby for 5 minutes or so (yeah, so worth the cost of the private jet) in order to not seem inhospitable? So embarrassing, so cringe-inducing, so wrong on the part of Team Sanders.
Look, if Sanders wants to debate Trump, because, as he sees it, he might yet be the party nominee (math is hard!) and he wants to continue to undermine Clinton .... eh, let the two of them go at it for the white male resentment vote. As I've said before, I believe there aren't enough angry white males to put Trump in the White House. But it's sad to see Bernie turning his self-styled 'revolution' into a vanity campaign which would lend legitimacy to The Donald, just in order to spite Hillary Clinton.
84 last -- you'd be surprised! I've seen a few down-ballot things but mostly its about ramping up for the big win in California and we can still win and if we don't win we wuz robbed.
Also, I don't for a second think that Bernie's not playing into genuine real anger from young people that people have for real reasons (though to be clear I don't think it's particularly ideologically coherent anger, it easily could have been transferred to some other figure). But that's just the problem. I do think he's done a lot of, basically, bullshitting to younger people, using their real problems for his personal gain. By bullshitting I mean, among other things, taking a 100% real set of grievances and promising either completely unworkable or completely impossible solutions to them as genuinely and immediately obtainable. That's a con in and of itself. But it's worse than a con if the people he's been lying to decide that the institutional Democratic party (pretty damn liberal right now!) is a corrupt scam and therefore not worth paying attention to if not for the great Bernie revolution. Certainly the majority of Sanders people I see on social media (not here) purport to believe something like that, and that sucks. Oh and I see lots and lots of Hillary will lose b/c email scandal or she's so unlikeable or she's corrupt or she's jusr not cool and is ugly and into good records or whatever. That's not the entirety, hopefully not the bulk, of Sanders' support but let's not pretend it's not there and that he doesn't know that.
Unlike some, as I've said before I dislike Sanders hinself much more than I do his supporters. (Though lets face it, young white dudes are the absolute worst regardless of politics and aggro young *political* white dudes are the absolute worst). But I blame the guy for willfully turning his "movement" into a big thing about him, and the detritus will be a lot of resentful prople, and no results. (And he did have an opportunity to run a much tamer, less personalized protest campaign from the left -- it wouldn't have been as popular or as big a deal or as gone on for so long, but might have been more effective at actually building an effective left wing of the Democratic party. Who knows, maybe. I was planning to vote for Bernie on the assumption that his candidacy would be something like that. Once it became clear that he was going for max personal movement, nope nope nope nope nope.).
Also, do you know what the Reagan framework actually was? Have you compared it to, you know, the policy section on Hillary's website? One of the most extremely annoying things about the Sanders thing is that people just willfully ignore how different the mainstream party and Hillary herself are now vs, 20-30 years ago. Neoliberals! All of them!
Finally, and this is a personal thing, aside from true wackjobs and insufferable academics, the only people I get affirmatively mad at for supporting Sanders are lawyers. Your job is to see through bullshit! Your other job is to actually know how institutions work! Do your fucking job, dumbasses!
OT: Listening to TWYRCL's festival orchestra. Mozart was eight years old when he wrote this. Damn kids get off my proscenium.
84 I had a long chat earlier this week with a very prominent public figure, who described her 2008 process of accepting the result; talking with you folks (esp vw) last week had already moved me most of the way down off the ledge, that this was good for the rest. Vast numbers of Sanders people will come along. Whether enough don't is going to depend on what a bunch of people do.
The strategy in 86 -- and I understand why Sanders himself doesn't appear in the discussion, but that's not irrelevant -- is a fine thing, so long as they all understand that they really are going to have to tell people to vote for Hillary. And not just kind of gently, but really come on strong with the point that in a bunch of places sitting on hands or voting Stein is functionally the equivalent of voting for Trump.
By "the Reagan framework", I don't mean literal Reaganism. I mean that since the two Reagan landslides Democrats have operated in a way that respects the basic premises of Reaganism. So a distaste for high top tax rates and the welfare state, a faith in the private sector to solve public problems, and a default belief that high status and wealth are earned and that some poverty is simply deserved. In the same way, I would argue (and so would plenty of people who are far smarter than I am) that every Republican President between FDR and Reagan operated in the basic framework of the New Deal.
I don't deny that this disposition was necessary for the survival of the party and that they probably prevented far, far worse things from happening. I just think that after 35 years of the stuff, we can pretty conclusively call this all a failed experiment and push back a lot harder than I think most Democrats have wanted to (openly) do.
I know enough history to be well aware that there's a strong precedent for American Presidents who are, prior to their elections) seen as lapdogs of business actually enacting broadly populist policies (both Roosevelts, at least per DeLong's recent book, which btw Tigre have you picked it up yet). But it's also true that it took large, destructive-looking threats of populist movements and politicians that elites knew would basically break the whole system in order to spur those theretofore business lapdogs to convince their friends that, yes, if extreme change did not happen, worse things would. So Bernie has an essential part to play here, and I think that the next few weeks (or even months) are where the party is either going to work this out for the better of the people or descend into infighting that will usher a climate-denying sociopath fascist.*
Lastly, I find that my tolerance for Sanders supporters on Facebook tends to be a strictly decreasing function of their actual economic standing. My poorer friends whose parents don't have college educations mostly just want a basically fair system and who have often actually experienced the most FUBAR parts of our economic system first-hand just want a basically fair society and think Bernie has the best vision for it. They're also all Mexican so none of them would ever dream of protest voting against the second-best candidate in the field. But it's always the fucking rich shits with parents who paid for them to fuck up over and over that take big performative stances against Hillary Clinton's Goldman cronyism. One of them said something about preferring Trump's "legendary populism" and said that it's an inherently "privileged, petite bourgeoisie point of view" to prefer Trump to Clinton. I dared him to say that to anyone who is related to an actual illegal immigrant. I think I may have mentioned this before, but I had a long argument with a lawyer I know who refuses to vote for Hillary. One reason he cited was that she would put "more corporate judges on the Supreme Court". I argued that for all of the legitimate beefs there are to have with Clintonism, Bill's Supreme Court picks were all great. He said "Citizens United and Clarence Thomas beg to differ". At which point I had to remind a lawyer -- yes, an actual practicing lawyer who has been to a good undergraduate institution and to law school and actually gets paid money to do lawyer things -- that Citizens United was 5 Republican-appointed justices against 4 Democrat-appointed ones and that Bill Clinton did not appoint Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. I could go on and on, but yes, fuck these ignorant comfortable suburban shits that are going to protest-vote. But I just don't think that Bernie is really responsible for them any more than Hillary Clinton is responsible for any of her more obnoxious supporters. Stupid entitled people are going to be stupid and entitled somewhere, and I think it's best to handle them personally rather than project the frustration onto a political candidate.
*By the way, this is the line I'm using to talk the more naive Sanders-supporters down from the ledge. Even if I were to grant that Clinton is a complete Wall Street crony business lapdog, the facts is that another four years of fossil fuel con artists dictating energy and climate policy quite possibly means the literal end of human existence. We like to talk about all those other issues, but put into context, addressing climate change is orders of magnitude more important. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if the Democrats and Republicans exchanged positions on climate change but kept all of their other positions the same, it would be indefensible not to vote for a Republican no matter how terrible they were otherwise.
Ehhh that last is a bridge too far Trivers. The thing that makes me prepared to grit my teeth and vote for HRC in spite of the Kagan's endorsement, it that Trump is genuinely too unstable to have control of that many nuclear weapons. Swap the parties on climate change and it would still be the case.
it's always the fucking rich shits with parents who paid for them to fuck up over and over that take big performative stances against Hillary Clinton's Goldman cronyism
This is 100% accurate in my own Facebook feed. Without exception.
Also, a stunning dismissiveness of the logical capabilities of black voters, without which there wouldn't even be a functional Democratic Party in the south. It is the one of the most embarrassing displays I have ever seen.
I want to see a cross-blog LGM/Unfogged RT/JfL cage match.
Hugh is having a run at Welch's
It is actually kind of funny to watch Clinton surrogates, the Queen herself can't be bothered, talk about party unity. A week or so ago I saw Steve Israel, a rep from New York, talking up party unity. As always, the first thing the Clinton people do is call Sanders' supporters stupid. Israel started off with "Sanders' supporters forget they we already introduced a bill to do X, but the mean ole Republicans shot it down." As a progressive, if not Sanders' supporter, I would reply that yes, I remember quite well what the Democrats haven't accomplished. Israel to me at least looks a lot like Anderson Cooper and he was in a super sharp tailored suit. My question to him and really any of the Clinton clique is this: Show me your blood on the floor. All I ever hear is how the Democrats have been fighting for me. Well, I want to see the evidence. I want to see the blood on the floor. Because I'm not seeing it, and haven't seen it for years. What I have seen is multi-million dollar galas with the Clooneys and speeches at $225,000-$335,000 a pop. I've seen a lot of green on the table but I have yet to see one drop of blood on the floor.
Yeah, Obama, Pelosi, Wasserman-Schulz and the Clintons getting filthy fucking rich off their abject failures and I am supposed to be loyal. Fuck 'em. Increment their fucking income here, Obama fucking 2 billion dollar libraries?
And RT says Sanders is a phony. Christ.
What does "blood on the floor" mean in this context? Beating Republicans nearly to death with your cane? Is this a policy recommendation or pointless wanking?
I just happened into the Libertarian Party presidential candidates debating on CSPAN, and holy moly. So much crazy and social ineptitude on one stage! And a cheering crowd.
100: My best guess would be "show me where you fought like hell for something and failed"* which, for all that it's bad when we fail, isn't an entirely unfair question. If you only fight battles that you know you're going to win it's not really fighting for something at all. It's not the best argument against Clinton who is pretty famous for fighting like hell for something (healthcare reform) and failing at it, but it is a good question in general for democrats of the last twenty years or so. And "I fought like hell for that back then" is actually one of Clinton's best selling points too (it's almost everything else about her history that's bad - not that she didn't succeed at doing something admirable). It's also not a great argument against Pelosi either (Reid maybe, I'm not sure there, but not Pelosi).
It is a good counterpoint to the arguments in favor of slow incremental change, though. "Show me you're fighting like hell for every single step" isn't just an aesthetic demand, it's a necessary thing to do even when the best you can accomplish is less than your base wants.
*I'm guessing this is an echo of the awesome Elizabeth Warren line about the CFPB that deserves to go down in history: "My first choice is a strong consumer agency. My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor." That's a line that the Democratic party should be reminded of pretty regularly, because if there's one thing that causes trouble it's their failure to seem like that's their attitude.
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My colleague on FB:
First evening in [vacation destination]: pinot grigio, grilled tuna and wilted spinach, raspberry tartlet, followed by "Hotel California" played on the steel drum. I think I've found my corner of the world.
I would be such a pissy little tantrum baby if I traveled that far and that's what I had to listen to. Or if it happened to me right here!
I'm having a great time replacing '[vacation destination]' with various places that are far(ish) from Texas.
First evening in Vienna: pinot grigio, grilled tuna and wilted spinach, raspberry tartlet, followed by "Hotel California" played on the steel drum. I think I've found my corner of the world.
First evening in Marseille: pinot grigio, grilled tuna and wilted spinach, raspberry tartlet, followed by "Hotel California" played on the steel drum. I think I've found my corner of the world.
First evening in Philadelphia: pinot grigio, grilled tuna and wilted spinach, raspberry tartlet, followed by "Hotel California" played on the steel drum. I think I've found my corner of the world.
It is a remarkably non-place-specific meal.
Trump having Sarah Palin continue to address his rallies makes one wonder if there isn't a benevolent God after all.