Why did Sanders endors Hillary?

omega3

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Feb 19, 2015
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Not a Sanders supporter but why did this guy give all his leverage away? I thought he was gonna take the fight all the way to the convention floor. He ran a strong campaign that got him like 45%+ of the Dem vote. If i would've been in his situation i would've negotiated from strength and set clear demands before making any edorsment. Yes i know he got some (empty) promises but we all know Clinton will conveniently "forget" about those once elected so she can focus on returning favors to her circle of friends. Is Sanders this naive? Did Clinton scare him? Is he just weak or what? To me he's just another back bencher who has spent his entire life in politics talking alot but not realizing much.
 
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shortylickens

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Jul 15, 2003
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he'd rather have any Democrat in office than any Republican. Even though the Democrat in question most likely personally assassinated him.
 

MovingTarget

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Jun 22, 2003
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Math.

Sanders couldn't win the nomination at that point, and I say that as a Sanders supporter. He just didn't have the delegates. If he went the sore loser route didn't endorse Hillary, he would lose whatever leverage he still had in the democratic platform fight, and further risk a Trump presidency. His disagreements with Hillary are "small potatoes" compared with Trump's policies and demeanor.
 

HamburgerBoy

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Apr 12, 2004
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I don't see reason to believe that Clinton will automatically go back on all of her promises. She'll probably make concessions where she has to, but she has a record of flexibility and supporting anything that is both popular and left-wing. iirc Sanders even said at one point that part of his goal was to push Clinton further to the left, and now with a brand new generation of fucking stupid college kids getting involved in politics, he has succeeded.
 

Kazukian

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Aug 8, 2016
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Because he ran as a Democrat, and he lost, for the good of the party he needed to endorse her, not create a rift in the party.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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Not a Sanders supporter but why did this guy give all his leverage away? I thought he was gonna take the fight all the way to the convention floor. (1) He ran a strong campaign that got him like 45%+ of the Dem vote. If i would've been in his situation i would've negotiated from strength and set clear demands before making any endorsement. (2) Yes i know he got some (empty) promises but we all know Clinton will conveniently "forget" about those once elected so she can focus on returning favors to her circle of friends. Is Sanders this naive? Did Clinton scare him? Is he just weak or what? To me he's just another back bencher who has spent his entire life in politics talking alot but not realizing much.

(1) There's no doubt that he had a position of strength and strongly affected the party platform carried forward by Clinton. And there's no doubt that Clinton had done the same thing in influencing the Obama campaign in 2008. Who the hell do you think had advocated for "affordable care" since the '90s?

(2) This is all part of myths about Clinton which have been reinforced through propaganda-repetition from the time of her Senatorial watch.

You are not likely to agree, but I've examined these "so-called Lies" of hers and found nothing of substance.

The GOP started banging the drum with the Benghazi attack at the high-point of the 2012 campaign. American diplomatic missions have been under risk of threat since the 1960s. Looking at the public statements early in Benghazi crisis, I don't see any "Lies:" I see public officials with insufficient intelligence trying to make sense of events with possible multiple causation.

The GOP manufactured the event of the hearings with historic duration, directed at Clinton from the beginning. They knew she'd make a bid for the presidency. If they'd had a "commission" such as that created in the aftermath of 911, it wouldn't have had the propaganda dimension of a manufactured congressional hearing conducted mostly by Tea Party reactionaries looking for dirt.

It resulted in the e-mail debacle -- over a handful of e-mails so small that any "intent" other than taking her work home with her was not indicated. "She deleted 30,000 e-mails!" exclaims Trump. Sure. Probably from Home-Depot and Sears.

Then there's the matter of the Foundation. So far, that witch-hunt has ended in dead-ends. It almost would seem that the Clintons had anticipated the probe long ago -- perhaps in the matter of the Nigerian land transaction which was never consummated.

I can go on and on about this. I actually began to believe some of the nonsense until I looked at it more closely.

She'll get the votes of Sanders supporters, and she'll pursue policy objectives that are practical means of addressing Sanders' issues. But the myth that a presidency by itself can move a policy agenda in a particular direction is fanciful.

She'll need a Dem majority in the Senate. The House looks less hopeful. And it is less hopeful because of the gerrymandering that has created a Tea Party congress in the first place.

The truth is this. The GOP doesn't want anyone to believe that people are motivated by more than money unless such a belief suits their own purposes -- which are usually motivated by money in the first place. Clinton has a long track record of advocating for causes the GOP would rather just ignore.

I'd say, after the gauntlet she's had to run since her Tammy Wynette "Lie," she's not just an Iron Lady. She's well-tempered steel. And she was, after all, like Tammy Wynette. She "stood by her man" -- which is a lot more than I can say about Trump's string of marriages.
 

TheGardener

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Jul 19, 2014
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Of course Sanders did the math. Wasn't hard. He held out to leverage his far left agenda in the party platform. And he did, to the extent that Clinton allowed him to. For insurance Clinton had Warren in her pocket as her VP candidate, to pull in the party's more socialist members. If he pulled a Cruz stunt, her game plan was to isolate him.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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Of course Sanders did the math. Wasn't hard. He held out to leverage his far left agenda in the party platform. And he did, to the extent that Clinton allowed him to. For insurance Clinton had Warren in her pocket as her VP candidate, to pull in the party's more socialist members. If he pulled a Cruz stunt, her game plan was to isolate him.

I donated money to Sanders precisely because I was sure he just wouldn't make the cut in the primary, and I wanted him to pull the Dem platform toward the progressive end. And Warren? She's actually a creature of her own creation. She may have been rumored to be a VP pick, but I think it was clear for a long time that either she wasn't the VP-candidate of choice, or that she felt she had "unfinished business." And two women on the ticket may not have seemed optimal.

What I saw with Sanders -- he identified the problems the GOP wanted to ignore, until the Koch brothers saw the writing on the wall and gave them lip-service. But he wasn't articulating clear solutions, or he had only so many ideas of that sort.
 

theeedude

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Feb 5, 2006
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Clinton is progressive, and has the scars from the right to prove it. I think the one thing Sanders should have gotten from Clinton is that she would withdraw the Merrick Garland nomination and nominate someone more progressive if she wins.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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Clinton is progressive, and has the scars from the right to prove it. I think the one thing Sanders should have gotten from Clinton is that she would withdraw the Merrick Garland nomination and nominate someone more progressive if she wins.

Exactly what sorts of issues do you think require a Justice who is "more progressive?"

This idea of judicial activism has mostly been aired as a "liberal" phenomenon. But it had swung the other way earlier in the last century -- activism on the part of business interests. And you even have to wonder about Citizens United.

I'm all for re-evaluating interpretations of the constitution, and without the Right-wing sense of rigidity. A lot of that is nonsense promoted because the Righties don't like the slow evolution of government through blood, sweat and tears that has occurred since the earliest times. First and foremost, I want somebody who has a sensible legal track-record.

So what sort of Justice would be "more progressive?" What sort of issues would come before the court requiring a "creatively-progressive" Justice? Or why is Garland a suboptimal choice?

Curious minds want to know (that's me!)
 

dawheat

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
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Because... Otherwise Trump?
This seriously. I think Bernie was mad enough at the end he might have played spoiler if the R candidate wasn't Trump. That basically took away all his real leverage b/c he's sane, he actually cares about the country, and couldn't let his final legacy to be the cause of Trump becoming president.

Say Romney was the R candidate? I could have seen it go all the way to the bitter end.
 

theeedude

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
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Exactly what sorts of issues do you think require a Justice who is "more progressive?"

This idea of judicial activism has mostly been aired as a "liberal" phenomenon. But it had swung the other way earlier in the last century -- activism on the part of business interests. And you even have to wonder about Citizens United.

I'm all for re-evaluating interpretations of the constitution, and without the Right-wing sense of rigidity. A lot of that is nonsense promoted because the Righties don't like the slow evolution of government through blood, sweat and tears that has occurred since the earliest times. First and foremost, I want somebody who has a sensible legal track-record.

So what sort of Justice would be "more progressive?" What sort of issues would come before the court requiring a "creatively-progressive" Justice? Or why is Garland a suboptimal choice?

Curious minds want to know (that's me!)

Balance on the court is not from having Conservatives tilt it far to the right, but Liberals remain neutral. The work of Roberts-Scalia court needs to be undone, root and branch, and then some. If GOP SCOTUS repeals Voting Rights Act, it's not enough for Liberals to just reinstate it, voting rights protections have to become sacrosanct for the court.
 

Triloby

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Mar 18, 2016
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Because Sanders has been in politics long enough to realize that his policies and beliefs would never get him elected in this era. Maybe sometime in the far future if America, as a whole, takes a general turn to the center-left in politics, then someone like Sanders could become president, but certainly not at this time. He's also pointed out earlier in his campaign that if Hillary gets the Democratic nomination instead, Sanders will throw his support behind her. Because at the end of the day, neither Sanders nor Hillary want Trump in the White House.
 

1prophet

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Aug 17, 2005
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Not a Sanders supporter but why did this guy give all his leverage away? I thought he was gonna take the fight all the way to the convention floor. He ran a strong campaign that got him like 45%+ of the Dem vote. If i would've been in his situation i would've negotiated from strength and set clear demands before making any edorsment. Yes i know he got some (empty) promises but we all know Clinton will conveniently "forget" about those once elected so she can focus on returning favors to her circle of friends. Is Sanders this naive? Did Clinton scare him? Is he just weak or what? To me he's just another back bencher who has spent his entire life in politics talking alot but not realizing much.

The little leverage that he thought he had was gone when he defended Hillary during the first debate thinking he was doing the right thing, instead he was embracing a snake that had no problem biting him if he got too close in the race against the "Chosen One".

The whole democrat primary was rigged in favor of Clinton, Bernie was just there to give the illusion of choice and they made him and his followers look like a bunch of useful idiots in a race that never was.

To me he's just another back bencher who has spent his entire life in politics talking alot but not realizing much.

Actually Bernie has a good heart, a straight shooter that stays the course unlike Windsock Hillary that goes in whatever direction the political winds blow, and he was running for the Democrat party that he believed in,

unfortunately for him and his supporters that Democrat party was hijacked long ago by corporate America that just pretends to care about the middle class and unless the democrats go back to their roots and throw off their corporate shackles someone like Bernie will never have a chance.
 
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blankslate

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Jun 16, 2008
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Even though the Democrat in question most likely personally assassinated him.

It was more Do Anything for HillaryWS who assassinated Bernie, resigned from the DNC cause some e-mail dump, then was hired by Clinton's Campaign.
Here is some video showing evidence from her own mouth DWS didn't really act as a neutral figure in the DNC

I'm really proud of my tenure at the DNC etc etc etc.... then....

the work we did to prepare for Hillary Clinton to be our nominee....

Luckily for DWS supporters winners write history and since Clinton is the nominee the DNC malfeasance (yes I consider what they did to be that...) will be a footnote in 4 years.

Clinton is progressive, and has the scars from the right to prove it. I think the one thing Sanders should have gotten from Clinton is that she would withdraw the Merrick Garland nomination and nominate someone more progressive if she wins.

She's also become a centrist blue dog democrat when it comes to important economic issues and she has the big money donors to prove it....

Getting back to the question of why Bernie endorsed Hillary.

Because he said at near the beginning of the primary that he would endorse the nominee and he followed through with that unlike Ted.




____________________
 
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agent00f

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Jun 9, 2016
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I don't see reason to believe that Clinton will automatically go back on all of her promises. She'll probably make concessions where she has to, but she has a record of flexibility and supporting anything that is both popular and left-wing. iirc Sanders even said at one point that part of his goal was to push Clinton further to the left, and now with a brand new generation of fucking stupid college kids getting involved in politics, he has succeeded.

Just a heads up that the fucking stupid college kids have a habit of getting on the right side of history, and I suspect you don't want to be seen as for the other side.

Of course Sanders did the math. Wasn't hard. He held out to leverage his far left agenda in the party platform. And he did, to the extent that Clinton allowed him to. For insurance Clinton had Warren in her pocket as her VP candidate, to pull in the party's more socialist members. If he pulled a Cruz stunt, her game plan was to isolate him.

Just a heads up that you don't know what socialism is, which is unfortunately since you probably talk about it a lot.
 

TheGardener

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Jul 19, 2014
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Just a heads up that the fucking stupid college kids have a habit of getting on the right side of history, and I suspect you don't want to be seen as for the other side.

Just a heads up that you don't know what socialism is, which is unfortunately since you probably talk about it a lot.

No, you are wrong, because you don't know what socialism is. You don't believe that Sanders defines himself as a socialist? He's not embarrassed by it. Why are you?
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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No, you are wrong, because you don't know what socialism is. You don't believe that Sanders defines himself as a socialist? He's not embarrassed by it. Why are you?

This isn't a rubber/glue game. There's a definition of socialism which you can look up and discover you're wrong if you're so inclined, though I'm not holding my breath.

Sanders is a democratic socialist, which despite one of the words spelled the same isn't the same term. I know that can be confusing, but observe that often even the exact same spelled entry in a dictionary might have different meanings. I recall sanders explained the difference some while back which you can also look up.

If you look at the two previous paragraphs carefully above you might be able to spot a pattern, which is that you don't look anything up and probably only trust your gut feel to be correct. It's evidently wrong pretty often, creating this vicious circle of error.