Surprise For NYT: BERNIE IS ELECTABLE!

[ConservativeDemocrat]

144. You actually have facts...

...that much is different about you compared to the average DUer. I suppose that is why I'm still discussing this with you, because even with different opinions, we respect that.

1. "I welcome their hatred." ... these sorts of statements only stand when one already has, thanks to the Great Depression and full Southern (racist) Support, a 70 to 30 advantage in the Senate and a 322 to 103 advantage in the House. It doesn't work quite as well in a divided nation, and Truman's bravado left him one of the least popular Presidents when he left office. It was only later that both historians and the public began to significantly reassess just how good he was.

The southern racists are very much an issue simply because one can do much more with massive majorities, which we no longer have. Like it or not, the Democratic party is now the party of non-whites, which poor whites simply don't want to support. And the idea that one only has to adopt some angry "anti-1%" rhetoric for them to all start voting Democratic again, is unrealistic in the extreme. Hell, the PPACA's biggest beneficiaries were the lower-middle-class self-employed, which is basically those exact people, and the vast majority of them chose to listen to Rush over looking at the benefits they got.

2. The opposite of protectionism doesn't have a specific word, although perhaps it should. Maybe something like "International standardization". I am amazed at how many people think they can just shut the door to the world, pretending, for example, that pollution, overpopulation, resource depletion, can be somehow kept at arms length if we refuse to trade with anybody. I'm more than willing to admit that trade agreements can be misused to import economic disparities into the U.S., but still, we are building middle classes around the world, which is, in the end, going to save it. Ignorant desperately poor people breed like crazy, which causes more poverty. If Americans have to sacrifice a bunch of minimum-wage shoe making jobs they don't want to do anyway, so that entire societies are raised up enough to dig themselves out of that, then we're doing the entire world a favor. And by the way - that's just the moral argument. Protectionism also simply doesn't work. If we start raising tariffs on other nations to try to give an unfair employment advantage to our workers, then other nations will do the same. It's happened in the past.

In short, the problem isn't trade agreements, it's income inequality. And if you want to directly attack that problem, I have no issue with it. But the reason why trade agreements are so popular with Democrats is that they represent real "soft" power to help spread first world values into third world countries; they're the incentive that grossly inequitable societies have to reform. You want girls not to be abused? Give them work. Nike has, to maintain their own standing in the first world, pushed many reforms into their third-party suppliers, turning that into the new normal in those countries. That's a good thing.

3. What you call "the label", other Democrats call "maintaining the coalition" and "actually winning elections". And while I will agree with you that some blue dogs make for terrible candidates (that is to say that just because someone is "blue dog" doesn't mean they should automatically be supported), they are often the only kinds of people who have actually been able to win in red leaning districts. The angry liberal stalwarts so popular on the DU for their divisive rhetoric never are able to, for pretty obvious reasons. If you're asking for the vote of a woman whose husband is a moderate Republican, screaming about how Republicans are all evil isn't going to help.

Let me also state that the people most focused on labeling, are those that force such a rigid liberal orthodoxy as a litmus test for all candidates. It's not "cheating" to win a primary or an election, although there are those who appear to say it is.

4. I didn't make up the term "Purity Troll". It was coined by Marcus Moulitsas, of DailyKos fame. Sure, he's also fought with left-leaning libertarians more at home in the Democratic party than the Republican one as well (and who want Democrats to become libertarians), but he's also bedeviled by the rich, uber-liberal, trust-fund kids, who believe that any compromise is an anathema. I'm often quite struck at how similar their views are, compared to the way that Neo-cons views are to nations like Iran. In any deal, you get 100% of what you want and they get nothing.

Sander's problem isn't a lack of institutional support. It's much more fundamental than that. The guy simply doesn't LOOK Presidential. And optics matter. The number of people who vote (or decide not to vote) based not on policy positions, but rather "would I feel proud to see this person as my country's leader?", simply can't be overstated. I distinctly remember when Bill Clinton took up wearing $1000 suits in his campaign, not because he was a clothes horse, but because research showed that 2% of voters take a well done tie as a major consideration in who they're voting for. And when you're in a 49%/49% election, that 2% matters.

Bernie also has a tin political ear. Yes, the word "socialism" is something you can bandy about in European political circles without it being compared to Stalinist tyranny, but Europe isn't the United States. The swastika is considered Buddhist in Japan, and the Japanese well know the symbol was appropriated by the NAZIs, but you don't see them flying that flag around anywhere, for obvious reasons.

Hilary's main problem is that the mainstream media, by which I means publications like the NYT, absolutely hate her - and are willing to push non-scandals well past the breaking point just to smear her in any way imaginable. From where I stand, their anger is transferred from Bill. When they caught him having his midlife-crisis affair, they went into full "hound him until he has to respond" mode, but instead of feeling the pressure, he simply went about his job, and seeing him actually doing his job (which the media tries its best to avoid showing), the public rallied to him. That rubbed the press's nose in the fact that they're really not the spokesmen for the public, and their hatred has burned white-hot for the Clintons ever since.

I'm not exactly sure why you have such an anger towards the "Rubinite wing of the party". Bill Clinton's claim to fame is his rightly deserved mastery of economics, and Obama isn't far behind. There is no indication that, absent Bush's mismanagement, the economic policies that business focused democrats championed are at all bad. In fact, it's a standard theme for the the Kuchnich wing of the party to make common cause with Republicans in blaming Democrats for what Republicans are responsible for. Not just for economics, but just about everything. Hillary's support of "war" wasn't support at all. It was support for the threat of war, as in "let inspectors have free reign, stop shooting at our planes, or we'll take more serious measures". But the Kuchnich wing of the party would rather blame Democrats for "arming the cops" than they would for a corrupt, bloodthirsty way, in which those cops went about the international equivalent of police brutality.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community