Surprise For NYT: BERNIE IS ELECTABLE!

[MFrohike]

145. I mostly forget what was going on here

I'll still give it a go, but if it doesn't make sense, refer to the title.

1. Nice conventional wisdom, if irrelevant. I'm not sure why you bring it up, I haven't really bothered to check the history of this back and forth, but it's the standard line of Democratic weakness. Sure, the institutional party and activists could focus on partisan gerrymandering and the fact it's a clear violation of one person, one vote, but it's easier to not do anything and repeatedly explain how everything is impossible. Harry Reid could have tossed the filibuster on day one, which should have been done 150 years ago, but it's easier to lie back and whine. God forbid anybody use a majority for anything.

2. Too many platitudes, zero policy. The recent flap over "trade" isn't that at all. Very few people actually oppose trade in the abstract. The three treaties which are currently on the board are not trade pacts, they are rules harmonization pacts. In fact, they're exactly what you say you'd like to see. They will set a baseline for regulation across the countries involved. In fact, it's kind of like the EU, but without the overt recognition of sovereignty loss. Given the performance of the EU over the last near decade, I'm not sure why anyone in their right mind would want to emulate it. Well, unless you're looking to enshrine your government granted monopoly worldwide, gut financial regulation and necessary capital controls, or sue national governments over prudential regulation.

I'm not sure how you think "trade" is unrelated to income inequality, but them's the brakes. I personally view the economy as a system, with multiple discrete parts that interact in various ways. I think trying to separate out the problem of distribution from the methods employed to produce wealth is just silly. An exact simile is escaping me at the moment, but given the particularities of these current agreements, it seems that the better path is to defeat them so as not to further increase inequality. It's hard for me to understand how further empowering government granted monopolies and hot money flows is going to help anyone who's not already wealthy or in one of those pipelines.

3. More platitudes. What I call the label is people who support dirtbags because of their party affiliation. Your blue dog analysis sucks because it's been overtaken by events. If blue dogs were so viable, they'd still be a force. Instead, there's like 10 of them because they can't beat real wingnuts. That's why I say there's no point in supporting them. They had their chance and they lost. I'll take a gamble over a proven failure any day of the week.

I don't get the bit about screaming about evil Republicans. That strikes me as a non sequitur intended to make your argument magically more convincing.

The cheating argument I also don't get. The only litmus test that has existed in the Democratic Party of my lifetime is the traditional, mealy-mouthed support of Roe. There aren't any others. If there were, there's a long list of people who wouldn't have been in office with that D beside the name.

4. Platitudes and snide insinuations. Rich kids tend to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Put simply, libertarians. They might want to see gay marriage, but they ain't trying to hurt their own pocketbooks.

Purity troll is an asinine term that's intended to shut down debate. If you're going to say that, people who disagree with you should bring back DINO as a retort. Then you can say I'm rubber, you're glue. Get the idea of why I find it asinine yet?

Everybody mouths compromise, nobody wants it. Compromise for the sake of compromise is moral weakness. It is the desire to be seen doing something rather than to actually do something. You can spout off whatever platitudes you like, but perhaps you could explain why virtually every compromise over the last 40 years has been detrimental to the mass of Americans. You compromise something you want less to get something you want more. That is not the trend of legislative compromise in the Democratic Party. It's more like you compromise something gigantic in order to get something that saves the tiniest bit of face.

5. Optics, yeesh. I didn't know we were playing buzzword bingo.

When I assessed Sanders and Clinton, it wasn't their electoral chances. I was assessing their chances to actually govern as a Democrat.

Mastery of economics? Cool. I didn't know that riding an equity bubble while wantonly deregulating all the way counted as economic mastery, but thanks for the info.

No indication absent Bush's mismanagement. I take it you're not familiar with AIG. If you don't understand exactly why I bring them up in about 5 seconds, you really shouldn't ever talk about Rubinite economic policy. It's not the only example I could use, but it's got a good beat and I can dance to it.

I didn't know there was a Kucinich wing of the party. Good to know. I'm not sure how Clinton's support of an open-ended war resolution wasn't implicitly a vote for war, but I'll take your word for it. Granted, not even lying old William Fulbright tried that excuse back in 1968, but I guess it's worth a shot. That vote really doesn't influence how I feel about her, but that defense is just pathetic. You might do better with claiming that she was deceived than arguing that she's too dumb to read a standard Congressional war resolution of the type that dates back to the Mexican-American War. But hey, maybe showing the candidate is dumb is the way win votes. Maybe it would work.

Anyway, it's been fun but I'm done with this one. I don't really remember it all that well, as my response may show, and it's a bit stale. Feel free to reply. I'll read it, but it's time to visit other pastures.