Some perspective on gaining Bernie voters ...

[nolawarlock]

Across Facebook and Twitter, many of the people I've seen screaming the loudest that they aren't voting for Biden have also taken the time to say that they were never Democrats to begin with and only switched from independent (or registered at all) to vote for Bernie. Most of those people were much farther left than even the average progressive Democrat. They're Green party, or Communist party or anarcho-communists or socialists like Briahna Joy Gray who already suggested taking "Democratic" off of her designation of "Democratic Socialist." Real shocker there, right? Some, like those on one particular JPR site that pushed Trump in 2016 and even one loud poster there now saying that Trump is the lesser of two evils, are more in line with Trump on issues such as trade isolationism and military non-intervention. Some of that 12% (if I recall the number correctly) that voted for Trump were probably the type of non-voters who likes a rabble-rouser and a demagogue and any port in a storm will do.

All this hullaballoo over let's get the Bernie voter boils down to this. You're likely to get at least 85% of them and those will be the Democrats who liked Bernie's vision, his spunk and determination, and his caring for the disenfranchised. I personally can't stand the man but I also understand his appeal.

But, as for that 15%, if the old adage is true that we shouldn't cry over spilled milk, why should we cry over milk that was never in the bottle to begin with? Let's rely on that 85 % of Bernie supporters who are actually committed to seeing children released from cages and the hard-right tilt of the court reversed. I don't think we're going to get the extremists and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try.

[The Magistrate]

1. A Sound Analysis, Sir

"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[brush]

2. I'm with you on this.

[beachbumbob]

3. Ideologues do what they do because they only think THEIR opinion matters, its always a waste of

time and resources to convince that small minority and if the last 3+ years still doesn't give them clarity on the need to support all democrats, nothing will.

[nolawarlock]

4. Exactly...

If the non-Democrat Bernie fanatics haven't learned to sing a new song since 2016, after seeing all that Trump has wrought upon this nation, and they still think that Biden's alleged warmongering outweighs the vast dangers that Trump presents to us if he gets another four years, then I'd just rather ignore that 15%. If Biden loses, it won't be because of them. He never had them.

And this whole tall tale about Hillary's bad candidacy needs to away too. In light of this year, when six female candidates were utterly trounced, could they all have been terrible candidates? Hillary not only trounced the sexism that clearly did hurt her to a degree, but she also trounced 30 years of anti-Clinton propaganda. We never had anything to compare her to before this year and now that we do, we realize that it took Comey's letter and, to a lesser degree, the constant rantings of the Briahna Joy crowd—who would not have had the audience they had if Bernie had run as an independent, to derail her campaign in the Electoral College, while she still earned the popular vote. In comparison to some great female candidates this year, in terms of winning voters, Hillary was either the best ever or the six female candidates this year were simply the worst possible candidates ever and I don't think any of us believes that—well, except maybe Williamson.