Bernie Sanders to House Democrats - 'Our goal is not to win elections' - Gets booed.

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SlimySnake

SlimySnake

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Bernie Sanders faced intense pressure from House Democrats on Wednesday to endorse Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, as rank-and-file lawmakers confronted him behind closed doors with shouts of "Timeline! Timeline!" and even scattered boos.

Sanders, arriving with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, was pressed directly by Democrats irritated by his slow-moving support for their presumptive presidential nominee.

Yet to the frustration of his listeners, the Vermont senator never answered their question, refusing to give a timeline for when he would get behind Clinton.

At one point he said, "Our goal is not to win elections," and then paused. Democrats booed until Sanders completed his thought by saying, "but to transform America" in order to win elections.
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Wow. We dodged a bullet there. This guy would've likely run a terrible GE campaign and cost us the presidency.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/72101a2e16cc46f28687f7e07edeecc9

Boo, if old.
 
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I get that some change might not come electorally

But its a bad message to send when your idea for how to implement revolutionary change was running for the presidency

Some change can't be solved with a national vote? Yeah, 100% agreed. Walk the walk then.
 
Yeah, probably not the best thing to say when they're gearing up to win the general election against white supremacists.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I don't agree with the way Sanders ran his campaign, or continues to, but jeez. Those democrats were acting like children.
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Yeah. His campaign became a mess but a lot of his underlying critiques are dead on.

The democrats, since the Reagan years, have grown into mostly spineless, directionless shills.

Yes I get the notion of representative but from a platform perspective and a logistics perspective, they just are horribly organized. And it would seem most are still oblivious to the issues and unwilling to even hear critique.
 
Yeah, if you want significant change, it is necessarily about playing to the establishment. Political wins in the current times, unfortunately, usually means pandering to short termism, playing up justified or perceived threats, and mostly re-inforcing the status quo. Bernie has been advocating change over compromising and winning an election. Fair play to him. There are thresholds, if they are not met, then the change isn't necessarily significant enough.

Big Baybee said:
You can't transform America without first winning elections, Bernie.
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That would seem to make sense, but it is a catch 22. Transformative change doesn't necessarily come from stability, but following periods of disruption. Depends what type of transformation you are talking about, and how far reaching. What is your metric? History and past experience doesn't paint a promising picture for Hillary to transform America, at least in the direction it needs to transform if we are to get within shouting distance of 1.5C...

On the other hand, maybe this is a tactic by Bernie to pressure Clinton into giving him a seat at the top table. If so, it will be interesting to see what happens.
 
Can't push a revolution after you've lost your seat to a Republican and thus had all chance of progress stomped out. It just seems like a silly move on Sander's part, these people are roughly 3 months away from elections, what does he expect? It's not a rally, it's house dems.
 
He should be booed. The sentiment discourages people from voting.
 
nelsonroyale said:
What do you mean by transform? What is your metric? History and past experience doesn't paint a promising picture for Hillary to transform America, at least in the direction it needs to transform if we are to get within shouting distance of 1.5C...
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like, okay, lets run with this as a premise: the major changes America needs aren't going to come from politicians. Why then are we listening to a guy who sat in the Senate for decades with little to his name and ran a presidential campaign about how his presidency was going to be the revolutionary change America needs?
 
Always the idealist.

I do see his point, though. If the cold-hard winning of elections is all that mattered, then its not worth it to compromise your ideals and principles to win. If say, hypothetically, America was more racist then we thought and the only way for the Democrats to win was to out-racist Trump, would you still vote for them?
 
studyguy said:
Can't push a revolution after you've lost your seat to a Republican and thus had all chance of progress stomped out. It just seems like a silly move on Sander's part, these people are roughly 3 months away from elections, what does he expect?
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Considering he's advocating for people to run for their local offices I don't think that's entirely accurate.
 
Well, if he is making a point about the goals of a better life are much more far reaching than any one election and not being so narrow minded about control and to plan to the future, not just until the next election, then hell yeah he's right.

Q: Have politics regressed to the point where it not possible to make any change unless you have control of a branch of Gov or does it just feel that way.
 
I definitely respect what Sanders is trying to do, but there is too much at risk right now.

Republicans control too much of the government as it is, Trump in the white house would be a catastrophe.
 
Was he talking about the Senators/Reps? Because I agree with him there. If he was talking about the general election then fuck him into the stratosphere.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I don't agree with the way Sanders ran his campaign, or continues to, but jeez. Those democrats were acting like children.
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Yeah. I wasn't a fan of some of his tone deaf comments or of the way a very specific and toxic part of his base reacted to criticism of any kind, but at this point, it's time to let go and stop caring so much about something as marginal as this timeline.

I mean, in theory they're probably right, but from a practical standpoint, the bitter infighting seems more damaging than Bernie dropping.
 
I get his point, but that's clearly poor phrasing when fighting the perception you don't care enough about... well, winning elections.
 
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What he said was... strange. You can't transform America if you're not winning elections and gaining the power to do so. Maybe he meant it's not good to say you'll transform America just to win elections, and then not fall through?
 
Jonm1010 said:
Yeah. His campaign became a mess but a lot of his underlying critiques are dead on.

The democrats, since the Reagan years, have grown into mostly spineless, directionless shills.

Yes I get the notion of representative but from a platform perspective and a logistics perspective, they just are horribly organized. And it would seem most are still oblivious to the issues.
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Bernie is very good at pointing out problems. Solving them? He has no damn clue, and is perfectly content to sit by the side and complain about anything that falls short of his ideals and his magical Underwear Gnome-style plans of implementation. We don't need that.
 
It's funny how he wants people he is basically trolling and saying a sort of F - U to, to embrace his ideas and "change".

He says elections don't matter, but the bigger ideas do in order to win elections: sure, but ideas are carried by people, by personalities.
And he has done, and still is doing, everything he can to make his own "brand" toxic to the ideas he is pushing.

Back 12 months ago I actually liked the idea of a David going against the Clinton Goliath, with big ideas and a big heart... but now I have started to actually dislike him thoroughly as a person (while finding his ideas noble and worthy), so I know for a fact that I would not vote for him in -any- form of primary at all.

I think that's the kind of damage he is doing to himself in the Democrat party, which unless he goes Green (and niche for the foreseeable future) is basically the only avenue he has to achieve the kind of change he wants.

Kinda mind boggling tbh.
 
YoungFa said:
Wait so theyre were together in a room and they screamed and booed at an old man?
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The after his last big loss in the primary, The Crowd supporting Sanders Boo'd louder when Hillary name was Mentioned then when Donald Trump's name was mentioned. Of course Bernie did nothing to control the crowd.

Bernie has done nothing but paint anyone a that disagree with him as the Enemy/Establishment . HE gets sympathy from me.
 
Well, your goal should be to win elections so that you can set an agenda and "transform America". That's whole point of winning!
 
BobTheFork said:
Well, if he is making a point about the goals of a better life are much more far reaching than any one election and not being so narrow minded about control and to plan to the future, not just until the next election, then hell yeah he's right.

Q: Have politics regressed to the point where it not possible to make any change unless you have control of a branch of Gov or does it just feel that way.
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Liberals love to talk about how desperately Republicans need a "come to Jesus" moment so to speak with how oblivious they are to changing realities but I feel like Democrats probably need it even more so.

2010 fucked Democrats up good. And it will keep them fucked up until at a minimum 2020 and if they don't get their shit together it will be another decade. Gerrymandering and the inability to get people out and motivate in non presidential elections is killing them. So to answer your question, yes. And not just one branch but you need all to really get anything meaningful done because Republicans know they are at a demographic disadvantage so they have gone full in on the obstructionism strategy at every level and where they can get a foothold they strong arm their agenda through.
 
I agree with him.

I don't want politicians focusing on getting reelected.
I want politicians focused on fixing the country and making meaningful change.
 
whyamihere said:
Well, your goal should be to win elections so that you can set an agenda and "transform America". That's whole point of winning!
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I honestly don't think Bernie has any respect for the Democratic process. After all, Revolutionaries aren't voted in. They seize power.
 
YoungFa said:
Wait so theyre were together in a room and they screamed and booed at an old man?
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Outside of literally strong-arming him to drop out that's about all they can do. Of course Sanders doesn't really care about anyone but himself at this point so it's a bit of a fool's errand.
 
SirClinksAlot said:
Lose the white house and the supreme court and somehow still change America? Uh huh.
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Its about sending a message, didn't you know?

diablos991 said:
I agree with him.

I don't want politicians focusing on getting reelected.
I want politicians focused on fixing the country and making meaningful change.
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Please explain to me how they're supposed to "make meaningful change" when they lose to politicians who actually are focused on winning elections?
 
The Technomancer said:
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I get that some change might not come electorally

But its a bad message to send when your idea for how to implement revolutionary change was running for the presidency

Some change can't be solved with a national vote? Yeah, 100% agreed. Walk the walk then.
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The activism and there's politics. If Bernie wants to practice idealized activism, he's in the wrong damn job.

The political sode of the coin you need to actually get elected, stay elected, and pass policy (sometimes with strong headwinds that don't want it). You need to be pragmatic and you need to get allies elected.
 
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