I don't disagree that a "true believer" can be more dangerous than an aggressive panderer. Hence why a lot of people thought Cruz would be more dangerous than Trump if they ever got into the White House. That doesn't change the fact that appealing to the worst aspects of humanity to get elected still makes you a terrible human being. Trump's candidacy has had real repercussions already. Hell I've been hearing stories of minority kids getting bullied at school by young kids who find Trumps bluster appealing. It's messed up and I don't think the story about Obama and gay marriage is completely applicable. I get what you mean by "having to play ball" to get stuff done but there's a difference between being too shy about support for an oppressed group but giving signals you are still with them and just stoking hate and fear like Trump is doing.
I think I posted it in a later reply to someone else - but the difference between too shy to support and stoking hate is the line for me - that's why I thought the anecdote was fitting. The thread has gone sort of crazy since Hillary clinched the nomination so I can't find my post, lol. But more or less, I agree with you on their being lines about how far you go to win (arguably under the being "pragmatic" umbrella) and being so principled that you remove all possibility of getting anything actually done (arguably under the "principled" umbrella).
I mean if past and present members of the armed forces want to give their opinions I don't see why they shouldn't - under-expressed viewpoints are appreciated - but at the same time I'm not sure what that has to do with the argument/discussion of privilege explicitly along a racial axis and why Sanders campaign might not have been appealing to a lot of minorities. Maybe I'm misreading you and I apologize if I am but you consistently seem to have an issue when people discuss racial politics? Even if you want to say that some individuals involved a conversation (as with any other conversation) are idiots that doesn't make it a subject not worth extensive conversation.
I guess I was maybe seeing it veer off into a generic "Bernie Bros have privilege and we don't, assholes" thread, which is why it sort of hit a nerve with me (as someone whose two best friends growing up enlisted in the wake of 9/11, and one is MIA from Iraq and the other is permanently injured from his third tour of Iraq). If the thread was staying explicitly on race, that'd be one thing, but it (at least to me) felt like it was turning into a circle jerk with folks just wanting to poorly gloat, and that all Bernie supporters are too privileged to understand how important Clinton is. (Also, for a explicitly racial privilege discussion, they were really keen on forgetting that Bernie won all groups between ages 18-35...but I digress)
EDIT: As of this edit, MHWilliams has taken the thread to church in a glorious post, so there's that good coming out of it.
As someone who (thankfully?) only knows a handful of Bernie Bros, and the majority of them are Iraq vets...that's kinda fucked up empathy wise to heavily insinuate "too privileged to understand what voting for Clinton means".
W/R/T race (and gender and where in the country you live and sexuality) stuff - I really hate politics of division, and I think a lot of the modern discourse around identity politics are fundamentally based around being politics of division and politics of rejecting the concept of empathy. One of the key assumptions around that discourse seems to be that unless you ARE X/Y/Z category, you can't possibly understand what it is like, and with that, if you are X/Y/Z, you're all the same, and if you aren't, you're disparaged by said group (or ignored). Add in this lazy and selfish conflation of ignorance and malice when it comes to judging people on the spot...ugh. It seems just more self-serving and virtue signaling to me when I see it on GAF. It seems like all of those types of politics of division are really just excuses to proclaim yourself and those who agree with you as better than the others. That Trump thread where folks were basically saying it was OK for them and a good idea overall to commit political terrorism (and actual violence) against Trump supporters because they were minorities really hit me in the wrong spot, as well.
It bugs me like hell that we choose to isolate with our differences rather than share our commonalities. Maybe it's because I'm a south asian who grew up in rural IL; but I don't fit most of the stereotypes of asians - and it frustrates me that it is always assumed to be so.
I'll probably come back and edit this as I think about it more - gotta run an errand for a bit.