For me it's just watching all the damn freaking out about "OMG BERNIE IS GONNA HURT CLINTON HE IS THE WORSTEST" bullshit. Seriously? Clinton did the same thing in 2008, people (I guess? Wasn't on GAF) overreacted / didn't overreact, June came, and after the convention, everything was freaking fine.
Cue 2016: Bernie's influence is "toxic"; he's a hostage-taker, egomaniac, etc etc. Same (or different) dumb arguments being made, like 2016 is somehow magically different.
FFS - Donald Freaking Trump is coalescing the GOP around him. If Trump can coalesce the GOP around him and Clinton can't coalesce the Dems around her - that's ALL on Clinton at that point. Trump's been called a xenophobic religious bigot by people in his own party who are now coalescing around him. Just like everyone was absolutely sure (tm) this time would be different with Trump and #NeverTrump and the GOP wouldn't go around him...yet here we are.
This place turned into everything it (rightfully at the time) made fun of in terms of SandersReddit or whatnot. It's not hypocrisy or what not - it's the Chicken Little'ing (and then posting upon said panic) that frustrates me. The worst case scenario is that all the panic ends up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Something we were aware of in 2008 (and hence why we didn't really say anything about PUMA threatening Clinton supporters)
Bunch of other responses since I started this post - so I'll try to answer them
@Crocodile - the problem this entire primary process is that everyone keeps trying to think it was different than 2008 on the dem side, and it hasn't been. Because everyone is freaking out over "OMG IT MIGHT BE DIFFERENT"; they're trying to act in different (and more irrational and long-term damaging ways) and generate a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@adam - at this point in the primary, the percentages of Clinton winning were the same as Sanders now. Obama clinched on June 3rd, 2008 - Clinton will most likely clinch on June 7th 2008 (clinch being delegate + super delegate sum passing the magic #). Clinton was closer in delegate count, but her chances of catching Obama were similarly at a functional zero. It's like being down 20 with 2 minutes remaining versus being down 30 with two minutes remaining. It was over.
@Ignatz - The GOP primary process (and Dem primary process from 2000 & 2004) should give a good indicator as to what happens when you coalesce TOO quickly around a candidate with what feels like external pressure. Major, important subdivisions within your party start to feel disengaged and unwanted, and if you lose a couple of elections in a row - will usually feel the need and right to be much more forceful about their interjection. Because they never got a chance to have their viewpoint go till the end, so the "unknown" drives them
There are parts of this I agree with. I will just say that
A) That the Republicans are coalescing around Trump says more about their angry base (racial resentment, feel betrayed by party elites, etc.) and the party elites (greedy and cowardly enough to rally behind someone even they feel is unfit for the job) than it says about anything else or even the Democrats if they can't coalesce.
B) Just as Gore bares most of the blame for losing and not Nader, so would the same be true for Clinton and Sanders. That being said, if Clinton did lose and Sanders hadn't done everything in his power to help in the general election fight (like Clinton did for Obama) then I wouldn't think Sanders would be blameless. I'm not saying that is what
will happen though - again I'm not clairvoyant. I'd feel a whole lot better if like primary turnout was actually significantly higher. It feels hard to make the argument that Sanders has actually brought in a lot of new people rather than just engaged those who are just becoming politically active because his platform (free college?) is especially appealing to them. I wish there were more things in this primary season I could point to and say "thank God Sanders showed up and did this!". I don't feel there are many/enough
It's possible to think that Clinton will beat Trump and still object to the way the Sanders campaign is operating right now. Like I object to a lot of the stuff he says about the primary process being rigged because it's not true and because it's enabling harassment. It's not just about this election.
This.
We are on a videogame website. We see developers and publishers spin shit all the time. We know that they are spinning and why they are spinning and yet we still frequently laugh at them or get mad at them. Considering politics like
actually matters, why shouldn't we call out political spinning when we see it? We did it will all the Republican candidates as they were falling by the wayside. Right now Bernie is losing and when someone is losing, engaging in spin is normal and expected. That doesn't mean I have to like the spin. I don't like that he never blames himself for his losses but blames it on "conservatives" or "fraud"/"rigged-ness" (neither of which are even remotely true and/or have problematic implications if you dig a little deeper), I don't like how weak and "whataboutish" his condemnation of the Nevada shitshow was. His constant exclamations of how good his GE polls are annoy me not because he's lying (he isn't) but rather he isn't doing . I think the most annoying thing is that people buy that spin full stop. Like bad spin in general just grates on my nerves. It's not unique to Sanders at all but at this point in time, he's the only one really engaging in it and its
really bad spin. Well aside from Trump I guess but fuck Trump. That man can rot for all I care - I have no expectations from him.
Would you prefer when Bill Clinton complained to Harry Reid that "a boy" like Obama would have been getting him water 4 years ago? Or HRC saying that the reason Obama is winning is because the Democrats and media won't criticize him because he's black? Or that Obama can't win the white vote and that's why she should be the nominee? Or when she told her staff that Obama's mother was a communist? (That's just the publicly reported stuff. Won't even touch the stuff we heard internally)
Game Change should be some mandatory reading or something.
Er most people called him out on that shit. Now Sanders is saying dumb stuff and is getting called out on his shit. When people say dumb things they get called out. I'd only see a problem if people were only giving Sanders shit and never the Clintons for the dumb shit they've said. "But they did it too!" is not a defense.
We even now have Gaming's Godwin's Law - Gamergate, brought into it.
I mean I don't think its unfair to say that some small number of Clinton supporters in 08 were racists right? I certainly believe that to be true. Is it therefore wrong to say some small number of Sanders supporters are explicitly or implicitly sexist?
