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Benedict Arnold

I Suppose the 2016 US Presidential Election Retrospective Will Continue For Decades…Here Are Some Of My Own Sanders Questions,

If You Would Be Willing?

 * * *

1. If Sanders had won the Democratic primary, do you think he could have defeated Trump?

2. “…in a country where most people think socialism means a Soviet-style managed economy and dictatorship,” what did you think of Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism?

I found this quote on QUORA: “All in all, had the (Democratic primary) election been fair and run neutrally…the worst estimates I’ve seen put Bernie at 184 delegates and several million votes over Hillary.” So,

3. Did the DNC really do lots of dirty tricks to ensure the Clinton candidacy, such as rigging the primaries?

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Sanders-lose-the-popular-vote-by-over-3-6M-votes-to-Clinton-in-2016

Posted - April 1, 2017
Tags : None

Responses


  • 34272
    Personally I don't consider up to 44 as a young person voting.  But that was the first graph which demonstrated the point.  I don't consider anyone over 30 as a young voter.
    Here is a better one to demonstrate:
    Bernie did in fact get 70% of the under 30 vote.  But that is only 17% of the voters. Clinton got 66% of the 45 and up voters and that is the 60% of the voters and why she won the nomination.
    Sanders could have gotten 100% of the younger vote and still would have lost.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/04/daily-chart-19
      April 3, 2017 3:06 PM MDT
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  • 1002

    I don't consider it that either, I simply responded to the graph you posted. Duly noted it wasn't your intent to reference 18-44 years old voters broadly. Your above conclusion assumes that the only voting 18-29s (how I would define "young voters") dems are those voting in the primary. The primary always has a smaller turnout that the general election. I'm sure she did get more votes when the data includes both primary states and closed caucus states, Sanders was actively shut out from closed caucuses which are used in eleven states.

    No one ever suggested that Sanders could carry only young voters and win. Your suggestion was that young people don't vote. That is simply not the case.

    This post was edited by ForkNdaRoad at April 3, 2017 6:26 PM MDT
      April 3, 2017 6:23 PM MDT
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  • 34272
    Millinal are know tied with Boomers as the two largest voting blocks. Yet only about 19% of Milinials vote compared to 38% of Boomers. This age group year after year generation after generation are the lowest voting block from the Greatest Gen, to Boomers, Gen X to Milinials when they were young voters just don't show up in proportion to other voting blocks.
    I can say when I was young my first vote at 18 was for Clinton 1992...No vote in 1996 or 2000. Voted in 2004 since. Did not vote in a primary until 2008. 
      April 3, 2017 8:21 PM MDT
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  • 1002

    For that matter 'Americans' notoriously don't vote, given only half the whole show up.

    I never claimed millennials voted at a greater rate than boomers, I said that they very much vote and can decide elections when they do, when they have a candidate to vote for. When they lack a candidate, they will sit out. Your original statement actually confirms this sentiment, although it was inherently contradictory.

    "Sanders would not have beat Trump. Because the fact is young people just do not vote in the same volume as the older/old people will come out to vote against the socialist."

    Obviously this is incorrect as young people increased their turnout by an entire percentage point to help elect Obama, who was widely regarded by boomers as a socialist himself. Even with the massive turnout in 08 (2016 was a 20 year low for turnout) only a small fraction of them voted. You went on to upend your original point with:

    "The only chance Hillary would have had to win would have been to put Sanders on as VP. I was quite relieved when she picked Cain."

    You're saying inherently contradictory things with those two statements. On the one hand you suggest that Sanders couldn't have won for lack of support, while on the other hand suggesting that Hillary could have won due to Sanders support. I get that you believe this is tied to a general large turnout of boomers, but even large turnout of boomers didn't prevent Obama (someone widely regarded as a "socialist" by boomers) from winning.

    By the way, at the onset of the primaries / caucuses in 2016, voter turnout for the dems was set to outpace 2016. That changed somewhere toward the end of the primaries for dems.

      April 4, 2017 9:54 AM MDT
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  • 34272
    Sanders could not have won by himself. He could have been a help to Clinton. He would have brought more younger voters in and took more from Trump.  But she did not so the excited young voters stayed home...like they normally do. If she would have then would have been a big chance the young voters would have made the difference.  Also there is a big difference between a primary and general election.  And the turnout is much lower. Clinton was stupid for not picking Sanders...he was the one with the excitement not her.  The only thing she had was I am a woman....vote for me.

    Obama may have been regarded as a socialist but Bernie openly claims the label. My parents voted for Obama but said they could not vote for Bernie because he is a socialist.  Obama won the Boomers in 2008. This post was edited by my2cents at April 4, 2017 11:36 AM MDT
      April 4, 2017 11:02 AM MDT
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  • 5451
    1.  Maybe, maybe not.  I think he probably would have had a better chance.

    I don't know anyone IRL who voted for Hillary Clinton.  Everybody I know either voted for Donald Trump or they voted for a third party candidate but out of those people who I know voted for Donald Trump some of them said they would have voted for Bernie Sanders instead of Donald Trump, some of them said they didn't know who they would have picked if it were Bernie Sanders vs Donald Trump and some of them said they still would have voted for Donald Trump so out of those people Bernie Sanders would have picked up some more votes.  

    The only lefty I know is my cousin and she voted for Jill Stein.  She says she would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he would have been the Democratic choice so that would have been one more vote that would have gone to Sanders.  I don't know how many other people felt that way and if it would have been enough for Sanders to win.

    2.  Bernie Sanders called it Democratic Socialism but what he meant was a free market with high taxes to pay for social programs which is how European countries do it.  European countries don't call that socialism.  Lars Løkke Rasmussen called Bernie Sanders out on it during the campaign.

    3.  They weren't neutral and superdelegates are undemocratic. This post was edited by Livvie at April 4, 2017 10:04 AM MDT
      April 1, 2017 10:47 PM MDT
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  • Livvie, I Googled and learned more about Lars Løkke Rasmussen. I thought it was interesting...Denmark chose him (conservative leanings) to get them through the financial crisis, but apparently would have preferred the more socialism-like programs of his competitor...what's wrong with this picture, as they say?
      April 2, 2017 11:03 AM MDT
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  • 1. Nobody would have been able to defeat Trump. It was his time.

    2. Too early for Sanders, Trumps style of plutocracy haxd to happen first.

    3.yes.
      April 2, 2017 5:55 AM MDT
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  • Yours are very brief but highly intriguing comments, Lago!
    I myself loved Sanders, but was shaking in my boots at the thought of what he would be subjected to if he were President...perhaps relevant to your #2...
    ...and although NOT a Trump supporter, I felt a strange frisson of relief when he did win...maybe something like working that plutocracy through our national system...
      April 2, 2017 11:08 AM MDT
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  • It's like a.pendulum, The liberals had a decade to make it work, and they couldn't, so the pendulum dropped fast to the other extreme, the ultra conservatives, ultra religious and ultra corporate driven. This thing happening now will be the epitome of.corporate rule. This has to.happen before the people realize that out of control cApitalism is hardly the answer. Then the pendulum will.swing back. Hopefully.
    I see ultra Conservatives and right wingers and The defenders of unbridled capitalism as babies. You know?  When a baby is born he is all about me, I want, mine, mine. But as we grow, we start noticing that there are others around us and we start developing a social consciousness. In terms of economic aystems, I see socially unconcerned Capitalism as such, a big fat baby.
      April 2, 2017 11:23 AM MDT
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  • Interesting, Lago...with hopes that big fat baby does mature, somehow, some evolution going on...that "noticing others around us" you speak of, with the social consciousness indeed developing...
      April 2, 2017 11:51 AM MDT
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  • 1233
    1) No, he would still have lost. (Political polling shouldn't taken seriously. It's fake. The system knows people want to back the winner. Telling you who the winner is going to be is all just a cynical way to manipulate the outcome. After the election saying that Sanders would have won is just a way to try to delegitimize Trump. No matter how inaccurate these polls are at predicting the outcomes of elections, people never seen to lose faith.)

    2) Comparing Democratic Socialism and a full communist dictatorship is like comparing stage 1 cancer to stage 4 cancer. Socialism leads to communism. It damages society in a way that creates even more poverty that then provides a pretext to further collectivize wealth. It's a self reinforcing cycle of decline, economically, socially and spiritually.

    For the west the societal cancer is slow growing. Most people are too short sighted to perceive trends that take many decades to form. Deficit spending is giving society the illusion that we can have massive public services without paying the economic cost or the cost to our liberty. Sooner or later it's all going to catch up with us suddenly.

    3) The system is completely rigged. Candidates aren't supported by the establishment unless they're compromised. They have to be establishment insiders and the system has to have some dirt on them so they can be controlled. Sanders would've been a loose cannon so they let Hillary pursue her vanity project. This post was edited by Zeitgeist at April 2, 2017 6:29 PM MDT
      April 2, 2017 7:29 AM MDT
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  • Dear TrumpianZeitgeist,
    I was actually hoping you would be one of the people to find this question...

    With a sinking heart, I do understand SO much of what you say...although I hope history can somehow prove we humankind are capable of something better.
    I am fairly sure you and I would not fully agree, at least not in an ultimate sense, but you have researched your opinions thoroughly and I always learn a great deal from you.

    I do have that David Stockman book on my reading list. I liked what I saw because apparently, he has managed to truly speak his mind, his best expertise, thus offending everybody of course.

    One further question, if you would not mind? I also asked The Zee this...are you optimistic for our national future, can we ever pull together something that will work?
    Thank you again.
      April 2, 2017 11:24 AM MDT
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  • 1233
    In the long term I'm optimistic though I expect things to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better. I'm 37. I doubt I will see a renaissance of western civilisation in my lifetime. It's taken decades to screw everything up and it will take decades to fix it. That's assuming we start now.
      April 3, 2017 11:00 AM MDT
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  • Glad I happened back to find your post...I did not receive a notification.
    I am truly concerned that yes, things might get very much worse before turning better.
    I would have expected you to be older than 37, and that is a compliment...however may your time frame be incorrect I do hope...may you see optimism fulfilled well within your lifetime.
      April 4, 2017 5:08 PM MDT
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