Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a style choice. I prefer: Bernie Sanders's We can agree that the title is clearly wrong :D (In case it gets fixed, the title was submitted with: Sander's)
Bernie Sanders's'
Bernie S'anders.
Bernie Sanders' 404 page
261–270 of 278 posts
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's an interesting candidate. From what I've seen he's not your typical politician, and he seems to mesh well with the current twentysomething crowd despite being from the tail end of the "Greatest Generation" himself. I don't know how much of a chance he has to win the presidency, but I can say that I like him much, much better than any other candidate (and I'm not a political kind of guy).
Are you comfortable with a socialist leading a capitalist society? I sure am not.
Socialist or not, I'll gladly take him over the various fascists (Clinton, half of the Republicans) and theocrats (the other half of the Republicans, save for Paul and Trump). Yeah, I'm a bit leary of the single-payer system he's advocating (I know they're great in Europe and all, but that's a pretty big jump, and I don't know if Americans are ready for it), but I'm otherwise more-or-less in agreement with most of his stances, and I certainly swing farther toward capitalist than socialist in my own stances.
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm genuinely curious why you like him. I don't really understand the appeal because whenever I listen to him speak it is along the lines of 'we have people starving and oh we have millionaires.' Okay, great so what? Should we not have either? How does one fix the other? Anyways, I've been asking people who like him to really explain because I don't get it and often just see 'he speaks truth, you are an idiot if you…
He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him…
As the Washington Post pointed out (and common sense concurs), the only way a Scandanavian-style democratic socialist economy can exist is because there is a United States to drive the economy enough so that there's enough productivity that those countries can afford their socialism.
Unfortunately, I can't find the article now, but it surprising to see in the Washington Post.
If the USA adopted these policies, the biggest change would be to drag the top quintile down, while the bottom quintile wouldn't change much. Oh, and the top quintile are the people who create all the jobs, so it's just a vicious cycle.
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#264I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.
Sanders could beat Trump in the general. But then again just about anybody beats Trump in the general, and Clinton has had a long time to work on her ground game for the primary. I don't see her losing the primary unless someone really, truly radical appears. The problem is that Sanders has a message that resonates with a lot of disaffected white male progressives. If you dig deeper, you can see he's not really great…
Sanders couldn't get elected dog-catcher without the word "free".
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.
Sanders is going to end up like Ron Paul: he'll make a big splash on social media (well, he already did), but he'll crash and burn in the primaries. There are actually a lot of similarities between Sanders and Paul: they made the splash they made for the same reason (they're honest politicians who put their values before the party line), and they'll crash and burn for the same reason (no support from party elites, mo…
Sanders won't get far because the only thing he has to offer is giving away other people's money and the USA is already $20 trillion down that path (more like $150 trillion if you consider the unfunded mandates).
How can we possibly do more when what we are doing now is unsustainable?!
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump has no extreme positions that I've heard. Totally mainstream populist. People are downvoting me, but if you don't realize that any policy comments Trump has put forth poll great you are just out of touch. You would be by definition "extreme."
To me the remarkable thing is how well Trump is doing even after the media (on both sides) have tried to extremize his views. The contrast between what Trump actually says and how the media frames it is appalling. But, by and large you're right. His policies are fairly mainstream and even the ones that sounds extreme (immigration being the main one) are commonly held by a large part of the population.
It's simple, the people who support Trump don't trust the media, and with good reason. The media in this country has stopped even pretending they are impartial.
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who was born in Australia and now lives in Amsterdam I feel like he's the most sane politician in America. I still don't understand why Americans are so insistent on keeping their "Bad for the people, good for business" policies. If you're in the 1% sure that makes sense, but for everyone else life is so much nicer with free healthcare, good vacation time, maternity leave, good public transport, proper pri…
Thomas Frank took a stab at this question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansa... Worth a read. From my perspective, there's no one answer, but I've noticed a handful of things: * Race - Most democratic socialist countries tend to have more homogeneous populations. The U.S. has sizable African-American and Latino-American minorities, often segregated into their own neighborhoods, and that oft…
On the first, these are cultural problems that are not solvable by politicians without creating worse problems (as evidenced by current events).
The second is a misunderstanding of the concept of a republic. Each state has a say. That's not unfair. It certainly wouldn't promote stability for heavily populated cities to have complete control and entire states neglected.
Not sure I completely disagree on military spending. Like most things, it's a balance. We probably needed a rebalance (was done in the gov shutdown deal). However, I'm not sure it needs further cuts. Maybe just better focus.
Healthcare is a joke. What was passed, and the way it was passed, was deceitful. Turns out it was snake oil. Made some things better, made more things worse, and didn't fix the problem (cost of healthcare).
From a politics perspective, it sure would be nice to have a leader that brings people together. This administration is far to willing to leverage our political differences as a tool for political gain. That has made us culturally worse by creating an environment of distrust, disregard, and division Among our citizens just for having different ideas.
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with the assessment that (in your experience) the front runners usually lose or that this Democratic primary cycle is similar to the last one. Focusing on the latter, fivethirtyeight did a comparison of Clinton's chances today compared to 8 years ago and found that she is in a much better position [1]. As much as I want Sanders to win, I trust fivethiryeight and I think they've got it right on this one. [1…
> I disagree with the assessment that (in your experience) the front runners usually lose or that this Democratic primary cycle is similar to the last one. Out of seven races under something approximating the modern primary system where an incumbent President or Vice President from the party isn't running, Democratic early (Summer-to-Fall of the year preceding the election) front-runners have apparently once actually…
Thanks for the response. I did amend my comment soon after I posted it, with the correct link to fivethirtyeight. It is highly relevant to the discussion at hand. The title is - "Bernie Sanders, you're no Barack Obama"
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.
> Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, Perhaps. > and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. The national head-to-head polls I've seen that have included have him beating all the Republicans he is polled against (Trump, Bush, Walker, and Rubio), in some cases by wider margins than Clinton does in the same polls. That's…
Those polls are meaningless 14 months ahead of the general election. Trump is a highly polarizing figure who (a) will also almost certainly not win the nomination and (b) is widely hated enough that he would likely lose head-to-head against a ham sandwich. The other Republican candidates don't have hardly any name recognition because Trump is monopolizing all the media attention.
I'm not sure how much elaboration you need for the idea that an avowed socialist wouldn't be elected President of the United States.
Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.
> Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary Why do you say that? I could perhaps be convinced, but at this point I don't see any reason to think that.
Sanders' support is almost exclusively from white progressives. He has almost no traction with minorities and less pull with women than Hillary. He's also well to the left of the Democratic base.