Yodabunny wrote:
You have a guy whose been in the game for a very long time affirming all of the things that the majority of the population has suspected all along about corporate greed and the rich running the government. People like him. They really really like him. Not because he's somehow "hip" not because he's a socialist but because he's the only person running on both sides that is telling the truth about what plagues modern western society and the US in particular.
Except he's not telling the truth. He's telling a popular untruth that happens to appeal to young people who haven't yet figured out that what he's saying is a set of BS wrapped in a nice semantic burrito. That might account for him getting Ron Paul level support. Maybe. It can't explain his current numbers. My speculation is that most of what's giving him the huge numbers we're seeing is people who don't know much about him other than that he isn't Clinton.
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He's not talking about wars, he's not talking about race, he's not talking about religion, he's talking about things that actually matter to the people who are going to vote. The VAST majority of people are not effected by war/terrorism/abortions/*** rights and don't care about them in any real sense, they are effected by health care/paychecks/education costs and every single politician I hear talking about those things talks about them in terms of corporations helping people. Lower taxes so companies can hire more, spend money on infrastructure so companies have more work to hire people for, but that's really not how it works, and people know that all you are doing there is feeding the rich more money.
The luxury to focus on health care, paychecks, and education is granted because other people deal with the much harder issues of dealing with wars, terrorism, foreign policy, trade deals, having sufficient business infrastructure to have a tax base to pay for things, etc, etc, etc. Ignoring all of those isn't a sign of his strength. It's a sign that he has no answers for those things and wants to just focus on how to divvy up a pie that others have baked. Again, this appeals to a very very simplistic understanding of national level politics, but just doesn't actually work as real policy.
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When Bernie Sanders comes out and says "These rich people want you to vote for these other people because they will keep them rich" we believe him, and whether Bernie's answers are right or not, they are, at the very least, not the answers the rich people want and we know that the rich people want us to not get richer so his "direction" and attitude is the right one.
Which is part of the lie he's telling. Who do you think replaces the "rich people" in his alternative ideal world? Um... Other rich people. All his policies and plans do is change what criteria we use to make someone "rich", and thus "in power". Under Bernie Sanders, the same/similar people would be in power. The difference is how they gain that power, and that he would give them more power because he would grant the government more power over the people. That's the big lie of socialism. Ultimately, it just makes the poor even more subject to the whims of the rich.
Socialism is not about granting power to the poor. It's about paying the poor off with goodies so they'll give more power to you (well, the rich and powerful that is). If you actually think that you're hurting the powerful by supporting someone like Sanders, then boy have I got a bridge to sell you.
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Hillary is only still doing well because of name recognition.
And money. And a large political apparatus. And the support of most of the rank and file Democratic Party structure. Which is what usually makes a politician successful. Her name recognition is actually her worst aspect. She's doing as poorly as she is because of that recognition. She's only successful because she's got the party power behind her. She's their anointed candidate this time around. There's a reason why the closest threat to her in the Democratic nomination process is someone as utterly unelectable as Bernie Sanders. No one electable was supposed to challenge her. Thinking that Bernie's numbers change his electability in the general is totally wrong.
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There is very little you could reveal about Bernie that would dissuade his current supporters because his supporters really don't care about anything you could dig up so the only direction he can go is up.
His hard core supporters? Sure. The 4-5x more people (and I may actually be lowballing that ratio) who are currently polling for him in the "if the election were held today" polls? You're kidding right? That's purely about most people not knowing much about him. Once those people hear him talk and hear him unabashedly say the word "socialism" in a positive way, his support will plummet.
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Hillary on the other hand comes across as corrupt in every way, she's an opportunist with a shaky moral compass and I'm not sure she'll be able to shake that persona.
Sure. And again, that's most of what's driving Sander's numbers. People hate Clinton. She's got absurdly high negatives, even among Democrats. Sander's is the only other choice. So what do you suppose someone sitting at home, who hasn't been following the election at all will say when a pollster calls and asks which of those two they like more? They know Clinton, and know they don't like her. So they'll say "Sanders". Not because they think he's a great candidate and support his positions but purely because he's not Clinton and is literally the only other choice.
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Full disclosure, I'm Canadian and have no real stake in your politics. All of my knowledge is based on online research, TV and conversations with Americans on both sides of the fence.
Yes. And I think you are grossly underestimating the negative effect of anything that looks overtly like socialism here in the US. There's a reason why politicians on the Left have to very very carefully frame their policy in free market terms. There's a reason why they go through hoops to label spending as "tax cuts" when possible (and actually doing the spending in the form of tax credits rather than via legislatively budgeted spending so they can do this). There's a reason why Obamacare isn't called "national health care" or "socialized care" but rather "the Affordable Care act", and structured such that it's still people buying health care with dollars rather than the government just giving it to them. Subsidies and rebates are tacked on after the fact specifically so that it looks less like socialism. It's not "free care", or "government provided care". It's "affordable" care. That language is not accidental.
Sanders is trying to do this with the overt language of socialism, thinking that the American people are more accepting of it. Which they are, to a degree, but not that much. Believing that his numbers are the result of a sufficient acceptance of socialism in the US rather than a significant hatred for Clinton as a person, is a huge mistake IMO.
Edited, Feb 4th 2016 4:39pm by gbaji