2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Salon: Bernie must drop notion that everyone who disagrees with him is corrupt or a dupe [View all]First off, structural change doesn't happen overnight. So, it makes no sense what so ever to think that it would come about immediately. It wouldn't, and it wouldn't unless there was an outright revolution, which isn't going to happen. Sanders has said it wouldn't happen overnight and he couldn't do it alone, and he's right. He doesn't believe that, and neither do most of his supporters. I challenge you to name a single movement of historic importance, one, that lacked a long term version that wasn't "realistic" in the short term. Did the Civil Rights movement have a vision that was "realistic" in the way you seem to want to argue? Of course not. The labor movement? Did they push for things that they thought would immediately happen? Of course not. They had long term visions, and those visions were used to organize people and to force those in power to implement structural change. That's how it has always happened, without exception. You all have created a straw man argument that Sanders and most of his supporters don't believe in.
On the other hand, there is no way to ever get things like universal health care or college unless you state the vision and give people the chance to organize around that vision. No one said he was a freaking messiah either. He is just the only one addressing those issues and the only one running with a coherent vision that the country actually wants (take a look at the polls on the issues and how he polls nationally). There is a huge, proven, gap between popular opinion and government policy, more than anything because of corruption, which Clinton is guilty of. God forbid anyone want to come along and change that.
I also find it curious that people like yourself call his push for a strong environmental policy, like a carbon tax, to be unrealistic. I have news for you, we don't have tons of time and there is no realistic way to avoid ecological collapse with moderate solutions. Sanders' call for a carbon tax is called radical, which just shows how far right wing the conversation has gone. In fact, it isn't nearly enough. I would guess that you're older, so you aren't going to have to deal with that. Your kids and grandchildren will though, and you should think long and hard about what is coming for them environmentally, what environment your generation is passing and has passed on to the next. There is no way to avoid ecological collapse without structural change, period, and we don't have much time. Some scientists in fact think it's too late.
"Also, your post is just character attacks on Hillary Clinton."
Name a single thing I pointed that isn't factual. Her being corrupt isn't a character attack, it's factual. If you think a person being corrupt says something about their character, then you should analyze her character, because she IS corrupt, and there is no arguing against that, unless you want to change the definition of corruption. She is also hawkish, this is common knowledge, and does have a center-right economic record.
I also think your argument about Clinton getting things done is comical, at best. You seem to think that Hillary Clinton, Hillary freaking Clinton, is going to work with the Republicans and "get things done". They froth at the mouth when they say her name. Even if the Republicans in power think she's okay, it doesn't matter, since their base hates her to their core and those Republicans won't get re-elected if they do what she wants. They do, whether or not that is rational. You might have a case with another center-right Democrat, but not her. She is no more likely to do anything she wants to than Sanders would be. The truth is that the right has to be fought, battled and beaten back, the "center" has to be dragged back to the left, where popular opinion is. Thinking it would come from someone that has gotten massively rich off of corporations and gotten so much from Wall Street is naive, the ponies and rainbows thing the Clinton folks have been talking about.
I'd like to hear what you think is going to happen though if she's elected. She's a "centrist" (of what exactly?) and is negotiating with the right wing. A negotiation always results in a position between two negotiating parties. So, if she negotiates with the right and is already in the center, where would the compromise be? Be honest, she'll "get things done" if/when she sells the store to corporate interests, just as her husband and Obama largely did. Our political system is well to the right of where it was decades ago, and the Democrats like Clinton haven proven that they don't have it in them to drag it back to the left.