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Comment by racl101 | Hacker News Reader

Too bad they usurped Bernie. Now Bernie too old to run by next election. Dude was legit Bona Fide.

How do you tell the difference between someone who would suffer a Jeremy Corbyn style catastrophic defeat, and a Keir Starmer who is the PM of the party by the same name but is basically completely different in every other way?

Correct, bernie and corbyn were both well meaning with genuine ideas and were lambasted by the press, opposition and even their own parties to never stand a chance of election. Tulsi had similar issues.

Tulsi Gabbard??? She is completely different, she is an opportunistic cult follower without ideals or ideas of her own. Doesn't really matter much now though.

Because they believe in progressive populism.

Agree with the Corbyn analogy, but let's not overstate Starmer's electoral appeal. He got less votes than Corbyn. What got him elected is that tory voters didn't show up to vote because of tory policies.

The way the party worked against Bernie Sanders is a prime example of how it treats the average American: We make the decisions, not you, and if you don't fall in line we will crush you.

Conformity, if you'll pardon me, is not a trait all those Americans who voted for Trump have, nor want. They are individuals and would like to be treated as one.

He is a successful politician. The party is giant and complex. To me, the biggest factor was his support of wealth taxes, which puts him firmly in a different camp than Biden, Warren and Bloomberg, and caused him to be opposed by everybody with power in the DNC. That is the only "line" they really mean to fall into, and it doesn't even affect the average American.

This is why I un-registered and voted Jill Stein as an independent voter.

That, plus the infuriating, incessant spam texts.

>Conformity, if you'll pardon me, is not a trait all those Americans who voted for Trump have, nor want.

I'm sure that's what all 72 million of them think. Including the ones (the majority?) who don't like Trump, but who thought a vote for Harris was anathema.

Anyway, I wrote in Bernie. Yes, yesterday.

Thanks for this comment! That does seem to explain a lot of why Dems keep losing. Americans are, first and foremost, for individual freedom and the DNC has a tendency to want to bypass that

I don't think Bernie could have won.

I do. Even my Fox News grandma liked him. So many people were looking for an excuse to not vote for Trump without feeling blackmailed into HC in 2016.

The number of people I know who voted for Trump, AND Bernie—is incredibly high. Now we'll never know!

Only Bernie had a personality cult to rival Trump's. I don't think a single person loved Hillary - they were just okay with her. Many, many people fanatically loved Bernie.

> many people fanatically loved Bernie

Loved? I still love the guy, afaik nobody else in the senate has such an authentic passion for civil rights and activism. He's real. It was a massive disservice that HC ran.

loved enough to get people out to the polls? I'm not sure. We keep underestimating human apathy.

Meanwhile, Trump runs on fear, one of the best emotions to exploit for turnout.

Bernie definitely would have defeated Trump. He had unique crossover appeal. Trump was extremely unpopular in 2016 and it took a historically disliked candidate to lose to him.

I'm almost certain he would have.

Honestly I think Trump would have labeled him "3-home Bernie"[0] or something and sunk him, similar to how he sunk Warren (w/ the Pocahontas meme). Don't get me wrong, Bernie is my favorite, but no one is immune to Trump's attacks, and there is just no way to attack him back (in a way that his supports care about).

[0] https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/bernie-sanders-house-home-pho...

Kamala dominated Trump in their debate, but clearly it didn’t matter.

I'm not really talking about while debating. I just mean general attacks, both at rallies and in social media.

Trump’s election odds took a huge and sustained dip to below 50% after that debate and his “concepts of a plan” line.

Kamala then fumbled that lead.

Yeah. It feels like we missed our one chance to get money out of politics

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