2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDo Sanders Supporters Favor His Policies?
It is a widely held assumption that since young people have flocked enthusiastically to the Bernie Sanders campaign that they by and large they are more liberal than older generations and therefore were more prepared to accept Sanders' message and proposed programs. This thinking also implied that they be less than inclined to be supportive of Hillary Clinton's more moderate messages after the Sanders' campaign folds. This notion ran counter to a number of polls indicating that young people will readily support Hillary over Donald Trump in the general election.
An article in the New York times for the first time explains this apparent contradiction to my satisfaction. It appears that Sanders appealed to young people not so much because of his politics, but because of his outsider status.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/opinion/campaign-stops/do-sanders-supporters-favor-his-policies.html?_r=0
.....More detailed evidence casts further doubt on the notion that support for Mr. Sanders reflects a shift to the left in the policy preferences of Democrats. In a survey conducted for the American National Election Studies in late January, supporters of Mr. Sanders were more pessimistic than Mrs. Clintons supporters about opportunity in America today for the average person to get ahead and more likely to say that economic inequality had increased.
However, they were less likely than Mrs. Clintons supporters to favor concrete policies that Mr. Sanders has offered as remedies for these ills, including a higher minimum wage, increasing government spending on health care and an expansion of government services financed by higher taxes. It is quite a stretch to view these people as the vanguard of a new, social-democratic-trending Democratic Party.
Mr. Sanders has drawn enthusiastic support from young people, a common pattern for outsider candidates. But here, too, the impression of ideological commitment is mostly illusory. While young Democrats in the January survey were more likely than those over age 35 to call themselves liberals, their ideological self-designations seem to have been much more lightly held, varying significantly when they were reinterviewed.
...
For many of them, liberal ideology seems to have been a short-term byproduct of enthusiasm for Mr. Sanders rather than a stable political conviction.
Perhaps for that reason, the generational difference in ideology seems not to have translated into more liberal positions on concrete policy issues even on the specific issues championed by Mr. Sanders. For example, young Democrats were less likely than older Democrats to support increased government funding of health care, substantially less likely to favor a higher minimum wage and less likely to support expanding government services. Their distinctive liberalism is mostly a matter of adopting campaign labels, not policy preferences........
bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)...."This does not fit the preconceived understanding of the 'truth' as provided by Bernie Sanders so it should be rejected without any further consideration".
This process is also useful in understanding of what passes for "logical thinking" in the Sanders camp and the methodology most often used to deal with inconvenient facts presented by others. Don't bother reading the source article and certainly don't entertain the possibility that there might be other factors not yet considered; just call it "crap" and move on.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)While I'm not a Clinton fan, I am a fan of reality-based thinking. From my experience, reality-based thinking is a rare thing on DU.
When it comes to who independents are: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512026152
When it comes to which candidate has done best in the 'reddest' parts of the US (Sanders).
When it comes to the so-called reliability of exit poll data (historically untrustworthy for numerous reasons).
When it comes to primary turnout supposedly correlating to general election turnout (historically, there's no correlation).
When it comes to the supposed value of hypothetical general election match-up polls at this juncture (historically meaningless).
When it comes to who has won more open primaries (Clinton).
When it comes to a basic understanding of demographic and mathematical realities.
Reality simply doesn't jibe with what so many on DU believe, or wish to believe.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)Hard to favor Hillary's policies since no one knows what they are today.
$15 an hour minimum wage? Um $12 or $11 or whatever....
Iraq War good, Iraq War bad...just a bribe....
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)When it comes to proposal details, Hillary has provided her details for her proposals and has provided plans on how she will get her proposals actually implemented. It is Sanders' who has proposed pie in sky programs at the the five thousand level. When asked how he could possibably implement those programs he just waves his hands and says, "Oh, we are going to have a revolution".
To your point, Hillary has expressed her strong support for a $12 and hour nationwide minimum raise (the same position adopted by Democratic members of congress by the way.) She has also express a preference for local and state entities to raise the minimum to $15 and hour minimum wage were the local cost of living is higher.
By the way, that just makes good walking around sense. $12 an hour in Jackson Mississippi, Little Rock Arkansas,or even New Orleans, Louisiana will provide a much better living wage than $15 an hour in New York City of San Francisco.