Who we should or shouldn't have nominated NO LONGER MATTERS.

[Ken Burch]

Some of us supported one candidate. Some of us supported someone else. Some didn't really like any of 'em.

What matters now is finding some way of uniting for the future.

We need Clinton people. We need Sanders people. We need O'Malley people.

We need people who care about social justice first. We need people who care about economic justice first. We need people who cared about both with equal passion(as we all should).

The primaries are over. The election is over. We now need to put ALL of that aside and build, first, a culture of resistance and then a culture of resurgence.

We all need each other for that.

It's time to let 2016 go and work on saving the country.

We owe that to ourselves and the generations to follow.

[blue cat]

1. Amen brother n/t

[still_one]

2. until what you suggest happens, we aren't going anywhere

[JCanete]

3. "I'll stop if they'll stop!" nt

[tecelote]

4. Exactly.

Republicans will believe anything Fox tells then and act like sheep. We think and have opinions which many times divide us. Right now, we need to look at the common good and put our differences aside.

We've never faced such a destructive force before. This fight is for the survival of the planet.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

5. The lost art of coalition-building- it means work together on what you agree upon - and

set aside the rest for now. (Or work separately on it without expecting everyone else to see things exactly as you do. )

Ill even go out on a limb and say some not all R voters can and should be included in this appeal. What Ive been saying to my idiot Trump voting sibs: if you want to keep medicare/ss, if you want your kid to remain on your insurance, workplace protections incl no sexual harassment of your daughters, you want to keep national parks & forests pristine, you want air quality standards to remain the law so we're not choking and dying from the air (as people currently are in China and India). you want birth control remaining available and accessible (SO that there aren't so many abortions), if you want .... any number of things that are best done as a group effort vs left up to private enterprise, then its up to YOU to make that happen. And btw my dear religious sibs - you need to do a lot more than just PRAY about it.

Otherwise - they've got us EXACTLY where they want us: divided and conquered.

[NCTraveler]

6. Until you figure out this is actually antithetical

To your own argument, it won't happen. You are knowingly more a part of this than you let on.

"We need Clinton people. We need Sanders people. We need O'Malley people."

[Ken Burch]

9. No I'm not.

I haven't been arguing that we should have had a different nominee.

All I did was to argue that we should have made a few changes in strategy, use of the candidate's time and what should have been in the ads and the stump speech. Nothing I said in those post-convention posts did any harm.

I don't have to repudiate the person I supported in the spring to prove I want unity now.

[mtnsnake]

7. We also need to learn from our mistakes

and admit that we made plenty of them in 2016, one of the biggest being that we nominated someone perceived to have so much baggage that it was virtually impossible for us to win....until Trump came along, that is.....yet we still ended up losing. Figure that.

Once we admit to our mistakes and resolve never to make those same mistakes again, then we can do all those warm and fuzzy things you suggested, Ken.

[red dog 1]

11. + 1

[zipplewrath]

8. In what direction?

The arguments are about the mistakes of the past so we don't repeat them in the future.

Or do you believe the democratic party doesn't need to make any changes at all?

[Ken Burch]

10. We need to make changes.

Last edited Fri Jan 6, 2017, 10:47 PM - Edit history (1)

But the argument on that needs to be framed in a way that takes it out of the debate over who we should have nominated.

It's legitimate to question platform language or strategic choices in the fall campaign.

[red dog 1]

12. We "probably" need to make changes?

No, we DEFINITELY need to make changes!

Hillary Clinton had her flaws, but her biggest mistake, imo, was to NOT choose either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as her running mate.

HRC got nearly 17 million votes (55%) and won 34 states
Bernie Sanders got more than 13 million votes (43%) and won 23 states
17 million votes to 13 million votes - that's NOT a huge win!
That clearly showed that the Democratic Party was split between the Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters

By choosing the candidate who won 23 states & got more than 43 percent of the vote as her running mate, Clinton would have "united" the Democratic Party, and would have easily defeated the Talking Yam, in spite of:
- Assange's Wikileaks release of HRC's emails
- The unprecedented "hack-attack" on the DNC and the Clinton campaign by a foreign power
- The treasonous letter James Comey sent to Congress 11 days prior to the election, (which was a clear violation of the Hatch Act of 1939)

In spite of all that, Clinton STILL would have defeated Trump, had her lead been 11 + points going into the election, instead of only 4 points.

The Republicans can steal elections only when the race is close.
Obama proved that in 2008 and 2012.

Had Hillary made a wiser choice for her running mate, we'd be talking about President-elect Clinton now.

In 2020, whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be, he or she needs to remember Clinton's mistake in 2016, and not make that same mistake again.

Imo, If the Democratic Party goes into the 2020 presidential election as a UNITED party, they will defeat Trump or whoever else the GOP nominee is.

[Ken Burch]

13. Ok, change "probably" to "clearly"

What I meant was we need to take this out of the realm of who should have been nominated or anything in the way of personality politics.

The tone here is hopelessly toxic at this point.

[red dog 1]

16. "The tone here is hopelessly toxic at this point"?

Please explain

[zipplewrath]

17. Actually, I'm amazed

Considering how toxic it was before the election and that we all were so surprised by the outcome, I have been surprised how much more "discussion" is going on than just out and out venom.

[uppityperson]

41. +++++++

[NobodyHere]

19. How do you know that Warren or Sanders even wanted the VP job?

Not to mention that either pick takes a liberal out of the senate.

[Garrett78]

20. If not for caucuses, it wouldn't have been even remotely close.

As is, the race was essentially over by mid-March and arguably after Super Tuesday.

More importantly, though, the opposition research on Sanders was brutal. It's one thing to run for office in Vermont. A national campaign is a whole different story. The socialist and communist charges made against mainstream Democrats are bad enough. The anti-Sanders ads and speeches would have made those look tame.

I want Warren in the Senate.

That said, I didn't like the Kaine selection.

[red dog 1]

21. "I want Warren in the Senate"?

Warren IS in the Senate...and soon Twitler will be in the White House.

I'd rather have had President-elect Clinton and Vice-President-elect Warren,
(although I would have preferred Vice President-elect Sanders)

Hillary Clinton essentially said "Screw You" to the 13 million Democrats who voted for Sanders when she chose ConservaDem Kaine for her running mate...(that's my opinion)

Oh, and by the way, if Clinton had picked Sanders as her running mate, Sen. Warren would likely be in a DEMOCRAT-controlled Senate now....since the GOP had 3 times as many Senate seats to defend as did the Dems.

Also, don't forget...in spite of choosing Kaine, Hillary Clinton was ahead of Trump by at least 11 points when FBI Director Comey committed treason and violated the Hatch Act, thereby handing the presidency to that Orange Anti-Christ.

[Garrett78]

22. I don't accept the premise that Sanders being on the ticket would have helped.

In a national general election campaign, I think Sanders would have been torn to bits.

[red dog 1]

23. Well, you're entitled to your opinion.

My opinion is that Sanders on the ticket:
1) - Would have "energized" the Democratic Party,
2) - Would have "united" the Democratic Party
3) - Would have gotten the votes of millions of millennials, who were, for the most part, not
Hillary Clinton fans
4) - Would have gotten the votes of millions of Independents who weren't Clinton supporters..but who might have voted for a Clinton-Sanders ticket
5) - Would have taken Independent, anti-establishment votes away from Trump

I could go on...but I won't.

[Garrett78]

14. Future aspiring nominees must recognize that...

...a class-first, color blind approach won't fly.

[Ken Burch]

25. No one called for such an approach.

What was said was that race and class BOTH matter-that it's impossible to deal with race without also dealing with class. Martin Luther King was saying the same thing in 1967 and 1968, after seeing the forces of capitalism block the antiracist struggle in the name of their own self-interest.

Neither one of the main primary candidates will seek the nomination in 2020, so can't the false claim that some people wanted the party to stop fighting racism(or even to give it a lower priority than other issues) finally be put to rest?

We should all be united against hatred AND greed...because hatred and greed are united against US.

[dsc]

38. It wasn't what he said it was what he did or didn't do

The fact is his record on gay rights was one of nearly complete non action. He was mayor of the largest city and most liberal city in VT and had no pro gay measures (aside from a symbolic pride proclamation to show for it) while VT as a whole legally protected gays in employment and accommodations a few years after he left office. In terms of civil rights we was in the US Senate when the decision gutting the VRA was handed down. He didn't make any public pronouncements about that at all that I can find when it happened. Did sponsor a fix? That is what his problem was. It was made worse by the fact he also rarely talked about either issue in anything other than economic terms but his record was the problem. Conversely, the horrible Kaine literally made his career fighting segregation in housing as a lawyer. On gay rights, to be fair, he was a Johnny come lately but on civil rights he was rock solid with a record of accomplishments and rhetoric for decades.

[Ken Burch]

39. And neither he nor Hillary is going to run for president again.

So we need to be past attacking either of them-or to be implying that the supporters of either of those people are responsible for what others found lacking in them(obviously there was no difference between Clinton supporters or Sanders supporters in terms of commitment to fighting social oppression-if you are on the left side of the spectrum, you are going to be committed to fighting bigotry).

No one in this party should still be arguing about who should or shouldn't have been nominated, OR repeating primary talking points against one or the other candidate.

What matters is unity for the present and future.

[DLevine]

15. Hear, hear! nt

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

18. More than anything, people need to realize that voting AGAINST something awful...

Is often even MORE important than voting FOR something great.

There is power in unity and weakness in division.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. we nominated the person who won 4 million more votes

Than her opponent

Anyone relitigating that is an absolute moron

[Ken Burch]

26. And what I'm saying is we shouldn't even be talking about that anymore.

OK?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. I am not the one relitigating a primary blowout

Because again, I can count. 4 million more is a lot more.

[Ken Burch]

30. I'm not either.

It no longer matters who we should or shouldn't have nominated.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

34. Again, this is not even a debate to be had

As we nominated the winner, not the loser. Had the loser won more votes we would have nominated him.

People who are claiming we should have nominated the person who lost more votes, are idiots.

[Ken Burch]

35. The whole point of this thread is that our conversation shouldn't be about who we nominated at all.

Nobody should be making a case for or against either 2016 primary candidate.

I'm not part of the subthread you may be trying to comment on.

[IADEMO2004]

29. AMEN! Fighting for best spot on the beach ignoring the January 20th tsunami.

[RKP5637]

28. Well said!!! If we don't all pull together as ONE, divide and conquer will take us ALL down. n/t

[Snackshack]

31. 100% True.

Continuing to bemoan this is futile and does nothing but further propagate the fractures in the party.

If Democrats don't get their act together and coalesce in a unified party... trump and the republicans are going to steamroll us for the next four years.

[Demsrule86]

32. Ken...this we can agree on! Trump is dangerous...all hands on deck. nt

[Ken Burch]

36. That's what I'm saying. Thank you.

It's not about who we should or should not have nominated.

[Lint Head]

33. We need an uprising.

[MarvinGardens]

37. Agree!

K&R

[uppityperson]

40. K&R