Have the hair-on-fire "OMG He's a Commie!" geniuses explained yet...

[Triana]

....how Bernie Sanders can be both a dictator-loving Communist AND a Koch Bros ally all at the same time?

What's scarier to me than a "communist" is someone who will believe literally ANYthing someone else tells them (even if it's logistically impossible and totally nonsensical) -- and then goes and votes accordingly. THAT'S scary.

[tazkcmo]

1. Even scarier, imo

is embracing a person that would tell bald face lies on national television while at the same time expect us to trust them.

[dchill]

2. She's a lie machine.

David Brock must be off work.

[pangaia]

3. Did she actually say he WAS a Communist?

[Triana]

4. She suggested it. Her supporters are saying it. ALL over the place.

ie: Social media is where I've seen it.

Edit to add that they were saying that - some of them - even before that.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. People keep talking about how the schools have dumbed-down the electorate.

What about the role of the political parties? Particularly our OWN.


Roosevelt, Henry Wallace and even Truman used to EDUCATE the voter. ("Gluttons of greed and privilege." anyone?)


And... back to schools: who is it that ultimately determines PS curriculum ? Who tells teachers what they can and cannot teach?

*P O L I T I C I A N S.*

[Triana]

6. Well they've monumentally succeeded.

It's jaw-dropping to see what people will believe in these elections. I know they're dirty and full of lies and slander and accusations - but goddamn -- people can research, Google, read, and deduce and question. But .... they don't. They just swallow it whole.

[Gwhittey]

7. Reason communism is bad

Is same reason our form of government is bad. IT is run by people like Clinton that want power and luxury and screw the rest. On paper communism seems alright but in reality it sucks because some people in power will be corrupt.

[Triana]

8. OK. But that...

... doesn't answer the question in the OP. How can Bernie simultaneously be a dictatorship-loving communist AND a Koch Bros (big capitalist) ally as Hillary and her supporters have claimed?

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

9. It just goes to show what a devious, evil genius he is.

Just like that commie socialist dictator Muslim atheist Kenyan Obama.

[Donkees]

10. Trump is her campaign advisor - Just keep grabbing the mic and lie your ass off

[n2doc]

11. Same kind of thinking that labels Obama as a marxist nazi. n/t

[TTUBatfan2008]

15. Great point!

The right wingers have attacked him with both of those labels.

[eridani]

16. Sneering at socialism is a vicious Republican attack on the very idea of public goods.

If public goods are bad, there should not be such a thing as public education. If you grow up in a house with a library and your parents can afford tutors, then you get an education. Otherwise you don't deserve one. If you want retired people with no kids at home to pay for school bonds, you are just shilling for "free stuff." College tuition used to be free in quite a few states. Those who want it to be so again are just more parasites shilling for "free stuff."

I like my Marxist fire department quite a bit. It is paid for by the government stealing a lot of money from people who have never had fires. The more your property is worth, the more property taxes you have to pay to support it. That would be "from each according to his abilities." But they don't send a truck out unless you have a fire. That would be "to each according to his need."

Every single industrialized country in the world treats health care as a public good, with lots of different ways of paying the bills. Here it's like an iPod. If you have money or good insurance you get it. Otherwise you can fuck off and die, which is nothing but what sick, useless parasites deserve.

And then there's all that physical infrastructure--roads, airports, dams. Be grateful for our interstate highway system. Ike paid for it with a 90% top marginal tax rate, so if we ever had to replace it, we couldn't. And if you don't have a car, why should you pay for highways you can't drive on anyway?

It is the nature of socialist public goods that
1. Everyone pays, regardless of usage.
2. They are usually free at the point of service.

How would private enterprise even exist without massive investment in public infrastructure?

[TTUBatfan2008]

17. Yeah, it's sad.

You look at some of the things FDR/LBJ put into place and they are some of the most popular aspects of the government. Social Security, FDIC, Medicare. These socialist programs have landslide level support from the public and yet a lot of the public doesn't realize that they are examples of socialism. Pretty sad how ignorant our society is.

[LiberalElite]

12. Washington Post criticized her

for this. (I can't add link from phone.) In article about how she lost the debate. It's in the Daily 202.

[Hydra]

13. They've thrown every insult they have at us and Bernie

They're basically trying to poison the pool so that Clinton doesn't look so toxic.

I called one of Team Hill's more prolific posters on it early in the cycle, pointing out that I'm a Socialist, so I should know if someone is in my camp or to my right. They couldn't believe I was such a non-believer in Capitalism, it was like I was some sort of unicorn...which means they don't honestly believe anyone like that actually exists, let alone Bernie being one.

[Fawke Em]

18. Speaking of unicorns, they also accuse of wanting unicorns because we support Bernie.

(One of my pro-Bernie fans on Twitter uses this as her icon. I think she's being ironic. LOL.)

[TTUBatfan2008]

14. It's a great question.

Clinton's campaign is throwing everything they have at him, even if the attacks don't really line up from an ideological standpoint. So he's a right winger supported by the Kochs and Karl Rove? Wait, no. He's a communist who supports dictators in Cuba and elsewhere. Massive disconnect in logic between these two attacks.