Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Congratulations to our presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden!
Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: The vetting of Bernie: Bread lines are a good thing [View all]Gothmog
(145,046 posts)107. So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienat
The GOP has a great oppo file on sanders https://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044
So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.
Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for ita long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.
Then theres the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermonts nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words environmental racist on Republican billboards. And if you cant, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.
Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die, while President Daniel Ortega condemned state terrorism by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was patriotic.
The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I dont know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.
Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for ita long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.
Then theres the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermonts nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words environmental racist on Republican billboards. And if you cant, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.
Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die, while President Daniel Ortega condemned state terrorism by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was patriotic.
The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I dont know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
127 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations
This thread didn't mention anything about the lack of released taxes by BS, but now that you mention
SFnomad
Mar 2019
#2
Bernie submitted his 2014 tax returns... that leaves only four more tax years, 2015-2018...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#4
It's a lie that BS submitted his 2014 tax returns ... he released the 2 summary pages only n/t
SFnomad
Mar 2019
#11
Here we go... a lie? Really? No, what YOU just said is 100% factually untrue.
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#17
Not gonna happen... just crickets, chirp! chirp! They NEVER admit when they're wrong...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#43
That's possible, though I doubt it. Let's wait and see... soon you'll have your answer.
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#67
I think that's COMPLETELY fair TT... I'd have to rethink my voting for Bernie were that the case...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#91
I agree with the tweet you posted from Jennifer Rubin... that still gives Bernie almost a year
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#108
Washington Post-Enough with the excuses. It's time for Sanders to release his tax returns.
Gothmog
Apr 2019
#125
Better yet, what do Sanders' taxes have to do with this video? Why bring it up here at all?
George II
Mar 2019
#25
No, it's better!! Can't stop laughing!! How one Democratic candidate, who represents
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#56
I never said Bernie was a perfect angel... but, his heart is ALWAYS in the right place
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#66
Seriously! This takes Bernie bashin to a whole new level; refusing to let people starve? The horror!
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#5
In what Alternative Universe is a country that serves its starving people lined up for food
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#9
Oh okay, so Bernie, who compared our system to that of other countries, which let their poor starve
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#22
This is history we need to know. I'm sorry for your family's struggles. Glad you are here on DU
MaryMagdaline
Mar 2019
#29
In the 60s and 70s while I was growing up, there were commodities given out to the poor
Autumn
Mar 2019
#114
No but my husband and I lived on Ramen noodles for a year while he finished his
Autumn
Mar 2019
#116
"those who never had to go without a meal or two a day but believed they were experts on the poor. "
MH1
Apr 2019
#126
Was he saying that before the revolution there was no food but after the revolution there was?
betsuni
Mar 2019
#30
Well, at least you didn't mention Bernie's taxes, I'll give you that much...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#13
No, I don't doubt for a nanosecond that what you report was said about slavery...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#23
Sorry, I'm not getting what you're sayin'... too many beers!! haha!! It's certainly possible...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#31
If it distributes food to the poor and homeless who would otherwise starve, that's a good thing, yes
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#34
If it was so wonderful, why so many defect from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries?
RandySF
Mar 2019
#41
LOL, there's NOTHING, ZERO, NADA they have on Bernie that's not 100 times WORSE...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#40
Read what I said (I'll leave out the "buddy" part)...if the choices are eating or dying...
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#75
Go ahead keep twisting my words... it's not a good look. You know I never said that..
InAbLuEsTaTe
Mar 2019
#85
I think poverty is more complicated then "the government created the situation in the first place."
dgauss
Mar 2019
#92
speaking of vetting, why are you posting content from what is literally a RW Russian troll account?
Celerity
Mar 2019
#47
not fake but impossible to tell the context, and my original question still stands
Celerity
Mar 2019
#57
"repeated-ad-infinitum sermons about billionaires twisting mustaches, adjusting monocles,
betsuni
Mar 2019
#83
I listened to Bernie every Friday on Thom Hartmann, probably since 2004. He's good with me.
rusty quoin
Mar 2019
#95
There is a trend in thinking that certain POTUS candidate should be exempt from the usual vetting or
ehrnst
Mar 2019
#111