Sep 082017
 

I am proud to have been a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I have never stopped supporting him.  I was sad that the Democratic Party had less sense than the Portland bird pictured below, but I was proud that, after losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton, he endorsed her, urged his supporters to vote for her, raised funds for her and campaigned for her.  Therefore, I was most disappointed to learn that in her coming new book, Clinton accused Bernie of costing her the Presidency.

America’s most popular politician, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., appeared on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” Thursday night where he was asked to respond to leaked excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s new book in which she blamed the senator for causing “lasting damage making it harder to unify progressives,” as well as accused him of joining the presidential race to “to disrupt the Democratic Party.”

Instead of firing back at Clinton, the longest reigning Independent senator in U.S. history, explained that he didn’t divide progressives at all. “Actually, the case is that the progressive movement today, and grassroots activism, is stronger than it has been in many, many years,” Sanders told Colbert.

“As a result of our campaign, millions of young people began to vote for the first time, became engaged in the political process . . . we have got to stand together against [President Donald] Trump’s efforts to divide us up, take on the billionaire class and make that political revolution so that we have a government that works for all of us, not just the one percent,” Sanders explained.

Colbert sarcastically pointed out that those were the exact attacks Clinton was talking about.

“But I understand,” Sanders continued. “Look, Secretary Clinton ran against the most unpopular candidate in the history of this country and she lost and was upset about that and I understand that,” he said. “But our job now is really not to go backwards. It is to go forward. It is to create the kind of nation we know we can become. We have enormous problems facing us and I think it’s a little bit silly to keep talking about 2016.”… [emphasis added]

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I disagree with Clinton completely, and with only one thing Bernie said.  Clinton didn’t lose the election.  She lost the Electoral College, and became a victim of Russian propaganda, kept secret by the Republican House and Senate leadership.

Bernie also interviewed with Chris Hayes last night on All In.

I’m very disappointed with Hillary Clinton in this.  She was expecting a coronation instead of a primary battle, and she was almost beaten by a candidate whose policies were more in line with the needs of the middle class than hers.  Bernie did not steal her ideas and make them more leftist.  Bernie has been proclaiming the policies on which he ran for years!  If anyone is disrupting the Democratic Party, it’s Hillary Clinton with her sour grapes.

It’s time for Clinton to abandon her hubris, and become a senior stateswoman and supporter of future candidates.  Her day in the spotlight is over, and we have important work to do.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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  15 Responses to “Bernie Answers Hillary’s Accusations”

  1. Well.  I like both of them a lot.  Neither is perfect.  If a couple, both of whom I have known for years and both of whom I care about, started divorce proceedings, I would feel much the same.  And I would, I hope, be as silent as I plan to be on this.

    AlterNet

  2. I like both also.
    I find Bernie more down to earth, than HRC, but nonetheless, I would have been excited (thrilled, actually!!), to see either in the WH rather than dt.

  3. No question that either HRC, or Bernie, in the WH would have been phenomenally better than the lunatic there now.  And, yes, HRC did win the vote!  And her, or somebody’s hubris kept her from going to the rust belt near the end of the campaign, which Bill had suggested.  So, in a literal sense, her team, blew it.  The DNC blew it for the Dems, earlier, when they marginalized Bernie.
    I still have yet to hear Bernie say something with which I disagree!  That the things he’s been pushing are becoming mainstream is hopeful, if true!

  4. With her book Hillary shows another difference between Bernie and herself: she’s a bad loser and he isn’t. Bernie never stole her ideas, from the start it was clear that his progressive ideas were liked by many Democrats and that this forced her to adopt his ideas to stay in the race at all, as we predicted here right from the start. When he lost the candidacy because the Democratic elite in the party foolishly backed her and created division in the party by doing so, Bernie showed himself a gracious loser and backed her and the elite, trying his best to close the gap Hillary and the DNC had created. Hillary and the DNC have nobody to blame but themselves for her losing the election, but she hasn’t the grace to look inward and see where things really went wrong: the enormous rift between the Democratic elite and Democratic voters which only Bernie knew how to bridge.

    With her sour grapes Hillary also shows that all the progressive Bernie’s ideas she took on board to stay in the race were just that: taken on board, but never internalized, never something she believed truly believed in. She’s not a progressive and will never be. The next Democratic candidate for the presidency will need to be that true progressive that has the interests of the nation at heart, not only those of the 10% (I’m being generous here). And to get there, all Congressional seats everywhere need to be filled with progressives first, not just turned blue, starting with 2018.

  5. I’m with Lona!  While Hillary is preferable to Drumpf, Bernie is the person that could have won the WH for Democrats IMO.  Hillary seems to be trying to rehash something that is over.  Democrats must learn and move forward.  No one is perfect but get with the progressive ideas.

    • Had Bernie been the Democratic candidate, the Trump Nazi machine would simply have refocused from misogyny to anti-Semitism.  That might have given him even more of a popular vote majority than Hillary got, but I’m not convinced it would have changed the Electoral College results.  Or not enough.  Once you let the genie of hate out of the lamp, it’s in control.

      • You may be right, but, if Bernie had held the Clinton voters and captured the Democrats who voted for Stein, he would have won. 23

        I’d be overjoyed to put either in the White House.

  6. Thanks all.  Tired Hugs.

    Lona reflected my understanding perfectly.  It must be a benefit of being right side up again. 12

  7. The Democrats have got to quit this inane infighting. It is draining resources and energy away from what they need to focus on: WINNING. Losers of elections don’t make laws – winners do. Democrats need to unite behind genuinely progressive and electable candidates, instead of nitpicking over every little detail in someone’s opinions. The Democrats are supposed to be tolerant and accepting, capable of agreeing to disagree. They need to focus on what is really important, else they are no different from the Republicans. Bernie Sanders was their Great White Hope, but they failed him and instead focused on their establishment hack. These times are a golden opportunity for Democrats to get their s–t together, since Republicans are tearing their own party apart. Unfortunately, the Democrats are behaving in essentially the same way. How is this country ever going to survive when both of its political parties are coming apart at the seams?

    • Freya, in my opinion, Clinton was the only one doing any infighting.  Bernie’s responses were kind, gentle, and accurate.19

      • I don’t think Freya means the candidates, I think she means their supporters.  I have seen supporters on both sides behave in ways such that “infighting” is throwing roses at it.  To be fair, the Bernie supporters in that category were not Democrats supporting Bernie, but unaffiliateds (whether in actuality or just in spirit) who came into the Bernie campaign because they hated both parties – and specifically hated both parties because they were into false equivalency.  You could hear that strident note even before the primaries, and when, after the nomination, they jerked away from Hillary, you could hear the false equivalency like a rush of mighty waters.  And you still can.

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