[philangist]

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

[jerf]

At this phase in the run, the punditariat is greatly, greatly more confident than the facts justify. I don't mean that specific to this year... I mean generically at this phase of the campaign. If the punditariat was correct at this phase, Hillary Clinton would not currently be able to run, because she'd be finishing out her second term, having defeated Rudy Guiliani in the 2008 campaign by a small but significant margin.

Note how they would have gotten both candidates wrong.

My rule of thumb is that whoever is leading at this phase of the run is not going to be the candidate. It always seems nailbiting at the time but it's been right for all the years I've been paying serious attention to the campaign, which is about since 2004 or so. (I recall paying attention to both Clinton campaigns but not the primary fight; I was in high school for them. I don't quite recall the 2000 primary fight well enough to remember if Bush was always the primary frontrunner; my memory says no but I've learned not to trust it, and I can't name names as to who was.) Someone older than me may be able to recall a counter example.

So, yes, I'd say Bernie Sanders is definitely in it. But I won't repeat the errors of the general punditariat and make wild proclamations about how much he's in it. It's still not out of the question another Democratic contender that's little more than rumor right now could pop up and dominate with surprising swiftness... IIRC that's a fair description of how Obama got to the Presidency.

[marktd]

In 2000, both Gore and Bush were always the frontrunners, and then they both won the primaries in landslides. I believe they both won every state, except Bush lost New Hampshire to McCain. Also in 2008, you're exaggerating the extent to which the punditry favored Giuliani; he was a frontrunner, but not at all considered a shoo-in the way Hillary is.

The problem with Bernie is that he has very limited appeal outside of the areas where he's campaigning (overwhelmingly white, also a lot of college towns). He has a chance if he can improve his standing among minority voters somehow, but even then it's a long shot.

[eevilspock]

Cornel West, a highly respected person in the black community, just endorsed Sanders[1]. What's interesting, and not surprising if you know West, is that he's support of Sanders is much stronger than his support of Obama 8 years ago.

I think it will be far easier for black voters to get behind Sanders than behind Clinton. I'll suggest the same is true for Hispanic voters.

Since blacks aren't going to get behind any of the GOP candidates, the question is more about whether they will sit out this election.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/25/berni...

[jerf]

"the punditry favored Giuliani; he was a frontrunner, but not at all considered a shoo-in the way Hillary is."

That is all I was claiming. Hillary is an unusual case; I've not seen this level of "shoo-in" before.

Also, just to be clear, I'm not making grandiose claims that I know something about the race, nor am I claiming that this is somehow identical to previous situations [1]... it's more that I know that something isn't true: The punditariat is wildly overconfident, and their current confidence in their beliefs is wrong. Even if they are ultimately correct, they're still overconfident right now. The echo chamber does that.

[1]: It never really is, and there's a certain amount of anti-inductiveness to similar situations in politics: http://lesswrong.com/lw/yv/markets_are_antiinductive/ If you see a similarity that favors X, in general, so do X's opponents, and they're likely to do something that will, as a side effect, break the similarity somehow.

[eli_gottlieb]

>In 2000, both Gore and Bush were always the frontrunners, and then they both won the primaries in landslides. I believe they both won every state, except Bush lost New Hampshire to McCain.

I think the question is: does the ability of pundits to predict elections correlate or anticorrelate with voter participation rates?

Or in simpler terms: do pundits predict well when primaries are democratic and reflect the will of the people, or when they're isolated, low-information games that mostly reflect punditry itself?

[slg]

It is also worth noting that in 2008 the Clinton campaign was a lot weaker than it currently is and Obama's campaign was a lot stronger than Sanders' current campaign. [1]

[1] - http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-youre-no-b...

[Someone1234]

Sanders and Trump are doing well for similar reasons, they've both rejected the corruption which has become so commonplace in American politics. Trump is famously self-funded, and Sanders has a great grassroots campaign which has help keep him afloat. Neither has yet really resorted to corporate bribes.

That's why you're seeing them do so well with their own respective bases. While it is undeniable that the general public doesn't care about corporate bribery within politics, it is clear that enough people do to seriously bump the limited candidates that fight against it up in the polls.

Do I think either can win? I think, in theory, both could win their respective primary. But I also think that if either did win their respective primary then their "message" would be considered too extreme by the moderates which have the biggest swing vote in American elections, Republicans always vote Republican, Democrats always vote Democrat, it is the moderates that are the kingmakers.

So ultimately what I think will happen is that both will continue gaining in popularity, but when it comes right down to it, someone more "electable" will win the primary since neither party can afford to actually lose the presidency completely. That means maybe Hillary and Marco Rubio.

[radiorental]

Valid points, interested to hear what you make of the perspective that Sanders commands decent support from blue collar conservatives in VT?

His message/views appear to speak to a broader base than simply Team Blue fans.

[a8da6b0c91d]

Trump has no extreme positions that I've heard. Totally mainstream populist.

People are downvoting me, but if you don't realize that any policy comments Trump has put forth poll great you are just out of touch. You would be by definition "extreme."

[rmxt]

Right, because calling Mexican immigrants to the United States "criminals, drug dealers, rapists" is a completely reasonable position. I'm sure that many of the 100+ million people in the United States that are non-white would definitely agree with that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-epic-statement-...

[thanatropism]

Did the parent poster say "reasonable"? He said "mainstream".

[rmxt]

I wrote the above in response to the GP position that they have "heard no extreme positions [from Trump]." I swear I didn't edit the page to include this:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/extreme#Antonyms

[a8da6b0c91d]

A lot of them do. And the white majority doesn't find the discussion around that point unreasonable. Like I said, you're just out of touch.

[rmxt]

Being "out of touch" with "the white majority" (or anyone for that matter) is fine by me, if it means being able to have nuanced and rational opinions. (Unlike Trump's broad brush statements.) Furthermore, your argumentum ad populum doesn't make Trump's statement any more just or accurate.

[gjm11]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think about "that point"? Do you think the Mexican government is pushing large numbers of drug dealers and rapists into the USA? Do you think this is an issue important enough that it should be a major part of a would-be president's campaigning?

[mikeash]

What's your basis for that statement?

[jeffreyrogers]

To me the remarkable thing is how well Trump is doing even after the media (on both sides) have tried to extremize his views. The contrast between what Trump actually says and how the media frames it is appalling.

But, by and large you're right. His policies are fairly mainstream and even the ones that sounds extreme (immigration being the main one) are commonly held by a large part of the population.

[ConceptJunkie]

It's simple, the people who support Trump don't trust the media, and with good reason. The media in this country has stopped even pretending they are impartial.

[0xCMP]

@rmxt It's not whether it's reasonable or not. Thats what people think and what they want. Those people vote too.

[nindalf]

I disagree with the assessment that (in your experience) the front runners usually lose or that this Democratic primary cycle is similar to the last one.

Focusing on the latter, fivethirtyeight did a comparison of Clinton's chances today compared to 8 years ago and found that she is in a much better position [1]. As much as I want Sanders to win, I trust fivethiryeight and I think they've got it right on this one.

[1] - http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-youre-no-b...

[jerf]

The front runners at this phase generally are not the nominees, and I make no claims as to whether this Democratic primary cycle is like the next one; see my comment about "anti-inductive".

That said, this is what I meant by it always seems nailbiting at the time to predict that the frontrunners at this phase (remember, well over a year until the election), because surely this time we've got it all figured out? But... no, no we don't, and if anything I think it gets worse every cycle. The news cycle keeps speeding up, and other than Trump's apparently locating the teflon breastplate created by Reagan and then found again by Bill Clinton, every news cycle is an opportunity for a candidate to completely flame out.

[dragonwriter]

> I disagree with the assessment that (in your experience) the front runners usually lose or that this Democratic primary cycle is similar to the last one.

Out of seven races under something approximating the modern primary system where an incumbent President or Vice President from the party isn't running, Democratic early (Summer-to-Fall of the year preceding the election) front-runners have apparently once actually won the nomination, have failed to win five times, and there's been one race with no clear early front runner (the one apparent win may not actually have been as early as Summer-Fall preceding, but I can't clearly rule it out, so we'll call it in.)

(Incidentally, I restrict this to Democrats because the way primaries and caucuses factor into nominations is different between the two major parties, such that one cannot validly assume that similar, from external qualities, positions in the two are similarly situated with regard to nomination.)

And the no-clear-frontrunner and frontrunner-wins elections were the first two opportunities -- everything since then (everything after 1984) has featured a clear early front-runner that lost.

2012 obviously wasn't in issue, because Obama was an incumbent President. 2008 Clinton was the early front-runner, Barack Obama the nominee 2004 Dean was the early front-runner (something lots of people making comparisons between Dean and Sanders forget), John Kerry the nominee 2000 wasn't an issue, because Gore was an incumbent VP. 1996 wasn't an issue, because Clinton was an incumbent President. 1992 IIRC, Tom Harkin was the early front-runner with Paul Tsongas second place in the early period, Bill Clinton ended up with the nomination. 1988 Gary Hart was the early frontrunner, Michael Dukakis the nominee 1984 I think Mondale was the early frontrunner (can't find any clear information easily that places that status back into Summer-Fall of 1983, though), and was the nominee. 1980 Carter was incumbent President 1976 -- the first nomination using something like the modern primary-dominated system rather than nominee selection dominated by party bosses -- no clear early front-runner, and Carter -- a relative unknown nationally before the primaries got started -- won the nomination.

> Focusing on the latter, fivethirtyeight did a comparison of Clinton's chances today compared to 8 years ago and found that she is in a much better position [1].

You omitted the detailed citation, but presumably you are referring to the piece "Hillary Clinton's Inevitable Problems" [0].

There's not really a coherent argument in that for why she is better positioned, just some scattered observations without any clear analytical framework (or even strong rationale for the other elections that are offered as comparables.)

> As much as I want Sanders to win, I trust fivethiryeight and I think they've got it right on this one.

The Fivethirtyeight brand was built on a richly deserved reputation of doing a good job of providing a useful framework for aggregating and interpreting general election polling, and I haven't seen many places do that better. Beyond that, I don't see much that Fivethirtyeight institutionally deserves "trust" on.

[0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hillary-clinton-scandal-...

[AnimalMuppet]

> Out of seven races under something approximating the modern primary system where an incumbent President or Vice President from the party isn't running...

That "Vice President from the party isn't running" part may change at any moment, though...

[nindalf]

Thanks for the response. I did amend my comment soon after I posted it, with the correct link to fivethirtyeight. It is highly relevant to the discussion at hand. The title is - "Bernie Sanders, you're no Barack Obama"

[PaulHoule]

I think it is a lot about what plays on the media.

Up until a few weeks ago there were too many Republican candidates to keep track, no perceived competition for Clinton, plus Clinton was not talking to the media.

Trump is a front runner because there are too many Republicans so none of them stand out. Democrats have been sitting out the primaries because they don't want to be punished by Clinton and the rest of the establishment.

Trump and Sanders make for interesting stories, and they will live on that for some time.

[javert]

But Sanders is not ahead, technically, Hilary is. I think. Sanders is still a dark horse candidate. So by your logic, I think Sanders should have a great shot.

[jerf]

Yes, I know. That's my point. I don't accept that Clinton has it sewn up, and right now he appears to be the second in line, which isn't a bad place to be at this point in the race.

[umanwizard]

Biden?

[jerf]

Hard to be in second place when you're not officially running. Where he'd pop in if he does I have not seen polls on (not saying they don't exist, just that I haven't seen them), and I also wouldn't trust such polls anyhow. I'd want to see at least a month to settle in, the very first such poll results tend to be more "Do you recognize the name X?" rather than "Do you want X to be President?" Same is true of the very first primary polling for any run. (We're only mostly past that right now.)

[TimJRobinson]

As someone who was born in Australia and now lives in Amsterdam I feel like he's the most sane politician in America. I still don't understand why Americans are so insistent on keeping their "Bad for the people, good for business" policies.

If you're in the 1% sure that makes sense, but for everyone else life is so much nicer with free healthcare, good vacation time, maternity leave, good public transport, proper prisoner rehabilitation, and strong welfare safety nets.

Having a high GDP country is cool and all but wouldn't you want a much nicer life instead?

[andrewfong]

Thomas Frank took a stab at this question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansa... Worth a read.

From my perspective, there's no one answer, but I've noticed a handful of things:

* Race - Most democratic socialist countries tend to have more homogeneous populations. The U.S. has sizable African-American and Latino-American minorities, often segregated into their own neighborhoods, and that often informs how the white majority votes -- i.e. things like welfare and prison reform are viewed as handouts to people not like themselves. You might say it's comparable to how perceptions of Greek laziness inform German attitudes towards debt cancellation.

* Geography - The U.S.'s political system grants a disproportionate power to sparsely populated states (e.g. a state like Wyoming has more electoral votes per person than California, and states like Iowa and New Hampshire have a large say in how the presidential primaries turn out). This matters with respect to policies that might be considered urban-centric -- e.g. public transportation.

* Militarism - The U.S. is the only country that regularly projects force halfway around the globe, and it's super expensive. Every dollar spent on bombs is a dollar not spent on healthcare. It's a good question as to why American voters constantly favor military might, but it's not necessarily an irrational choice. Or rather, you could argue that it wasn't an irrational choice during WW2 and the Cold War, but that the development of a military-industrial complex has had lasting effects on American politics.

[mikeash]

Regarding your last point, if proper health care reform brought us in line with other first-world countries, it would dramatically reduce health care spending, freeing up even more money for blowing up brown people if that's what we wanted to do with the savings.

[dragonwriter]

> Every dollar spent on bombs is a dollar not spent on healthcare

The US spends more on healthcare -- measured in total, and per capita, and as share of GDP -- than any other OECD country, even though it and Mexico are the only OECD countries without universal healthcare. It spends more out of public funds on healthcare (again, by all three measures) than many OECD countries providing universal healthcare spend in total, while also spending more in private spending on healthcare than it does in public spending.

While the US spending about as much (a while ago it was a little more, right now I think its a hair less) as the rest of the world combined in military spending may be argued to limit resources for other activities, it is manifestly not meaningfully constraining health care spending.

[MaysonL]

Healthcare ≠ pharmaceutical corporate profits and inflated physician salaries.

[lstroud]

On the first, these are cultural problems that are not solvable by politicians without creating worse problems (as evidenced by current events).

The second is a misunderstanding of the concept of a republic. Each state has a say. That's not unfair. It certainly wouldn't promote stability for heavily populated cities to have complete control and entire states neglected.

Not sure I completely disagree on military spending. Like most things, it's a balance. We probably needed a rebalance (was done in the gov shutdown deal). However, I'm not sure it needs further cuts. Maybe just better focus.

Healthcare is a joke. What was passed, and the way it was passed, was deceitful. Turns out it was snake oil. Made some things better, made more things worse, and didn't fix the problem (cost of healthcare).

From a politics perspective, it sure would be nice to have a leader that brings people together. This administration is far to willing to leverage our political differences as a tool for political gain. That has made us culturally worse by creating an environment of distrust, disregard, and division Among our citizens just for having different ideas.

[Apocryphon]

Isn't the problem of a military industrial complex is that the industry ends up being a huge employer, and so it's not simply matters of jingoism or foreign policy, but to cut the military would be to cut jobs? The military itself is a huge employer as well, and a way to provide additional social services (tuition for veterans, etc.) because Americans are unwilling to provide that in other ways.

[rogerbinns]

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” ― John Steinbeck

Also remember you are seeing a media/attention filter on everything. Nobody reports or passes on the mundane things. Instead controversies have to be found that outrage some people, all the better to get eyeballs on the TV/site and go viral on Facebook.

I do recommend following Scott Adams' blog (creator of Dilbert). He has an mba, is a trained hypnotist, and various other skills unrelated to comics. He has been writing about the various techniques Donald Trump is using, and why they are so successful. (Note not endorsing Trump, but rather observing.) http://blog.dilbert.com/

[malkia]

A lot of my bulgarian friends, and others, living here in America are thinking that taxes, free schools, even police, firefighting, etc. are just things that should go away.

Essentially you have to pay, and be a "share-holder" in everything. You should be on top of things everywhere, etc. etc.

And someone recently posted this on his fb page: "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences." - Ayn Rand.

In essence the above is correct, but it does not tell the whole picture. While the businessman most likely would suffer, nothing is being said about lots of innocent people that would suffer too (and being on Hacker News, the recent story of security breaches leaking lots of personal information).

Also it's not always the case that people would suffer the consequences due to a bureaucrat (assuming public office of sorts), and even if they do, it'll be less painful (distributed over all the population of the country, state or city), rather than people directly being affected by certain business.

To my friends, it's really painful that they have to pay taxes - some of them don't have kids, and they don't think they should pay for school. I fuckin don't get this, since not having good education is the road to ruin...

[gjm11]

> "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences." - Ayn Rand.

There is some truth in this. It is the almost-exact flip side of this: If a businessman does something right, he reaps the gains. If a bureaucrat does something right, you reap the gains.

... which doesn't sound so bad, now does it?

Neither is exactly correct. If the senior management of a large company make a big mistake, they aren't the only ones who lose: some employees may lose their jobs, the company may be less effective in providing customers with useful products or services, etc. And, conversely, if they do something very right, their employees may get bonuses or pay rises and their customers may get useful things to buy. And even government bureaucrats are likely to do better for themselves when they make good decisions than when they make bad ones.

But it's a reasonable approximation. On the whole and on average, businessmen are in business to benefit themselves, and fortunately it turns out that when you have lots of people doing that it brings benefits to everyone. On the whole and on average, government bureaucrats are in their jobs to benefit The People.

And, surprise surprise, if you focus only on the downside then you see businessmen hurting themselves and bureaucrats hurting The People. But it cuts both ways.

[ZenoArrow]

> "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences."

Makes for a catchy soundbite, what a shame it's not true.

A businessman can make a mistake that impacts millions of people. Here are a couple of prominent examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott#Baby_milk_issue

To summarise the first, Bayer had to stop selling some blood transfusion products in the US after they were found to be contaminated with HIV and Hepatitis C. What did they do with the blood? They sold it in Asia and South America instead. A cold-blooded capitalist may argue this was a 'win' for the company in terms of income, but regardless a business decision was made and there was huge damage as a result.

To summarise the second, Nestlé tried to encourage groups of mothers in developing countries to give up breast feeding their babies and sell them infant formula instead. They do so at first by giving out free samples. Numerous problems ensued (including the mothers' no longer being able to produce breast milk for their babies, leading to deaths once the free samples stopped and the mothers were no longer able to afford the infant formula).

There are plenty of other examples (especially in the areas of environmental pollution and worker conditions), I'm guessing I don't need to go on.

[Roodgorf]

On the whole I agree, but I also think that the business person's decisions/consequences case only works out if you are fairly optimistic and fully believe in the trickle down theory.

That is, anecdotally it seems if an exec makes a good decision, or even if someone at a lower level does, they will benefit substantially more than the rest of the employees. At the same time, if they make a company-endingly bad decision, employees may be out of a job while they will still probably make out okay (golden parachutes and the like).

[tmaly]

This is a battle of power between the federal level and the state level. With more power centered at the state level (distributed), it would be less likely that everyone would suffer across all states. Look at policies such as "No Child Left Behind" act, it applies a one size fits all law to all schools. It has its problems, and all schools across the country suffer because it is applied at the federal level.

[aridiculous]

As if large corporations aren't full of bureaucratic businessmen.

[microcolonel]

That's my main gripe with this inclusion of every service and charity under the sun in government. Sure, most people consider these things important, and sometimes many people could stand to benefit if it all goes well; but ultimately the problem is that everyone is expected to simultaneously have opinions on every policy in every sector at once, and come to some voting decision based on that, furthermore that their preferences should affect their entire jurisdiction or riding. This is just unrealistic.

[hackuser]

> ultimately the problem is that everyone is expected to simultaneously have opinions on every policy in every sector at once

That's why people elect representatives, to do that for them. The U.S. is not a direct democracy.

Regardless, the problems are there and must be dealt with, however difficult that is. Ignoring problems because they are difficult would be a willful negligence. It would also be irresponsible to let people suffer, and also harm our entire community, because the problems are difficult and mechanisms imperfect.

[alwaysAttending]

Part of it has to do with xenophobia and racism. Social Safety Net policy was more popular back when blacks were excluded. Throw in minorities, and people start singing a different tune. It's not like Europe is immune from this either. This is basically the platform of UKIP and the National Front. USA is much more diverse and has to deal with these issues up front. Except in Vermont, where the populace is 95% white. They're much more supportive of socialism. Coincidence?

[hackuser]

A counter-example: Cities are much more diverse and much more liberal than rural areas.

[gjm11]

The slightly bigger picture: People become less liberal when they are aware of the existence of other people Not Like Them with whom they're sharing a country, but become more liberal when they actually interact with those people.

(This is conjecture, but it seems awfully plausible and explains both the observations here.)

[kbenson]

I think that makes sense.

When another group with (possibly) different norms has no affect on you, it's easy to ignore them.

When that group can exert some effect on you, but the effect is unknown, people get scared, and act accordingly. This is exacerbated by people that like attention and/or power that will stoke these fears to further their own agenda.

When that group is finally encountered, often there's understanding, a willingness to compromise where needed from both parties, and as the unknown subsides, so does much of the fear (and the power that grants those that use fear).

[rch]

The population density effect works against Democrats too...

"This demonstrates the level of gerrymandering that republicans have accomplished, maximizing the number of districts that are republican, even if just slightly, while shoving all democrats in their states into a few districts that are heavily democratic."

http://forrestry.blogspot.com/2013/09/population-density-com...

[keithpeter]

"USA is much more diverse and has to deal with these issues up front."

What metric of diversity? UK is pretty diverse in larger cities.

[slg]

It all comes down to our "freedom" fetish. Why should the government force me to take 4 weeks of vacation when I can make due with 2? Why would I want to build my day around a train schedule when I could just get in my car and drive? And so on.

[xeromal]

You are kind of simplifying it to make it seem more stupid than it already is.

My dad would be annoyed that he has to pay for all this "extra" stuff in order to grow his business. Simple as that. He believes that the big companies already provide some semblance of benefits so really the only people hurt are the people with small businesses. You can go get another job if you don't like it.

[slg]

I wrote it somewhat tongue in check from the employee's perspective. No one would refuse being offered more vacation. However, like you said people don't want to be forced to offer and/or pay for that vacation. The belief is if people really want the vacation, the free market will force employers to give that vacation and therefore any government requirement is either not needed or overly onerous. It is a simplification, but when combined with Cold War fallout of Capitalism v. Socialism (which is often just a softer term for Communism in this country) it explains most of the things described in the original post.

[grecy]

You missed the point entirely.

Just because those things are available, you are not forced to use them.

You would have the best of both worlds, because you would have more choices, not less like you have now.

[slg]

You are asking me to defend a point that I disagree with, but as the argument goes, you pay for them regardless. Because these type of things are provided for the government, it means they are funded by tax dollars. I am therefore in a way participating in them because I have to pay for them.

If I don't want 4 weeks of vacation, why should I pay for everyone else to get 4 weeks of vacation?

[grecy]

> If I don't want 4 weeks of vacation, why should I pay for everyone else to get 4 weeks of vacation?

You want to pay for things like that because it makes your society stronger and healthier overall.

You already pay for everyone to use the police, jails, firemen, roads, sidewalks, parks, libraries, courts, etc. etc. even though you probably don't use them, or use them frequently. Why do you pay for other people to use police, courts and jails?

Have you ever wondered why the crime rate in the US is so high compared to developed countries? One of the reasons is because people are very desperate. They have low education, no healthcare, so safety net, so they have nothing to lose. If you had "paid" for them to have those things, those people would be happier, healthier, and you wouldn't be 10 times more likely to be murdered than I am.

After 10 years in the US I went back to Australia for a few weeks and it slapped me in the face - there are very few desperate people in Australia. Even the lowest paid people have healthcare, education, own their own home and have toys like project cars.

That's just one example, but you need to stop thinking about "me, me, me" and think "us, us, us"

[slg]

I don't disagree with you, I am just providing the general reasoning for these things.

[kbenson]

> That's just one example, but you need to stop thinking about "me, me, me" and think "us, us, us"

I like how that can work to further your point whether you read is as "us" or "U.S."

[unfamiliar]

To play devils advocate: allowing 4 weeks of paid vacation, no questions asked, will eventually be reflected in the salary as a result of economic forces. Then someone who can make do with 2 days vacation will not be able to get paid for those extra 4 weeks, even if they are willing to work them.

[microcolonel]

If this would prevent my employer from rewarding me for only taking two weeks of vacation, I would argue that it'd be unconstitutional.

[gjm11]

What part of the constitution would it be contrary to?

[caffeinewriter]

It might be interesting to you to watch John Oliver's video on the wealth gap in America. He covers why people consistently protect the 1%, even if it's not in their current best interests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfgSEwjAeno

[cynoclast]

Because we average citizens have no voice in public policy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

[spectrum1234]

But incentives are not aligned so therefore in the long run GDP and life are both worse off.

[alwaysAttending]

It's funny because that's a general sentiment among Sanders supporters. They like the way he sounds but don't really follow politics. The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all! I can support that! But in reality it's quite flawed. Beyond the fact that it's just a new 50 billion dollar tax (and the expectation that States will cover the other 20 billion) applied wholesale over the current 70 billion dollars in tuition paid by public college school students, it's got some really questionable clauses that would undoubtedly raise prices.

Here are some choice requirements put on the schools: (6) provide an assurance that not later than 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act, not less than 75 percent of instruction at public institutions of higher education in the State is provided by 10 tenured or tenure-track faculty;

(B) Increasing the number and percentage of full-time instructional faculty.

(C) Providing all faculty with professional supports to help students succeed, such as pro- 9 fessional development opportunities, office 10 space, and shared governance in the institution.

(D) Compensating part-time faculty for work done outside of the classroom relating to instruction, such as holding office hours.

(E) Strengthening and ensuring all students have access to student support services such as academic advising, counseling, and tutoring.

On top of that it actually states states must:

ensure that public institutions of higher education in the State maintain per-pupil expenditures on instruction at levels that meet or exceed the expenditures for the previous fiscal year;

Even if the 70 billion dollars in taxes comes, how are states supposed to support all of this 10+ years down the line? There are absolutely no cose saving measures in his plan. It is all just utopian fluff.

Source (worth the read): http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/collegeforall/?inline...

[MrJagil]

I'm wondering how this compares to countries who actually has his "utopia" implemented, to a certain degree at least. I mean, in Denmark, the government pays you $1000 a month to study college/university.

In the implementation stage they must've had similar problems to the ones you're describing. Is it a hockey-stick graph and are these obstacles just necessary for future prosperity?

[alwaysAttending]

The European model is somewhat different than the American one even at public universities. It would require some compromise even from the left. I'm not sure exactly but I think there are more Lecturers and fewer Profs in Europe, for instance. In Denmark, the avg Prof only makes $70,000. Adjuncts make around $50,000. I imagine professors (actual tenured Professors) are paid much better in the US.

[eli_gottlieb]

Positions corresponding to "Lecturer" do exist in the American university system. Tenure is more about job-security than about high pay, so actually "real" professors aren't that expensive[1]: $65k/year for a starting assistant professor, and $95k/year for a full professor (and most tenured professors only make Full Professor towards the end of their career, if at all).

[1] -- https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?Survey...

[learc83]

Here's what I can find. Doesn't really look much better. Full professors are making 94k, but associate and assistant professors are making around or below 70k. Keep in mind that there are usually only a small handful of full professors per department.

https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?Survey...

[jameshart]

Why does it have to come from taxes?

Here's the thing: we generally seem to work on the assumption that paying for college is an investment sufficiently worthwhile that people should be willing to consider borrowing money, against their future income potential, to pay for it. Right now, we expect individuals to take on that debt themselves, personally.

That has pretty terrible consequences for the individuals for whom the investment doesn't pay off.

But if, in general it's a good bet that paying to get someone educated will increase the value of their aggregate lifetime economic output, why shouldn't the state be putting some money towards it? The government could borrow money at bond rates and use that to pay for a whole bunch of people to get degrees, and assume that the overall future increase in GDP (and consequent tax take) will be enough to pay back the additional borrowing. An the bonus? Even if there are some people who don't realize the potential economic advantage of their education, on aggregate the bet wins (if you frame it right and make sure the funding went to real degrees with real value, of course).

This is the problem with most rhetoric around government debt. Not all government spending is a write-off - some of it (infrastructure spending, spending on education, R&D funding, international development funding) is an investment in future potential. If an investment is worth making, it's even more worthwhile making it with borrowed money. If the government is borrowing money to pay for medical care for seniors, maybe we have a problem. But to fund educating 20 year olds? That seems likely to be something that could pay off.

[thisisdallas]

> The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all!

This is what you get when people think with their emotions instead of logic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[bmelton]

Well, on logic, his plan simply won't work. This isn't my logical analysis, though I agree, but the considered opinion of many economists.

The plan, as put forth, is proposed to levy a .025%–.5% tax on stocks, .025%–.1% tax on bonds and .005%–.02% on derivatives with the funds going to health, public services, debt reduction, infrastructure and job creation.

Ignoring the claim that it's a "Robin Hood" tax, and that Robin Hood is being misunderstood here, the idea that it will capture wealth from the rich, or Wall Street, is not really supported in reality. What will likely happen is the same thing that happened when Sweden implemented their own financial transaction tax; the hard-core traders will simply start putting most of their transactions to foreign exchanges, and the bulk of those remaining will be the ones that can't easily switch, which are our pension funds, our 401Ks, etc.

The consensus amongst economic circles is that it will fail to attain even a significant fraction of the revenues it expects to, and that those taxes it does raise revenue from will impact the poor and middle class much more so than the rich it is targeting.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/06/20/the-stupi...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45583134

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/kamal-ahmed/88722...

[learc83]

>What will likely happen is the same thing that happened when Sweden implemented their own financial transaction tax

I'm not going to argue for the efficacy of the tax your talking about, but the differences in Sweden and the US are too large to make a valid comparison.

The US is the largest economy in the world, a small tax that pushes people out of Swedish markets may not do the same here--US markets may be relatively more attractive.

[bmelton]

They are currently very attractive. Once you implement a transaction tax on them though, they become less so.

When transaction volume begins shifting to an untaxed foreign exchange, the companies will begin the process of relisting to be on the foreign exchanges. The process (obviously) isn't easy or fast, but it's preferable to unallocated shares.

Beyond that though, as transaction volume dwindles, and it simply must do so, there are less transactions being taxed. The tax might work as advertised in the near term, but will fail through attrition in out years. Of course, by then, it will have been claimed a success and Bernie will likely be out of office, so it'll be blamed on the next guy.

And, of course, let's not forget the idea that for every $1.00 we increase college subsidies, colleges raise prices by $0.65.

[learc83]

That's not my argument. My argument is that your point about Sweden isn't valid because it's relatively much easier to avoid Swedish markets.

[matwood]

I'm genuinely curious why you like him. I don't really understand the appeal because whenever I listen to him speak it is along the lines of 'we have people starving and oh we have millionaires.' Okay, great so what? Should we not have either? How does one fix the other?

Anyways, I've been asking people who like him to really explain because I don't get it and often just see 'he speaks truth, you are an idiot if you don't get it'. Um okay.

[hyperbovine]

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him the short shrift.

[ConceptJunkie]

As the Washington Post pointed out (and common sense concurs), the only way a Scandanavian-style democratic socialist economy can exist is because there is a United States to drive the economy enough so that there's enough productivity that those countries can afford their socialism.

Unfortunately, I can't find the article now, but it surprising to see in the Washington Post.

If the USA adopted these policies, the biggest change would be to drag the top quintile down, while the bottom quintile wouldn't change much. Oh, and the top quintile are the people who create all the jobs, so it's just a vicious cycle.

[MrJagil]

I believe it's this one. It's tone really throws me off though: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/10/...

[oluwie]

The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale. The U.S. has over 300M people living in it, over 8x as much as the most populous European country. We also have a history of hating and evading taxes at all costs (Boston Tea Party).

I'm not saying it can't work but the economics gets truly tricky when you're dealing with a country that big.

[_dp9d]

You are in the richest country in the world, and you're telling me that universal healthcare can't work because of scale?

I'm shocked the average person on the street believes these lies.

Universal Heathcare doesn't work in the US right now because some very powerful and rich people will be a lot less powerful and rich, and they don't want that. Open your eyes for a second and realize you are the only developed country without it, and everyone else considers it a basic human right.

[knoble]

I don't think the problem with scaling is as much economic as it is a product of the number of disparate motivations at scale.

The more people you have, the more difficult it becomes to have any sort of general consensus.

[bmelton]

Per capita, we aren't the richest country in the world.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/24/what-is-the...

[learc83]

That's a ridiculous article. It conveniently avoids overall GDP, by which the US is the richest in the world.

In the first comparison they use GDP per capita, and in the second they use overall reserve currency? Then they use natural resources, but don't factor overall ability to exploit said resources. They're just picking metrics that don't favor the US.

[ThatGeoGuy]

> The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale.

I believe grecy commented on this quite well, but as someone from Canada, I hardly believe this to be true. Sure, you have 318M+ citizens, while Canada only has around 35M+ citizens. However, the United States is more wealthy than Canada, by a similar factor of ten:

US GDP 2014: 17.42 Trillion Canada GDP 2014: 1.79 Trillion

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/country/Canada [2] http://data.worldbank.org/country/United-States

To say it wouldn't work at scale is a gross exaggeration. I would argue that you shouldn't just assume that healthcare wouldn't work. If most of the money wasn't appropriated between Big Business (TM) and the Military Industrial Complex, I'm sure it would hardly be an issue to introduce Canadian-style healthcare at a country-wide scale.

[sssilver]

Only <4x as much as Germany.

I'd argue that at that scale, if you can make a system work for 80 million people, you can probably make it work for 300.

[ZenoArrow]

Plus the US has got over 4x the GDP of Germany ($17,418,925 vs. $3,859,547, according to an IMF report from 2014), so it's not like it can't afford it, sufficient funds exist in the system.

[ZenoArrow]

P.S. Numbers I provided before are missing a few zeros, as you might've guessed. ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[dragonwriter]

> The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale. The U.S. has over 300M people living in it, over 8x as much as the most populous European country. We also have a history of hating and evading taxes at all costs (Boston Tea Party).

So, set some very basic standards at the federal level and make the details and implementation a state responsibility. The largest US state is significantly smaller than the largest European country that provides universal healthcare, so that should solve that problem more than completely.

[jules]

What does size have to do with it? If anything, size should be beneficial because of economies of scale.

[ihaveajob]

If anything, the EU is larger and more populated than the US, so even in that case it should be easier to implement anything in the US.

[djrogers]

"The EU" doesn't have a socialized system - most (all?) of the countries in the EU do have distinct, different, and locally funded socialist programs, but "The EU" doesn't.

[ZenoArrow]

Consider how much healthcare costs Americans now.

Now consider how much cheaper healthcare would be without health insurance companies.

If you get the health service you have now, but without the insurance companies taking their cut, there's no reason it can't be cheaper than what you have now.

I was surprised when I learned that ObamaCare still included insurance companies in the loop, but I see now that it was a concession to get some political support behind universal healthcare, a stepping stone towards the healthcare system that Sanders is promoting.

I don't know of a single country that regrets having a universal public healthcare system. Perhaps there's a good reason that they're so popular, a reason that goes beyond the pure economics of paying for treatment.

When you're ill you want to focus on getting better, you don't want to focus on the financial burden you're placing on your family by being ill. It seems obvious for someone who's had it all their life, but perhaps it's one of those things you have to experience the difference to really understand what you're missing out on (or conversely how lucky you are).

My only experience of the other side was when I ended up getting pneumonia on a trip to NYC. Whilst there were elements of the care that were good, and I had travel insurance which covered most of the initial cost, I can say for certain that dealing with the financial side of the treatment was not something I particularly wanted to think about in my weakened state. It put me off wanting to live there, I feel sorry for those who have to put up with it year in year out.

[artimaeis]

Not sure if you were looking for someone to tell you why they like him - if not, I apologize for misunderstanding.

His platform - though overly ambitious - contains a bullet list of the exact things I believe are in desperate need of fixing in the nation. For the sake of brevity I'll stick with only 3:

> Rebuild Infrastructure

> Reverse Climate Change

> Health Care as a Right for All

I honestly don't understand how every candidate isn't running with at least the first of that list on their platform. Our infrastructure is barely viable at this point and has been limiting our growth since the start of the software revolution. This is a bigger problem on more local levels but those get their initiatives from the fed and thus it's a place to start.

Reversing climate change (or at least reducing the effect of it) is another I can't believe that every candidate isn't running with. The longer we wait to address the problem with meaningful change the worse of a future we guarantee. The worst outcome of heading down this path is that we were wrong about some specific technology delivering us from the perils at hand - but then (like a broken unit test) we know that won't work and can incorporate that knowledge into further endeavors.

Then there's healthcare. The ACA was an excellent stepping stone - but it has to be that. Something to get us through so we can pull ourselves to the next step. The fact that so many Americans are soon to be required to have another insurance fee is ridiculous. This is the exact type of service that is the reason we pay taxes. I understand that some people view taxes as some illegal manifestation of government power - I just disagree with that entire sentiment. The proper role of taxes seems to be to cover the costs of burdens that we all collectively share. Every person in this nation needs healthcare to some degree. The health insurance market has already shown us that we can create a way to account for varying costs among individuals. That pattern falls into the existing pattern of our tax code pretty easily. Remove the middle man profiting off of our shared burden, replace it with the state, and reduce our burden slightly.

So there's a nutshell of why I like Sanders. His platform appeals to me. It's not some notion of 'starving people and millionaires' - it's that he wants to change the country in a way that I think is 'better'. Like Obama - if he gets only a small amount of his ambition accomplished he will still have created a better place.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Reversing climate change (or at least reducing the effect of it) is another I can't believe that every candidate isn't running with. The longer we wait to address the problem with meaningful change the worse of a future we guarantee.

Half the continent of North America is already on fire[1].

[1] http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/08/24/everything-is-on-f...

[littletimmy]

One fixes the other through redistribution. Tax the billionaires, close tax loopholes, etc. Use that money for a fiscal stimulus, and also for public benefit.

[harrumph]

>Okay, great so what? Should we not have either?

We should not have starving people. But there is over 20% child poverty in the US.

The only reason we have this, the only excuse for it, is the same market ethos that justifies intense wealth. When we challenge intense wealth, we eliminate poverty. And when we eliminate poverty, every social ill that depends upon it diminishes radically.

This challenge to intense wealth, called leftism, doesn't get rid of millionaires, nor systems of personal property, nor personal liberty. This gets rid of a system of worship of intense wealth and puts an end to accepting the premise that accumulating wealth far beyond what any person or family can actually use is a justifiable thing.

[acslater00]

I'll bet we've got a lot of "political experts" but probably not that many political experts.

[Yhippa]

What exactly is a "political expert"?

[ruraljuror]

The distinction being made is between an expert in politics and someone who is political and an expert in something else (like tech).

[adrusi]

I interpreted it as the distinction between someone who presents themselves as a political expert and someone who actually is.

[ruraljuror]

I enjoy my interpretation more, but I think you're right. Good call.

[noelsusman]

He has a chance, but not a good one. Hillary has weaknesses that can be exploited but whether or not he's the guy to do it is up in the air. He's had a pretty good surge in the polls recently.

His general election numbers are a lot worse than Hilary for the time being. Hillary has the advantage over every GOP candidate in the polls (Bush and Rubio are close) whereas Sanders only has the advantage over Trump (wouldn't that be a hilarious election?). A significant part of that is name recognition, but it's hard to say how much.

The conventional political wisdom is that he has little chance, but of course the conventional thought is only right most of the time, not all the time.

Be careful when people try to compare 2016 to Obama in 2008. Right now Hillary has double the support she did at this time in 2007. She never once broke 50% in the polls during the entire 2008 primary. She's been riding at a steady 60-65% so far this primary up until this month. With that said, Obama didn't surge ahead of her until February of 2008 so we have a long way to go.

[pfooti]

Sanders could beat Trump in the general. But then again just about anybody beats Trump in the general, and Clinton has had a long time to work on her ground game for the primary. I don't see her losing the primary unless someone really, truly radical appears.

The problem is that Sanders has a message that resonates with a lot of disaffected white male progressives. If you dig deeper, you can see he's not really great on issues of race or gender. Sanders has some momentum, but I think Clinton has a marginally better message on race and gender.

From where I sit, there's still room for a real progressive to show up - someone who can talk about the economic reforms Sanders is pushing, and also sit down for real with the #blacklivesmatter activists about police reform. Someone who could pull both off could beat both Clinton and Sanders to the democratic nomination, maybe. Still time yet, but I'm not holding my breath.

All that said, Clinton possesses a ton of resources for fighting for the primaries in all the important states, and it's hard to ignore that unless her favorables slip underwater, even if a really exciting candidate does throw their hat into the ring.

[eli_gottlieb]

Some experts appear to consider it unlikely but plausible: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-is-how-bernie-sander...

[jxm262]

I would never call myself a political expert, but I do follow pretty closely. I think Bernie Sanders does have a chance, but much less than the media is making it seem. If Hillary's numbers slip too low, I think Biden will probably enter the race and the democratic establishment will attempt to coalesce around him. There's also the possibility that Sanders will run as an Independent which many are saying could fracture the party. Anyway, however it turns out, it will be fun to watch

[zxcvcxz]

Sanders seems to just want to concentrate all power at a federal level, like the USSR did. The left claims to want a more European style governance model but fail to accept that the EU does not have one healthcare system, does not have one schooling system, and does not have one college system.

When you concentrate all power into a small point it makes manipulating that power much easier for the elites. No longer do they have to bribe politicians in each state, just the ones in Washington DC. The founding fathers knew this (they experienced this with the British Monarchy) and that's why they intended on having a very limited federal government that had little control over social programs and whose main purpose was to see that states take it upon themselves to enforce rights provided by the constitution.

Remember when we integrated schools? The left would like you to believe the DOE is some kind of federal schooling system when in fact all it really does is issue pell grants. The federal government did not take over the schooling sector. The only thing the federal government did was step in when a state refused to integrate.

I urge leftists to reconsider their position. I'm in favor of social programs like single payer healthcare, but having the federal government do it is just asinine. The federal government needs to pass a bill that makes healthcare a right, then leave it up to the states to implement free healthcare. Those that don't will be forced to, just like we did when some schools refused to integrate.

If you hate too big to fail companies, then why allow one entity to monopolize a whole sector of the economy? As soon as one of these huge social programs fails, down goes the whole economy. It happened in the USSR and it could happen here. Just let the states handle it like they do in the EU. That way, when one states social programs fail it doesn't bring down the whole economy. Notice that this is a compromise. The left still gets it's healthcare while the right still gets a small federal government. It's a win-win. Unfortunately both the left and right would like you to believe that any compromise is giving into the other side, they must perpetuate the idea that you only have one right choice and that if you're not with them you're completely against them.

Bernie's biggest problem is the tax code. I don't see any plan to reform it or make it simpler, big businesses are already evading taxes through tax loopholes because it's so easy to manipulate our centralized tax code. Even if he raises taxes on billionaires he has no way to prevent tax loopholes without complete tax reform.

It wouldn't be fair to compare the US to socialized countries like individual European nations because most European nations aren't world powers policing the globe and have much more economic and political stability. Most socialized European nations aren't experiencing social unrest or widespread disagreement about social policies.

The US on the other hand has much more disagreement. The USSR consisted of many countries dominated by the Soviets who didn't agree with many policies of the government. While the US isn't taking over other countries and making more US states, the states are already similar to small countries.

As we concentrate power more and more at a federal level we take away sovereignty from the individual states. This, in my opinion is very similar to what lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. They spread themselves thin and forced everyone to assimilate under one political ideology. This only works when a large portion of the country agrees with said policies.

While the US will probably never suffer the same fate as the USSR, I could easily see us spreading our selves too thin across the globe, mismanaging money, and pissing everyone off, thus leading to economic decline and loss of faith in the political system as a whole (this is already happening).

America won't be able to handle monolithic socialism. We want too many things.

[vezzy-fnord]

The founding fathers knew this [...] and that's why they intended on having a very limited federal government that had little control over social programs and whose main purpose was to see that states take it upon themselves to enforce rights provided by the constitution.

Hardly. The Articles of Confederation only lasted some 12 years and was very quickly superseded by the Constitution which granted a much stronger federal government with executive and taxing powers. Nor were the Founding Fathers in any harmonious agreement in the slightest. Since the beginning, there had been persistent debates from the federalist side (like Alexander Hamilton) and the anti-federalist side (like Thomas Jefferson), the debate still going on to this day.

As much as you and I may dislike it, Hamilton won.

[zxcvcxz]

What you're saying is a bit disingenuous. I never said anything about the articles of confederation and I was referring to the constitution as we know it. No where do I say the founding fathers wanted the federal government to have no power, just that they wanted the federal government to have limited power, and this is pretty undeniable. If they wanted all power concentrated at a federal level they would not have allowed the states to exist.

[vezzy-fnord]

Considering Hamilton proposed and helped enact tariffs on imports to fund the Treasury, a national bank to, among other things, assume state debts, and was also key to the Federalist Party advocating strong central government, your polemic is an exercise in begging the question through and through. You've taken "limited power" to refer to whatever the current state of affairs is and draw a conclusion that any deviation is a slippery slope into Soviet-style bureaucracy.

Also, U.S. states don't have sovereignty by definition.

[yellowapple]

> Considering Hamilton

That's one of dozens. There were plenty of Democratic-Republicans, too, like Jefferson and Madison.

[philwelch]

He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.

[amyjess]

Sanders is going to end up like Ron Paul: he'll make a big splash on social media (well, he already did), but he'll crash and burn in the primaries.

There are actually a lot of similarities between Sanders and Paul: they made the splash they made for the same reason (they're honest politicians who put their values before the party line), and they'll crash and burn for the same reason (no support from party elites, most "supporters" are just people who share Facebook posts and don't vote).

[ConceptJunkie]

Sanders won't get far because the only thing he has to offer is giving away other people's money and the USA is already $20 trillion down that path (more like $150 trillion if you consider the unfunded mandates).

How can we possibly do more when what we are doing now is unsustainable?!

[dragonwriter]

> Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary,

Perhaps.

> and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated.

The national head-to-head polls I've seen that have included have him beating all the Republicans he is polled against (Trump, Bush, Walker, and Rubio), in some cases by wider margins than Clinton does in the same polls. That's not to say he would win the general if nominated, but I'd certainly expect more than mere assertion from someone who wanted me to accept their argument that he certainly would not do so.

[philwelch]

Those polls are meaningless 14 months ahead of the general election. Trump is a highly polarizing figure who (a) will also almost certainly not win the nomination and (b) is widely hated enough that he would likely lose head-to-head against a ham sandwich. The other Republican candidates don't have hardly any name recognition because Trump is monopolizing all the media attention.

I'm not sure how much elaboration you need for the idea that an avowed socialist wouldn't be elected President of the United States.

[mdemare]

> He has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated.

Well, that depends who he is up against. Imagine Sanders vs. Cruz with Trump as a 3rd party candidate...

[MrJagil]

Could you unfold that statement?

[mdemare]

If Sanders is up against Cruz, and Trump is a 3rd party candidate, it's unclear who'd win.

[MrJagil]

Being a foreigner not quite knee-deep in the American election yet, I was actually fishing for more information on Cruz and Sanders and whether you're basing this on polls, their relationship, intuition, major (dis?)similarities in political programming or some such.

Sorry if "unfold" wasn't used correctly.

[nindalf]

Sanders and Clinton are competing for the chance to run as the Democratic candidate. Similarly Cruz, Trump and 10 others are running for the chance to run as the Republican candidate. Its customary that the losing candidates will get behind the winner and endorse them, uniting their party behind a single person after a divisive primary campaign.

However, Trump doesn't see it that way. He feels that if he doesn't get the nomination, he will run as an Independent candidate. He doesn't stand any actual chance of winning but he would claim some of the Republican votes (say 5-10%) on election day, making it a cake-walk for the Democratic candidate.

Why would he do this? Its blackmail. There's a good chance the heads of the Republican party would sabotage his campaign because of how unsuitable he is. This threat keeps them from doing that, because they would bury their party's chances in 2016.

[delecti]

I think the idea is that Trump would take enough of the conservative side of the vote that even if moderates tended to vote for Cruz (as Sanders is thought to scare moderates) it could be close between Sanders and Cruz.

[javert]

> Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary

Why do you say that? I could perhaps be convinced, but at this point I don't see any reason to think that.

[pweissbrod]

Thinking back to the 2012 election, the sentiment of reducing government/cutting taxes in this country is palpably strong. The word "socialist" itself gradually became established as an anti-american insult. Republicans worked hard to place this label on obama as an affront to american freedom reminiscent of communism.

Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist. His ideals dont align with the prevailing american values. It actually reminds me of how Kerry lost to Bush in the early 2000s largely because of his support for gay rights.

[gerty]

> His ideals dont align with the prevailing american values.

That's not exactly true. I recall an article in the Washington Post explaining that his propositions are actually supported by majority of Americans. Sanders is not a real socialist, he's just a New Deal Democrat.

[res0nat0r]

Most of America is for the ACA, but against Obamacare, it all depends on how you phrase the question.

The issue is that most of America isn't represented when it comes time to vote, only a small subset of people do, and those who do are not going to be voting for Sanders when it comes time to choose which Democrat to get behind.

[javert]

> Most of America is for the ACA, but against Obamacare, it all depends on how you phrase the question.

Citation needed. I can't believe that without some kind of evidence. I can believe that the wording of the question matters, but not that it's "ACA" vs. "Obamacare."

[eli_gottlieb]

>Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist. His ideals dont align with the prevailing american values.

Just because you told all the socialists in the USA that we're unpatriotic traitors and should shut the hell up, doesn't mean we stopped actually existing. And now we've got a candidate who stands for our views.

[javert]

What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? I'm genuinely asking what you think the difference is.

The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise.

To me, that is the same as socialism, except perhaps in minor technicalities of implementation, which are relatively unimportant.

For instance, maybe a "true socialist" would favor the state owning enterprises, rather than massive tax-and-regulate, but to me, that is not an important difference.

Hence, as a rule of thumb, I consider all Democrats to be socialists.

So, I don't think Hillary or Obama is much different from Sanders, except that he is more bold and open and labels himself differently.

I am genuinely interested in your views on this. I'm not going to change your mind on politics, you're not going to change mine, that is not my goal here.

[eli_gottlieb]

For purposes of this comment, I will be attempting to clarify differences between social democracy, democratic socialism, and socialism-in-general.

>What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism?

It comes as news to me that the Democrats have an ideology. Ever since Reagan, and then Clinton, their standard strategy has been every bit neoliberal, even if not sadistically neoliberal like the Republicans have been.

That is, the difference between Democrat and Republican is, in my opinion, the difference between saying, "We're so sorry you're homeless, but if we tried to give you housing, businesses would flee the country, but at least we're using government funding to help keep your soup kitchen open", and kicking the homeless while yelling "Get a job, you filthy bum!".

Notice that in both cases, the homeless person remains homeless.

Well, I suppose if we can call pragmatic-to-the-point-of-fundamentally-unprincipled meliorativist humanitarianism an ideology, then they do have an ideology, but only the very leftmost portions of the Democratic Party actually begin to be social democrats at this point. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, is an actual social democrat: she favors a broad ideology of decommodification, in which the necessities of human life become social rights and a middle-class society is explicitly encouraged via policy. Actually, she only even begins to favor decommodification.

>The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise.

As noted above, in terms of their voting record, they mostly don't favor these things at all.

Also, "significant regulation of private enterprise", in terms of things like OSHA, the EPA, occupational licensing, Sarbanes-Oxley or Glass-Steagal, etc, should be placed completely to the side. Everyone who's not wildly insane is in favor of significant regulation of private enterprise, and the only negotiation is over where the boundaries of pragmatic, useful regulation actually fall.

(That is, most people who are not right-proprietarians (ie: not in the Libertarian Party) favor regulation of business for pragmatic, instrumental reasons, rather than considering it always terminally valuable as a point of ideology. "Reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism" is a slogan you should repeatedly write on a chalkboard until you manage to actually believe it.)

>For instance, maybe a "true socialist" would favor the state owning enterprises, rather than massive tax-and-regulate, but to me, that is not an important difference.

A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises. Whether this should be achieved via labor actions (strikes, etc), seizure of state power by revolutionary force, state power won in elections, or cooperative entrepreneurship is a matter of strategy among socialists. Sometimes we disagree with each-other as points of ideology, and sometimes as matters of pragmatic implementation. Sometimes we agree, despite hailing from very different schools of socialism.

As a classification heuristic, "revolutionary" socialists favor seizing state power via revolution, "democratic" socialists (eg: Bernie Sanders) favor obtaining state power via electoral participation, and revolutionary anarchists favor using a revolution to destroy state power (never to be wielded again). All of these groups often adopt each-other's tactics if deemed pragmatically useful, so, for instance, almost all socialists support workers' cooperatives, even though many don't consider them the final goal of socialism.

Once again: reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism, so I thank you for actually taking the trouble to ask a leftist what we actually believe. To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner.

>Hence, as a rule of thumb, I consider all Democrats to be socialists.

Basically nobody who calls themselves a socialist considers the Democratic Party to be socialists. Even the Democratic Socialists of America - who are often accused by other socialists of shilling for the Democrats, and who, truth be told, straddle the line between actual democratic socialism and social democracy - do not consider the Democratic Party to be a socialist party.

>So, I don't think Hillary or Obama is much different from Sanders, except that he is more bold and open and labels himself differently.

Clinton (both Clintons) and Obama have never put forward serious programs of decommodification (Sanders' social-democratic platform) or worker ownership of enterprises and means-of-production (Sanders' encouragement of ESOPs and cooperatives). In fact, Clinton and Obama have, by and large, not done anything for the working classes, instead preferring to appeal on a combination of identity issues and middle-class meritocracy-through-education. By their voting records, and in contrast to Sanders, both Hillary and Obama have voted in favor of treaties, regulations, and other forms of laws that not only took economic power away from workers and communities, but even away from industrialists, putting the nation's destiny in the hands of the financial sector.

From a left-wing perspective, Hillary and Obama are reasonably similar, while Warren and Sanders form a platform unto themselves, and Sanders borders actual democratic socialism (his platform is mostly social-democratic).

[gjm11]

No, it doesn't mean that there are no socialists in the US. But if the people of the US, as a whole, have by whatever means come to hate and fear socialists and socialism, then someone who's willing to describe himself as a socialist is not likely to do well in a US general election.

[pweissbrod]

The question was "why isnt bernie sanders a viable candidate?". You just said it yourself: most americans perceive socialist values as the antithesis of american values. Hence your candidate is not viable in this political climate. Sorry, I agree with your spirit but your arguing against a straw man.

[marktd]

At the end of the day, the most electable candidate tends to get nominated. Not always, but typically. And Hillary, even despite her challenges, is much more electable than Bernie, because she's much closer to the center. Of course, continuing email controversies could change that. But unless they do, Bernie's chances of winning are near 0.

[philwelch]

Sanders' support is almost exclusively from white progressives. He has almost no traction with minorities and less pull with women than Hillary. He's also well to the left of the Democratic base.

[enraged_camel]

Sanders is a social democrat, not a socialist. The differences are nuanced but quite important.

https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/socialism-vs-social...

[voyou]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist,[1] and social democracy is a type of socialism.[2] That blog you linked to is, at best, advocating a very idiosyncratic use of terminology.

1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11... 2: http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-democracy

[res0nat0r]

That doesn't matter to most of America. They hear "socialist", "social something", and they are going to be against it.

[davis_m]

They certainly seem to love their Social Security.

[res0nat0r]

They do, and they also hold up signs that state "Keep Government out of my Medicare." I didn't state US citizens as a whole are very bright.

[javert]

Not an expert, but I don't see why he wouldn't have a chance. He represents what the left really wants, so he can win the primary, at least.

[gadders]

I think this was a good summary of Bernie Sanders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fspZiT8TdBE&feature=youtu.be