I'm no politician by any means, this maybe a dumb way of thinking about this, but do you think the internet social network as a whole will play a role in this? Whatever anyone likes it or not, the internet has a huge influence in decision making and places like Reddit, is very pro-Sanders.
The problem with Sanders Coherent and useful political theories require three basic elements. First, you need a persuasive critique of what is currently going on, whether you want to change it or to leave it as is. Second, you need to describe agencies of action that will help achieve your goal, again whether that is change or maintaining the status quo. Third, you need to describe how those agencies will lead to a result that is desirable. How will it work when we get where you say we should be going? How will the agencies that the second part consists of bring the results you desire? Take Karl Marx as an example of how all three elements are necessary. He was, in terms of his own theories, brilliant in critiquing the social, economic and political problems of his day. Brilliant. And to his credit he also spent a great deal of time and effort describing his agencies of action in the second part, describing the Communist Party as the vanguard that would lead us to the worker's paradise. Where he failed miserably was in describing the third part, what it would be like to get to the worker's paradise, and specifically how the agencies he did describe would get us to that point. All he said was that the Communist Party would "fade away" as paradise was achieved. Well, that obviously did not happen, in the Soviet Union or otherwise. Sanders to his credit is pretty good at the first part, and this resonates with his supporters. But I think it clear he is very light at best, and on the whole fails, to deliver on the second and third parts. All he really says about the the third part is we should be more like Sweden. Well, the USA is not Sweden. For starters.
with young people it has the ability to play an important role. The problem is that young people don't vote enough at all. Sanders needs all the 18-30 year olds, the social media generation, to get out and vote but way too many of these people dont.
A very timely question. Coincidentally in the Times today there is an article about one of the leaders of the uprising in Egypt that over threw Mubarak. At the time it was apparent that social networking on the internet was key to that movement. But in the end the effort failed. Why? How did that happen? He is quoted more or less saying that such internet driven political movements are very good at tearing things down. But not so good at building things, if you will. The social networking was very good at getting people to oppose Mubarak, but how about building a new and better Egypt? Not so much. My own view is that even message boards such as this are great for developing critiques. But they also for whatever reason tend to appeal to or encourage consensus around a kind of angry cynicism. It is fashionable to be that and end up concluding it is best to do nothing. Perhaps that is because the process itself of using these sites is a solitary one. There is me sitting at my keyboard, and then there is all the rest of you. It dioes not inspire an overall feeling of a common effort. Yes, there is a sense of community , but it is if anything of a mostly dysfunctional one. I think the same thing is going on with the Sanders supporters. They think the Democratic Party does not adequately serve their interests. I can understand that up to a point, and I share much of his critique of wealth inequality. Anyone paying attention would. Where they fail is to understand and explain how they will achieve their goals, and what their goals would mean, how it would work. Much like in Egypt's example, they are "good" at critiquing, meaning tearing down, the Democratic Party. How they would fix it and overcome GOP intransigence? Not so good.
Sanders problem is that he doesn't have a good way to connect to African-American voters and the Democratic primaries get less and less white as they move south.
I disagree...he is picking up steam and winnung with the black voters. Alot of people are finally coming around and listening to a guy they never heard of or from first look seems like an asshole
Yup - it seems funny to me too since he has been involved in the civil rights movement for basically his whole life.
We don't know if he's winning with black voters at this point. Iowa is lily-white. New Hampshire not quite as much but very close. South Carolina will let us know. The Democratic electorate there is close to 60% African-American. Right now Hillary is up by 30-35 percentage points in the SC Democratic Primary polling.
He's from a lily-white rural state and Vermont is as rural as it gets. It's very Liberal in terms of it's leanings but it's small state collectivism Liberal. Southern African-American voters are much more Conservative than the country as a whole. They're not more Conservative than southern white voters but they're much more Conservative than northern whites. The Willie Horton era really screwed up the GOP's chances of assembling a majority coalition. Running against black America played well in the south but it destroyed any chance of prying any significant number of black voters away from the Democrats. It's kind of crazy because Reagan had a chance to be the beginning of a majority coalition but G.H.W. Bush didn't have his magnetism with working class whites so they stigmatized blacks instead to get votes.
It just seems that the Clinton policies have hurt the black community while Sanders has been fighting for it his whole life.
The Clinton policies hurt the entire middle-class, not just the black community. Sanders votes helped most of the middle and lower classes but he was blind on the issue of guns which had really hurt the black community. He voted pro-gun in Congress because his constituents owned guns at the same rate that West Virginians did and the gun homicide rate was low in Vermont, as it was in West Virginia.
Hillary is killing it in the African American community already. Her "ground game" there is impressive. Her & Bill especially were already very popular among black americans and Hillary probably could've put less priority on that but she hasn't. For months they've laid the groundwork there. For starters, the last year or so she's made a point to be either be physically present or bring into discussion every key african american issue that arises. I even read about how her grassroots team is doing things like speaking at black churches and traditionally-black sororities. Then there's this radio commercial that's being played a lot on "black" radio stations throughout the south: https://soundcloud.com/hillary-clinton-976818877/hillary-for-america-my-story/s-qdqjb She's going to destroy Bernie Sanders with that voting demographic. I think that's going to hold true in the General Election too and will be a big reason why she can win the Presidency
I think the Republican nominee is going to be why she wins the Presidency. I don't see the person in the field at this point who can get to 50+1 for the GOP. Bush and Kasich are the guys who might pull it off and they can't get nominated because the GOP electorate is raging this year. It's ironic but the same rage that let them win the House and gerrymander in a majority in 2010 is probably going to cost them the Presidency in 2016.
I have a feeling South Carolina might swing very quickly towards Sanders if New Hampshire goes his way and people take notice. The people who crashed one of Sanders' rallies over the whole Black Lives Matter thing brought some attention to his views and actions regarding Civil Rights. It also looks like a former NAACP president endorsed Sanders too. Then again, I don't know the atmosphere there, or even in USA in general surrounding it. As a non-US person, I don't really follow any of the media outlets, so a lot of what I see comes from Social Media, which feels very Bernie-dominated at this stage. Question: If Sanders pulls off the majority in SC, does he win the nomination? And what if he gets somewhere around 40 - 45%?
