re: #124 Targetpractice

Nah, Berners would follow the philosophy that Bernism cannot fail, it can only be failed. They wouldn’t turn on him, they’d turn on the Dems and scream at any seen as insufficiently dedicated to the cause. You want to help the Repubs roar back to major majorities in both houses of Congress? Put Bernie on the throne and watch as Dem voters ask aloud what’s the point of keeping/expanding the party’s majority if they’re just gonna get yelled at for his failures.

Well we’ve never seen them get that kind of power so Joe may have a point. I think it would either be continued Bernie can do no wrong or profoundly disillusioned. And because I honestly do know some fairly idealistic people who support Bernie, I worry it would be the latter. He’s promising to do a New Deal type economic revolution with a split Congress and conservative courts. He’s not known to be great at getting legislation passed. Sure, some of this might get done by executive order but if he did that, his presidency would be nothing but judicial arguments to the constitutionality of this and that. I think that’s what upsets me about the health care debate. It’s like there’s no appreciation for how hard it was to get ACA first passed Congress and then upheld in the courts. ACA may have been perhaps more conservative than I would like but it did help change some things for the better and it can be built on.