Do they oppose Sanders on issues, or on principle?
It is extremely important for voters to listen to a politician's (or a pundit's) REASONS why they say Sanders is wrong on a particular issue, or why he is the wrong candidate to lead the Democratic party against Trump.
Why? My view is that many of these reasons are often not really all that clear to the person expressing them -- i.e., they think they're opposing Sanders for reason X, but that reason doesn't make as much sense as they think it does if you can get them to argue it. Or, what's more often the case, many of the given reasons are just dishonest -- i.e., they say they're opposing Sanders for reason Y, but the more you poke at the argument, the more you can see that they really could care less about reason Y, and they're actually much more concerned with a different motive altogether (a motive that they're not comfortable stating, because they're being dishonest).
Take this November 2019 article from the Huffington Post on Obama's potential opposition to Sanders:
Notice that Obama is not going on record as actually taking a stance on decriminalizing illegal border crossings. He's probably not even been asked whether a non-citizen should be arrested for trying to enter America (so much for the "substantive debate on the issues" that everybody fetishizes but few actually conduct), and if he were asked that question, he probably wouldn't give a very clear answer. Instead, he's implying that it's strategically stupid to stop arresting non-citizens if they're caught entering the country. But he doesn't make that point very clearly either (he doesn't say things like "unfortunately, that idea is a non-starter" or "look, I hate to break it to you, but that idea is just totally unrealistic, no matter how much you care about human suffering"). In other words, Obama is being very fishy here. Does he personally believe it's defensible to arrest people if they cross the border, or not? Does he acknowledge that most people trying to cross the border are losing their dignity in the current economic order? Does he give an honest answer that in some cases, political strategy has to outweigh real moral compulsion? Nope, nope, and nope.
Democratic officials are getting worse, not better, at articulating what they believe in and what their vision is. This is how an independent from Vermont can steal their entire thunder in making the case about what needs to happen the day after power is wrested from the criminal hands of Trump's Republican party.
The way to win the votes of centrists, moderates, independents, and anti-Trump swing voters is to actually dig into these issues, not sweep them under the rug, as Obama did in the example above. The more you talk about what's at stake and what your principles are in opposing Trump and replacing him with a clear alternative, the more people have to respond to with something other than "well, maybe in a perfect world I would agree with you, but it's politically impossible and there are just too many skeptics out there."
Why? My view is that many of these reasons are often not really all that clear to the person expressing them -- i.e., they think they're opposing Sanders for reason X, but that reason doesn't make as much sense as they think it does if you can get them to argue it. Or, what's more often the case, many of the given reasons are just dishonest -- i.e., they say they're opposing Sanders for reason Y, but the more you poke at the argument, the more you can see that they really could care less about reason Y, and they're actually much more concerned with a different motive altogether (a motive that they're not comfortable stating, because they're being dishonest).
Take this November 2019 article from the Huffington Post on Obama's potential opposition to Sanders:
Notice that Obama is not going on record as actually taking a stance on decriminalizing illegal border crossings. He's probably not even been asked whether a non-citizen should be arrested for trying to enter America (so much for the "substantive debate on the issues" that everybody fetishizes but few actually conduct), and if he were asked that question, he probably wouldn't give a very clear answer. Instead, he's implying that it's strategically stupid to stop arresting non-citizens if they're caught entering the country. But he doesn't make that point very clearly either (he doesn't say things like "unfortunately, that idea is a non-starter" or "look, I hate to break it to you, but that idea is just totally unrealistic, no matter how much you care about human suffering"). In other words, Obama is being very fishy here. Does he personally believe it's defensible to arrest people if they cross the border, or not? Does he acknowledge that most people trying to cross the border are losing their dignity in the current economic order? Does he give an honest answer that in some cases, political strategy has to outweigh real moral compulsion? Nope, nope, and nope.
Democratic officials are getting worse, not better, at articulating what they believe in and what their vision is. This is how an independent from Vermont can steal their entire thunder in making the case about what needs to happen the day after power is wrested from the criminal hands of Trump's Republican party.
The way to win the votes of centrists, moderates, independents, and anti-Trump swing voters is to actually dig into these issues, not sweep them under the rug, as Obama did in the example above. The more you talk about what's at stake and what your principles are in opposing Trump and replacing him with a clear alternative, the more people have to respond to with something other than "well, maybe in a perfect world I would agree with you, but it's politically impossible and there are just too many skeptics out there."
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