Why Are Bernie’s Supporters Getting Desperate?

~ Clarissa

Is Bernie doing poorly in Iowa? His supporters in my blogroll are becoming unhinged and incoherent. (Here is one example but there are dozens more.) Their rants have moved into the area of unadorned sexism, which tells us that, unfortunately, many people support Bernie for reasons other than liking his economic program. It’s not for nothing that his base is skewed towards young men.

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Published by Clarissa

35 thoughts on “Why Are Bernie’s Supporters Getting Desperate?”

  1. A blizzard is moving into Iowa late tomorrow night. Since polling consistently indicates that young voters (18 – 35) are overwhelmingly for Bernie, and older voters (over 65) are overwhelmingly for Hillary, bad weather will be good news for Hillary.

    Young voters, who are notoriously unreliable at actually showing up to vote anyway, are far less likely to trek to the voting booths through miserable weather than senior voters are.

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    1. Interesting! It’s also curious how retirement age voters are similar from one culture to another. In my part of the world, people over 65 also show up to vote no matter what while voters in their 20s can’t be cajoled to the polls no matter what.

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      1. “Young voters, who are notoriously unreliable at actually showing up to vote anyway”

        Yeah, like what happened in 2012. Man, I sure hate how young people stayed home, handing over the election to President Romney.

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        2. Political observers across the political spectrum agree that the youth turnout in 2012 (the so-called “Obama coalition”) was a distinct exception to youthful voting patterns.

          Sarcasm is a poor excuse for facts.

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              1. If Bernie gets the Democratic nomination, the Dems won’t have a viable general election candidate, either!

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    2. You should also note that this is a caucus, not a primary. On the Democratic side, there are no voting booths and you can’t just show up whenever, vote and leave. To participate in the Iowa caucus you must show up at the caucus site no later than 7:00 pm and you have to plan on being there until 9:00 or 10:00. You don’t get counted if you leave before the presidential caucusing is finished.

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      1. Yes. The caucus system is quite bewildering and time consuming from what I understand. I am a committed voter but I don’t think I could deal with being at a caucus. I have a job!

        This makes me think that caucus goers are ether quite young (18-22) or post retirement age (65+). Most working people don’t have the time to hang about for three- four hours late on a Tuesday night just to accomplish one little task. Such a ridiculous system.

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        1. I suppose I have to out myself as an Iowa resident now. 🙂

          I actually like the caucus process. It was very strange when I moved here and participated the first time, but it does have some advantages, esp. when there are a larger number of candidates. You are allowed to change your vote in the caucus, so if it becomes clear that your first choice candidate won’t get any delegates from your precinct, you have the option of switching your vote to your second choice. Also, the caucuses happen at a neighborhood level, and it is nice to run into people from the neighborhood and have a chance to catch up and chat while the officials are counting everyone. There’s a good range of ages in my neighborhood, but I’m not sure if that’s typical or not.

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          1. TomW: Well, I hope you are going! This is such a crucial state. We rely on you, folks, to make a good showing!

            Of course, if by some weird trick it turns out you are a registered Republican, then it’s OK not to go. 🙂

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            1. No worries, Clarissa. We are registered Democrats and we will be caucusing for Hillary Clinton tomorrow night.

              I’m very proud to have caucused for Obama in 2008. My first caucus was 2004 and I caucused for Howard Dean, who should have gone further than he did.

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  2. “It’s not for nothing that his base is skewed towards young men.”

    Not really. Voting-age women under the age of 35 favor Sanders by 20 percentage points over Clinton.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/01/11/poll-millennials-agenda-president-rock-the-vote-republican-trump-sanders-democrat/78556154/

    I’ve seen so many articles dutifully written by Clinton shills for the past few weeks describing this so-called ‘Bernie-bro’ phenomenon. I’m not sure you realize how rare you are in criticizing him for his policies. Everybody else is like ‘This twitter account of a Bernie supporter with 20 followers was mean to me, VOTE HILLARY!”

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    1. Yes, I do keep seeing endless complaints about the meanness of Bernie’s supporters. I’m beginning to feel jealous that they are not coming over here to be mean to me. Actually, I’m hoping that they will see this post on Twitter and finally come bully me. 🙂 🙂

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  3. I think Bernie is doing reasonably well in Iowa, but he is probably going to come in second. And Bernie really needs a resounding win in Iowa if he’s going to pick up momentum and beat Hillary elsewhere. If he can’t beat her in Iowa, where the democratic caucus tends to be VERY white and mostly well educated, professional types, he’s certainly not going to beat her in states that have more blacks, latinos, and more working class voters in the primaries.

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  4. Hillary is obviously getting scared, or she wouldn’t be agreeing to additional debates, when her pal Debbie Wasserman Schultz could easily have squashed the idea. 🙂

    The first additional debate will be on Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern time on MSNBC.

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    1. Debates massively favor Hillary. It’s a total myth that the DNC was trying to help her out through its insane way of scheduling the debates. We often see design and conspiracy in what is simple human incompetence.

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      1. “It’s a total myth that the DNC was trying to help her out through its insane way of scheduling the debates.”

        You’re the only person in the world that believes this. 🙂

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          1. There are a lot of famous original thinkers — they’re called novelists, because they write fiction instead of reality. Most of them can tell the difference. 🙂

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            1. Actually, artists are extremely useless at generating ideas. They create art but the moment you ask their opinion on anything, something deeply stupid usually comes out. This is why all writers who’ve tried to go into politics have failed.

              It is as if their art came from a different source than the artists themselves.

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              1. “This is why all writers who’ve tried to go into politics have failed.”

                You’re absolutely right about this. I can’t think of a single writer/artist/poet who reached a high political position in his country who didn’t blow it completely — not a single one.

                “It is as if their art came from a different source than the artists themselves.”

                Not really. Those gifted individuals just don’t understand that for all their writing brilliance, their poetic fantasies have nothing to do with the real world.

                The sons of peasants / lower class families — Adolph Hitler, Mao Zedong, Lech Wałęsa, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton — have fared much better overall.

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      2. “We often see design and conspiracy in what is simple human incompetence.”

        I worked for the government for decades — you think I don’t know that?

        Wasserman Schultz is incompetent and dishonest, totally in the tank for Hillary. (Nice hair, though).

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      3. It’s a total myth that the DNC was trying to help her out through its insane way of scheduling the debates. We often see design and conspiracy in what is simple human incompetence.

        Compared to the ridiculous reality show that is the RNC debates, the DNC debates were total snoozefests that aired on a Saturday night. Only the most dedicated political junkies would skip their Saturday night plans to watch debates. Maybe they want everyone to be as bored as possible with the candidates, so the nominee loses?
        :-p

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        1. The Hillary camp originally wanted as few debates as possible — they blamed the 2008 debates for losing that nomination. Then Hillary realized that Bernie is a real threat, and that, as her communication skills improved, the debates this year were actually helping her .

          So she agreed to one additional debate (the one this Thursday). Then Bernie, still feeling his oats at 74, said he’d participate in the Thursday debate only if Hillary would do at least three additional ones.

          Wasserman Schultz, dancing to her puppet strings, had to backtrack on her insistence that any candidate who agreed to an “unauthorized” debate couldn’t take part in the already-authorized ones. Otherwise the last two “authorized” debates would take place on an empty stage.

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