2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Sommerswerd]

But Warren didn't endorse Sanders. Warren endorsed Biden.

She aligned herself with Sanders on many issues, but in the explicit context of a race in which they were not only competitors, and were widely perceived to be competing for the same votes. Her pitch was that she offered a similar suit of policy to Sanders, but without the obstacles I detailed. She reproduced and magnified the narrative that Sanders couldn't get elected and couldn't govern, and she did so for her own benefit. When she was finally asked to make a public commitment to the viability of Sanders' policies, of her policies, she refused, and waited until Sanders had left the race to endorse Biden as a "unity" candidate. Her ultimate role in the primary was to widen the perceived distance between Sanders and the party, which is precisely the opposite of what I'm describing.

I understand your point and I think your argument you are making has some merit, however you've moved the goalpost a bit here. Your original argument was:

I'm suggesting that senior figures within the Democratic Party voicing their support for Sanders, privately and publicly, would improve his chances of securing the nomination.

and

If some leading Democrats, even just a small number, were to voice their support for Sanders, this would have challenged these assumptions. It would lend credence to the claim that Sanders was electable, and would demonstrate that the party was prepared to work with him.

So originally you were complaining that no Democrats voiced their support for Sanders. When I gave examples of that being incorrect, you've now changed that to complaining that Warren didn't "endorse" Sanders. Now of course another problem with this amendment of your argument is that it also ignores that AOC actually did endorse Sanders... but we can put that aside for a moment.

"Voice support" which is what you originally argued, is different from "endorse". You know... or at least should realize, that by the time Warren dropped out, Sanders window for victory had closed. Even with Warren's endorsement, he still had no chance at a majority and thus no chance for the nomination. Warren realized this, which is precisely why she held back from endorsing him. She would have been committing political suicide for a lost cause. The fact that she waited until after Bernie dropped out just makes this all the more obvious.

What you seem to be trying to do here is essentially blame Warren for Bernie losing and cast Warren as being the one who alienated Bernie from the Democratic party and Democratic voters. But the reality, I would argue, is the opposite. If anything, Warren helped to highlight the mainstream nature of Bernie's policy proposals, and show that his positions were, in fact Democratic party positions. The polling about the overlap in Bernie and Warren voters showed clearly that although Bernie and Warren were drawing in part from the same progressive voter pool, many of Warren's supporters were not fans of Bernie and vice-versa. You've certainly heard enough Warren-hate from Bernie fans on this very forum, to know that Bernie voters and Warren voters are not 1 for 1 interchangeable... I know I have.

Warren started out her campaign with both arms wrapped around Bernie... using "I'm with Bernie" as her veritable mantra. But she was flat in the polls and taking criticism that she needed to distinguish herself from Bernie more. So she adopted the "I'm a progressive who gets things done" theme which you essentially reference and are claiming somehow undermined Bernie. I can see your point but jeez man isn't that the whole essence what campaigning for office is? How can she possibly run for office without drawing distinctions between herself and the people she is running against? Didn't her pitch always have to be "I'm like Bernie, but I'm better"? And since she and Bernie were the two "progressives" in the race, they could only co-exist by partly undermining each other, right? Just like all the "moderates" were "undermining" each other and diluting each other's poll numbers by their very presence in the race.

So in that sense, Bernie had just one candidate competing directly with him, while Biden had all the rest. In fact that was exactly what allowed Bernie to be in the lead for so long. His vote was less diluted than anyone else for longer than anyone else. Bernie only had one person to beat, while Biden had five... and Bernie still lost. That's not Warren's fault, or "the media's" fault or the DNC's fault. Its Bernie and Bernie's campaign's fault. What you seem to be implying here is that Warren and her voters had some sort of obligation to step aside and rally behind Bernie for the greater good or similar. Which is ironic, given how resistant a lot of Bernie voters are to the idea that they need to rally behind Biden.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I also find Sommerswerd's read on Warren being in Bernie's camp bizarre. Even if we accept it for the sake of argument, Warren and AOC are kind of skimpy list of examples to hang the argument on.

But I didn't say "in Sanders camp" Lex. I said she voiced support for Sanders. She literally said "I'm with Bernie" on basically every issue.

And it does not matter how "skimpy" AOC and Warren seem. I was specifically responding to TF's claim that NO Democrats voiced support for Sanders, which was just manifestly incorrect.

 

[Gorbles]

Sommerswerd, if this is the kind of semantics the discussion is going down, you quote Traitorfish saying "leading Democrats" and then you point to evidence of arguably non-leading Democrats. AOC, as much as I admire her, her significant accomplishments and what she stands for, is a young member of the party. She is not a leading member. She doesn't command any kind of party loyalty like someone like Pelosi does.

And even in that aspect, you've listed two (arguable) examples, out of a party however large.

Warren was your claim - that she endorsed Sanders. She didn't not. So moving past that, Traitorfish is arguing something I wished I'd argued earlier on (but lack the knowledge to argue effectively) - that mainstream, high-ranking Democratic uptake of Sanders' platform and / or Sanders himself as a candidate would've improved his chances. Your counterargument seems to revolve around to what arguable extent Warren supported Sanders, when even she's seen as being outside of the mainstream. To the extent that she had to go out of her away to assure people that this wasn't the case (regardless of the things she was supporting publicly). It's a paywalled article, but the paywall is only achieved clientside, so here are some excerpts. I'm not judging her for this, I'm using it to demonstrate her position with regards to the general concept argued between yourself and Traitorfish of a "leading Democrat".

As Ms. Warren steadily rises in the polls she is working diligently to protect her left flank, lining up with progressives on nearly every issue and trying to defuse potential attacks from supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “I’m with Bernie,” she responds when asked about what is perhaps the most contentious issue of the primary race: “Medicare for all.”

Yet publicly, and even more in private, she is signaling to party leaders that, far from wanting to stage a “political revolution” in the fashion of Mr. Sanders, she wants to revive the beleaguered Democratic National Committee and help recapture the Senate while retaining the House in 2020.

The outreach is not just an effort to avoid the confrontational approach Mr. Sanders took in 2016, when he inveighed against party insiders and the committee itself, which he correctly believed was favoring Hillary Clinton. Ms. Warren is also trying to allay concerns among Democrats that, as a progressive candidate proposing sweeping change, she may not have enough mainstream appeal to compete with President Trump in the general election.

 

[Takhisis]

A lot of you are heavily criticizing Biden. And there are valid criticisms to be made. But those of you who are in America (and can legally vote) I hope you all vote for him in November. Honestly, I kind of hate both candidates on the ballot (that have any legit chance of winning) but one is not as bad as the other. Biden is at least a moderate (in comparison to Trump, anyway) who will be less harmful to the country. "protest vote" for a third party or independent, or not voting at all, is not going to help here. Try to be pragmatic, people. You can vote for someone without giving them a free pass for things they've done that are wrong.

Hypothetically speaking let's pretend McCain had won in 2008. Let's say that over the course of his presidency he ramped up oil production in the US making the country a net exporter, he took us from two wars to 7, he made Bush's tax cuts permanent, pushed an outsourcing trade deal with China, gave us a rightwing healthcare plan and started mass deportations. Does anybody think he could've done all that without Democrat voters screaming bloody murder?

Obama could. Obama and Clinton proved that just picking a lesser evil doesn't really give us less evil. It just makes it more palatable. Personally I'd rather see 4 more years of outrage over Trump than for people to go to sleep because we have an adult for president again.

Doubleplusgood on caketastydelish and doubleplusungood on Socrates99.

 

[Lexicus]

But I didn't say "in Sanders camp" Lex. I said she voiced support for Sanders. She literally said "I'm with Bernie" on basically every issue.

I don't agree that she substantively voiced support for Sanders. I agree with Tfish that her conduct during the campaign actually served to widen the perceived distance between Sanders and the rest of the party.

What you seem to be trying to do here is essentially blame Warren for Bernie losing and cast Warren as being the one who alienated Bernie from the Democratic party and Democratic voters.

Not at all. You're the one who brought up Warren.

I can see your point but jeez man isn't that the whole essence what campaigning for office is? How can she possibly run for office without drawing distinctions between herself and the people she is running against?

I think this is exactly the point. Had she been supporting Bernie in the sense that Tfish is talking about, she wouldn't have been running against him, she'd have been campaigning for him.

Its Bernie and Bernie's campaign's fault. What you seem to be implying here is that Warren and her voters had some sort of obligation to step aside and rally behind Bernie for the greater good or similar. Which is ironic, given how resistant a lot of Bernie voters are to the idea that they need to rally behind Biden.

Again, I think this is off-base...the point is that Warren was not a Bernie supporter in the sense that Tfish is talking about, not that she was obligated to support him or whatever.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Had she been supporting Bernie in the sense that Tfish is talking about, she wouldn't have been running against him, she'd have been campaigning for him.

Well, ok, but on what grounds could she reasonably be expected to do that, if she thinks she's a viable candidate herself?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Warren was your claim - that she endorsed Sanders.

No it wasn't. Please quote where I claimed that Warren endorsed Sanders. I specifically stated that she didn't endorse Sanders.

I'm weary of this thing people frequently do when they're wrong... and its pointed out that they're wrong, where instead of just admitting it, they accuse the person of "semantics".

If you refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between "voicing support" and "endorsing" then fine we can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, ok, but on what grounds should she be expected to do that, if she thinks she's a viable candidate herself?

The grounds that Sommerswerd's claim is that she was "with Bernie." To my mind, someone who was "with Bernie" wouldn't have literally been running against him in the election.

To be clear, I do not blame Warren for running the race. I also don't agree with Bernie supporters who believe it is primarily her fault that he lost the election.

 

[Gorbles]

No it wasn't. Please quote where I claimed that Warren endorsed Sanders. I specifically stated that she didn't endorse Sanders.

I'm weary of this thing people frequently do when they're wrong... and its pointed out that they're wrong, where instead of just admitting it, they accuse the person of "semantics".

If you refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between "voicing support" and "endorsing" then fine we can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I apologise, because I was basing my post on TF's quoted reference and not your actual post. You didn't actually say that.

However, as the forum has handily put in your incredibly snarky edit in the time it took me to insert the quote for this post, let me add that snipping one minor sentence out of a greater post (ignoring the rest of the post), bearing in mind that sentence didn't really have anything to do with what followed (which is why I said "moving past that") is most definitely tedious semantics and a cop-out too. What I meant was what Lexicus said - that you raised Warren first (as an example of a "senior" or "leading Democrat" - your words).

I'm weary of people conveniently ignoring post contents that are contextual and applicable, and instead focusing on minor nitpicks that they can use to post rolleyes emotes

 

[Sommerswerd]

I apologise, because I was basing my post on TF's quoted reference and not your actual post. You didn't actually say that.

However, as the forum has handily put in your incredibly snarky edit in the time it took me to insert the quote for this post, let me add that snipping one minor sentence out of a greater post (ignoring the rest of the post), bearing in mind that sentence didn't really have anything to do with what followed (which is why I said "moving past that") is most definitely tedious semantics and a cop-out too. What I meant was what Lexicus said - that you raised Warren first (as an example of a "senior" or "leading Democrat" - your words).

I'm weary of people conveniently ignoring post contents that are contextual and applicable, and instead focusing on minor nitpicks that they can use to post rolleyes emotes

I responded to that one part of your post because it was the first thing I read and I wasn't really inclined to even read the rest of your post based on how it started out since I saw it as bad-faith misrepresenting of what I'd said. However, since you've apologized for misquoting me, I now realize and fully acknowledge you are arguing in good faith, so I went back and read the rest of your post. So you're right that I was ignoring the rest of what you said. It was intentional based on my perception of how you opened your post. So I apologize and will respond to the rest.

Sommerswerd, if this is the kind of semantics the discussion is going down, you quote Traitorfish saying "leading Democrats" and then you point to evidence of arguably non-leading Democrats. AOC, as much as I admire her, her significant accomplishments and what she stands for, is a young member of the party. She is not a leading member. She doesn't command any kind of party loyalty like someone like Pelosi does.

What I will say about this is that the fact that you've qualified your point about AOC with "arguably" strongly indicates that you recognize that "arguably" she is a "leading Democrat". If she "arguably isn't" then the corollary to that is that she "arguably is" as well. To me that proves my point. I think its obvious that AOC is a leader in the Democratic party and I don't think any serious argument can be made against that, however if you don't agree, we aren't going to convince each other. However, I don't need to justify my view that she is a leader because you've conceded it, precisely by acknowledging that it's "arguable". If you acknowledge that its "arguable" then my position that she is a leader is legitimate and the simple fact that you don't agree with it does not invalidate it.

So since AOC has been established as at a minimum "arguably" a leading Democrat... and AOC actually "endorsed" Sanders, my argument has been proven and TF was incorrect, even if we go by your interpretation of what he meant rather than what he said... and even if we adopt your position that "endorse" is necessary to "support". No matter how you parse it, my point is correct.

Traitorfish is arguing something I wished I'd argued earlier on (but lack the knowledge to argue effectively) - that mainstream, high-ranking Democratic uptake of Sanders' platform and / or Sanders himself as a candidate would've improved his chances. Your counterargument seems to revolve around to what arguable extent Warren supported Sanders, when even she's seen as being outside of the mainstream

No. My point again is that the argument that No leading Democrat supported Sanders is manifestly untrue. Since the premise is untrue, the conclusion that Sanders would have won, but for the lack of support of leading Democrats, is illogical and thus flawed. AOC's endorsement of Sanders establishes the correctness of my point even without Warren, so we can even leave Warren out of it. But I will check out your article to see if I can get past the paywall later.

 

[Lexicus]

What I will say about this is that the fact that you've qualified your point about AOC with "arguably" strongly indicates that you recognize that "arguably" she is a "leading Democrat". If she "arguably isn't" then the corollary to that is that she "arguably is" as well. To me that proves my point. I think its obvious that AOC is a leader in the Democratic party and I don't think any serious argument can be made against that, however if you don't agree, we aren't going to convince each other. However, I don't need to justify my view that she is a leader because you've conceded it, precisely by acknowledging that it's "arguable". If you acknowledge that its "arguable" then my position that she is a leader is legitimate and the simple fact that you don't agree with it does not invalidate it.

I don't think she is, not in the sense Tfish means. She is a highly visible figure, but she is not the sort of person who would make people think that Sanders would be able to work well with Democrats because her own conflicts with other Democrats have been fairly well-publicized.

 

[Takhisis]

Basically, the following holds among people who could/might/should vote…

Trump isn't just about to lose the election. He's about to lose five or six elections for the Republicans to come
New polls suggest Trump himself is destroying Trumpism, and the rest of the party is making the same mistakes Democrats once made when they buried themselves for 36 years

Donald Trump is losing this year’s election — and you knew that. But the part coming into focus is that the way he’s losing it may put Republicans in voters’ doghouses for decades. In other words, Trump’s not losing one election, but as many as five or six at once.

As The Donald himself likes to boast, hardly anyone has ever done anything like that before.

The past week’s polls have been brutal, for the president and his party, as coalitions emerge in response to Trumpism that could last a generation. Republicans are increasingly likely to lose the Senate this fall, just like they lost the House of Representatives to Democrats in 2018, as Trump marks their brand as one for people who are old, busybodyish, and, worst of all, disconnected from reality.

Spoiler :

Specifically, the 11-point lead Quinnipiac University’s poll found for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and the 8-pointer in Fox News’ poll, show the GOP looking more than ever like an all-in bet on the past, conceding the future to Democrats whether they deserve it or not.

Internal numbers in Quinnipiac’s poll explain why Trump’s party is in both short-term and long-term trouble.

Trump’s down 11 despite a 24-point lead with white voters who lack college degrees, about 40 percent of the electorate. With everyone else, then, he’s getting whipped by far more.

Both variables are moving, inexorably, in ways that doom Trumpism. The percentage of women with college degrees has doubled, to 36 percent, since Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 and nearly tripled since the last big GOP presidential wave in 1980, according to Statista. And the 67 percent white electorate was 76 percent as recently as 2000, says the Pew Charitable Trust.

So, Trumpism is betting everything on a base shrinking in both of its most relevant dimensions.

Fox’s poll isn’t much different. It shows Trump up 26 points (58-32) among white men without degrees, and down 21 (56-35) among white women with them. And he’s getting demolished, 67-21, among nonwhites.

That could be fixed in four years — normally — but the GOP has been lashing itself to Trumpian surrealism, even before the president raised disdain for economic reason and scientific fact to the performance art required to make treating Covid-19 with hydroxychloroquine or Lysol a partisan litmus test.

Think about educated people you know. How many think wearing masks is a masculinity test? Think gay people shouldn’t free to work without discrimination, or to get married, GOP-base mainstays before Trump? That government should restrict birth control? That immigrants all go on welfare and ravage cities? That neo-Nazis include very fine people, and barging into Michigan’s legislature brandishing AR-15s because you can’t get a haircut is normal? Some, but not enough to win elections. Attitudes on all these issues vary by education level and occupation — the more educated and white-collar, the more voters favor Democratic answers.

In other words, the culture war’s over and Republicans lost, even though many are very fine people.

These patterns are showing up in Senate races. Arizona, getting more Latinx and suburban, has GOP incumbent Martha McSally down 13 points in a survey by a local pollster. Colorado’s GOP incumbent Cory Gardner’s losing by as much as 18.

Of a sudden, the GOP’s 53-47 Senate majority could — theoretically — lose 10 members. Maine, Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina are acknowledged problems. But Georgia (which has two seats open this year because Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons), Iowa, and Montana are newer problems, and the GOP has a uniquely weak likely nominee in Kansas. If Trump stirs a wave of repudiation, even Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Texas’ John Cornyn or South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham could get wet.

The 2022 Senate map is worse for Republicans. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley will be 89, Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey wants to run for governor, and North Carolina’s Richard Burr must explain stock trades possibly based on inside information about coronavirus. Democrats need to defend just 12 seats, all in blue strongholds.

The worst part for the GOP is that old white guys — those of whom Trump said, “I love the poorly educated” — still dominate the party. The path to GOP primary victory in 2022 runs through distaste for social norms (like abortion choice and multiculturalism) 40 to 50 years deep in mainstream culture, plus reality denialism. That’s why the GOP is likely to produce more Senate nominees — and a presidential nominee for 2024 — who struggle in November.

Despite Trump’s claims that everything he does is unique, we’ve seen this before. The best example (better even than Herbert Hoover) is 1896, when Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan to fight for the interests of farmers in a nation turned urban and industrial.

Bryan got buried, and buried every Democratic nominee but one for 36 years, because he was as out of step with America’s turn-of-the-century transformation as Trump is now.

The way the Democrats really killed themselves was nominating Bryan again — in 1900 and 1908 — to make sure no one forgot they were out of touch.

Like Democrats then, Republicans are falling over themselves to be the Trumpiest now, building paper trails to sink Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and for United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley whenever they run for president.

And President Mike Pence? Oh, mother!

So I suppose that the only possible answer is to ramp up the gerrymandering and disenfranchising.

 

[Ajidica]

@Takhisis the demise of the Republican Party has been predicted since 2008. Each election we have been told they are too white, too racist, or too cruel to win national power as American demographics change; but each election sees them gaining and entrenching more power.

 

[Lexicus]

@Takhisis the demise of the Republican Party has been predicted since 2008. Each election we have been told they are too white, too racist, or too cruel to win national power as American demographics change; but each election sees them gaining and entrenching more power.

Well, I wouldn't say they gained power in 2018 but certainly these anlyses don't seem to take into account that their willingness to completely abandon any kind of majoritarian electoral democracy changes the rules.

 

[Ajidica]

Well, I wouldn't say they gained power in 2018 but certainly these anlyses don't seem to take into account that their willingness to completely abandon any kind of majoritarian electoral democracy changes the rules.

I could just be feeling pessimistic, but when the GOP had a House majority, the administration at least pretended to respect congressional oversight. Now, even the most basic requests from the House seem to be stonewalled or outright refused on made up legal concepts.

 

[RobAnybody]

And yet you are happy to tell Sanders supporters they should vote for Biden because Trump is worse?
We all have to judge levels of bad unless we have an ivory tower to hide in.

Disagree. Levels of bad are A Thing. Biden = "not optimal" > Trump = "apocalyptic destruction of all norms we hold dear", just as an example.

Killing 10 people or killing 1. One is worse, but they both are wrong

As an example, this. /\

And yeah, I wish we had a better choice then Biden, but the Dems screwed that up but he's now the only choice.

This I disagree with because I maintain that "the Dems" are not a hivemind. Voters, as individuals, across multiple states, picked Biden, & they were not mind-controlled by some nebulous "the Dems".

But Warren didn't endorse Sanders. Warren endorsed Biden.

She aligned herself with Sanders on many issues, but in the explicit context of a race in which they were not only competitors, and were widely perceived to be competing for the same votes. Her pitch was that she offered a similar suit of policy to Sanders, but without the obstacles I detailed. She was the "realistic" Sanders, the "electable" Sanders...

100% agree. She saw Sanders's flaws, thought she could run on his issues better. She failed to garner popular support as well. Worse than he did. So reality demonstrates that those policies do not = votes. On teh interwebs they do, & quite vocal, but in reality, they don't. I'm, again, not saying they *shouldn't*, but saying they *don't*.

When she was finally asked to make a public commitment to the viability of Sanders' policies, of her policies by endorsing him for the nomination, she refused, and waited until Sanders had left the race to endorse Biden as a "unity" candidate. Her ultimate role in the primary was to widen the perceived distance between Sanders and the party, which is precisely the opposite of what I'm describing.

And I give her a little more credit than this. She saw that Bernie's Platform/Her "more credible" Platform... both failed. There wasn't even enough Dem support for those platforms. You can say "well, there should be" & I won't disagree, but Warren recognized it didn't exist. She's smart. She certainly recognized reality & acted accordingly.

I could just be feeling pessimistic, but when the GOP had a House majority, the administration at least pretended to respect congressional oversight. Now, even the most basic requests from the House seem to be stonewalled or outright refused on made up legal concepts.

Well, they are all for oversight when out of power, completely against oversight when in power. This is one area I see a distinct difference. The Dems are for oversight even when they hold the Presidency. The Reps are only for oversight when a Dem holds the Presidency, & abdicate that view (see "No Witnesses") when they hold the Presidency..

 

[Estebonrober]

I asked how it will end. It could end up breaking the internet. Word is this is the executive order he is planning. Apparently it "clarifies" the rules that give websites (including CFC as well as facebook) the ability to sit between mere conduits (like the telephone company) and publishers, who are responsible for the legality of what is posted. So CFC can block bot spam but not be sued if I say something libelous. This executive order will mean that to get that protection they would have to act in "good faith", therefore being exposed to litigation and having to prove faith in court. Sounds like it could break the internet, or at least drive the vastly profitable bits out of America.

This is the dumbest fudging thing I've read all month and between the lock down protests, people acting stupid in public spaces, and looting your own local stores, that is saying something. He is such a moron. Insufferable. Literally.

 

[Lexicus]

And for the rest of your garbage, it might make sense if I supported trump, but anybody that has read my posts know I loathe him and stopped voting for republicans because what they're doing is wrong. I've stated publicly many times that I will vote for any dem facing him, even if it was my cat,

I don't care how much you "loathe" him, when you repeatedly say "Democrats are bad too and I have no interest in judging levels of bad" you are literally drawing an equivalence between the Democrats and Trump. There is a simple way to stop me from pointing this out, which is to stop drawing equivalences between Republicans and Democrats.

 

[Takhisis]

@Takhisis the demise of the Republican Party has been predicted since 2008. Each election we have been told they are too white, too racist, or too cruel to win national power as American demographics change; but each election sees them gaining and entrenching more power.

Read my last line again:

So I suppose that the only possible answer is to ramp up the gerrymandering and disenfranchising.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't think she is, not in the sense Tfish means. She is a highly visible figure, but she is not the sort of person who would make people think that Sanders would be able to work well with Democrats because her own conflicts with other Democrats have been fairly well-publicized.

AOC is easily one of the most popular politicians in the party. You've got folks... myself included... already clamoring for her to run for POTUS. If AOC couldn't convince folks who could have? Obama? Whatever you interpret TF's meaning was by "leading Democrats" does not seem to make sense other than to essentially reach a hindsight-based conclusion that whoever supported Sanders were not the "leading Democrats" and whoever did not support Sanders were the "leading Democrats" because he lost, therefore they obviously weren't leaders. But I look at it from the opposite angle. If Sanders was a good enough candidate to win, then he would have and the people who chose to endorse him would have seen that as well and endorsed him as a result. So whatever magic support or endorsement you're feeling like he didn't get... consider that maybe he didn't get it because he wasn't an attractive enough candidate to win... rather than the lack of that support being the reason he didn't win.

I don't agree that she substantively voiced support for Sanders. I agree with Tfish that her conduct during the campaign actually served to widen the perceived distance between Sanders and the rest of the party.

Again, I think that she presented herself as an ally of Bernie from the very beginning. As for the rest, like I said I think that this is a reasonable argument. I don't agree with it, but I can certainly see how you guys are coming to this conclusion. I will add that this does smack strongly of "Bernie lost cause Warren's fault"

Not at all. You're the one who brought up Warren.

I think this is exactly the point. Had she been supporting Bernie in the sense that Tfish is talking about, she wouldn't have been running against him, she'd have been campaigning for him.

I brought up Warren because TF said "no leading Democrat" and he responded by what was, in my view blaming Warren. I wasn't directing that comment at you, but see my comment above about the "widening the gap" thing. I don't agree that this isn't "blaming Warren". That's exactly what it appears to be.

The grounds that Sommerswerd's claim is that she was "with Bernie." To my mind, someone who was "with Bernie" wouldn't have literally been running against him in the election.

To be clear, I do not blame Warren for running the race. I also don't agree with Bernie supporters who believe it is primarily her fault that he lost the election.

Now this makes sense, but again... demanding fealty from Warren and her supporters to Bernie's banner (not that you are doing this) runs directly against Bernie's supporters asserting independence from Biden. I mean if you also are encouraging Bernie supporters to back Biden (which I think you are, correct me if I'm wrong) then frowning at Warren for running against Bernie is consistent, but to the extent that a person is not doing so, they're trying to have it both ways.