Sanders tries to convince wary Democrats he's one of them

I've been a Bernie supporter since long before he ran for president. And I'm on the record as saying his time has likely passed. But some of the rubbish reported here needs to be called out:

He also has indicated he will commit to the Democratic National Committee that he will run as a Democrat and remain loyal to the party.

Elected officials don't owe unthinking loyalty to their party leadership. How many of us have applauded republicans for not showing loyalty to a GOP enthralled by Trump. Jeff Flake, John McCain, Bob Corker, how many democrat cheered on as they resisted Trump. Just like voters don't owe loyalty to a party or our elected officials. Represent my interests and I'll support you, do something I disagree with and I'll call you out. Anything less results in subservience that's better left to monarchies or autocracies.

"Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, and his ideology will not sell in the industrial belt in November," said Bob Mulholland, a national committeeman from California who pointed to such traditionally Democratic states as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania where Donald Trump prevailed over Clinton and clinched the race.

"You cannot run on the Venezuelan socialist program and think you can be elected president of the United States," added Mulholland, who backs his home-state senator, Kamala Harris, in 2020.

This is so obtuse that it's insulting. It's also lazy journalism not to challenge fools. Sanders beat Clinton in Wisconsin and Michigan both, which Clinton promptly lost in the general election. And though she won the Pennsylvania and Ohio primaries, she lost those to Trump as well. And among all voters--registered dems, republicans and independents, there is little doubt that Sanders would have been the more appealing candidate in a general election across the rust belt. Perhaps Mulholland might consider that Sanders' populist New Deal politics are simply more resonant than the staid corporate-friendly ideas espoused by the Clinton wing of the party. A wing, after all, that held the White House for 16 of the past 26 years but did very little to arrest the region's decline. If anything, NAFTA et al did far more harm than good.

Worse yet is listening to a fearmongering nonsense about Venezuela when his own party's greatest leader in history, Franklin Roosevelt, was far more radical than Bernie and the solutions he's offering have far more in common with the Nordic countries. The question as always is why do we hear so many hysterical, reactionary voices among the democrats? Is it b/c their livelihoods might be threatened, that enormous cash cow that's been delivering for them for the past several decades?

Warren, who has built a reputation as a working-class advocate, told a New England business and civic group, that she is "a capitalist to my bones." Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is considering a presidential run, recently offered the same assurances of capitalist fealty.

I'm not impressed or that interested in Beto although I imagine he didn't use the word fealty. This is a bit of an exaggeration of what Warren has said, however. She says she's a capitalist but that the system requires rules or that capitalism must be held accountable. Again, even if you call yourself a democratic socialist that doesn't mean you want to eliminate capitalism. The burgeoning debate among dems is how tough do you want to make the rules. At least we're not going to have a candidate in 2020 whose basic message is America is already great.

Andrew Yang 2020.

Bernie against Donny . . . It would be like two grandfathers bickering. That said, at least Bernie is intelligent.