If Bernie thinks the only way to win is to win white working class voters at the expense of

[JHan]

84. NOT BUYING IT and I am going to repeat my question:

Which election were you following because it was clearly different to the one I was following.

IDENTITY ISSUES ARE CRITICAL

People HAVE ALWAYS voted in their own self interests. What do you think Civil Rights was about? Not "identity issues" ??? You think white rural voters don't vote through the prism of "identity" ???

Identity pertains to Class/Race/Gender/Religion/ Income Bracket - it relates to community/town/city/region and how institutions treat with individuals depending on those categories. How I perceive or experience Institutions or Government is connected to Identity politics. When African Americans draw attention to criminal justice reform - that falls under the umbrella of addressing "Identity politics" issues since over criminalization disproportionally affects african americans.

And let's be damn honest here for a moment - Some of these "white rural voters" didn't even vote for Obama. Obama got the urban votes in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan back in 2008 using a very broad populist message against an unpopular administration - most Americans wanted our Soldiers back from Iraq and we were in the midst of a recession. Remember all Obama's talk about change? Why do you think it never bore fruit to everybody's satisfaction? Populist messages are sexy until the Populist ends up in Government, having to work with a congress that won't rubber stamp everything he wants to put through. Then the notorious "third way" approach where you have to grind to get things passed and compromises rears its head- THAT IS THE REALITY OF POLITICS. And it is something Bernie fundamentally doesn't understand which is why he has such an awful reputation in the senate.

This year we had a Democratic party divided against itself, a candidate that represented the incumbent administration, against a Populist that - let's be frank - appealed to the fears of white people who believed there's a simplistic solution to very complex problems and that brown people are privileged and get stuff they don't get - yeah let's skirt around that one and pretend that isn't a thing why don't we?

And yet, nonsense about the left preoccupied with Identity Politics manages to be front and centre in the postmortem analyses. I could name at least a dozen other issues why the Democrats sucked this year that had nothing to do with "ID Politics."

So I'm NOT BUYING IT.