Jane Sanders' Tweet on GE Day.. "How We Voted is Not as Important as that we voted"

[thesquanderer]

394. re: "why is he doing this 3 days before the most important election of our life"

Because demonizing voters is a damn stupid thing to do. As Hillary learned with her "basket of deplorables" comment. It would be even MORE stupid a mere 3 days before election day.

BTW, even Hillary's comments didn't say ALL Trump voters were in that basket, she said some are and some aren't (there were two baskets). But while her statement and Bernie's statements were to some extent similar (both saying essentially that some are deplorable and some are not), Hillary's colorful phrase emphasized that some (perhaps "half" ) indeed were, while Bernie's less provocative statement emphasized that some--in fact most--were not. Such positivity is more unifying, more inclusive, more appealing to the middle, even more "presidential," less inflammatory. Very importantly, it's less likely to turn off people who may have still been on the fence.

You know how some people right here on DU have made comments along the lines of never supporting candidate X because of how unpleasant they find supporters of candidate X? Think about how some people could react if HRC surrogates (which is what Sanders was at that point, as he had been out campaigning for her) were out there saying "if you vote for Trump, you're a sexist or racist." You're stoking responses like "Who do these self-righteous Dems think they are, telling me that if I vote for Trump, I must be sexist or racist? F*** that, I'm voting for Trump." You do catch more flies with honey.

Here, in fact, is Bernie's full statement, of which you only quoted a portion, so as to provide context:

I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist. Some are, but I think most are people who are hurting, they’re worried about their kids, they’re working longer hours for lower wages. Our job is to reach out to Trump voters to tell them that we’re going to create an economy that works for all of us, not just a few.

So yes, I find Sanders' tweet to be fine. Quite good, actually.

re: "Why isn't he tweeting to GOTV for Hillary?" -- That statement WAS a GOTV for Hillary. You took your piece of it out of context.

re: "why is his wife tweeting that it's not important who you vote for as long as you vote."

First, people often say that (even if they don't mean it). It is a way of appearing magnanimous and unifying, even noble, to say that the most important thing is to participate in the democratic process, because partisanship aside, above all, you believe in your country.

Again, to provide context, her statement was not out of the blue, she was responding to someone who said they had voted for Jill Stein. So okay, what *should* she have said, called her an a**hole?

Even what I considered the more bothersome part of the quote, the head-and-heart part, didn't seem quite as bad once I realized that she was talking to someone who voted for Jill Stein (rather than talking about a possible Trump voter). She was saying "I understand, your head said Hillary, but your heart said Stein" (Stein being the no-chance candidate, who represented a certain kind of idealism). That's not nearly as bad as conceding any possible head OR heart advantage to Trump over Hillary. So in context, it was not as troubling. Still, it's a bit gray, since the choice of the word "many" could possibly imply some deficit on Hillary's part, so I can see being critical there. She could have put it better (maybe "head and heart sometimes at odds" ). But I see no problem at all with Bernie's statement.

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