If Bernie stays in the race till the convention, does it make him a liar?

No, because no one’s voting for Sanders or Clinton over Trump yet.

Sigh

No. He has said all along that it’s clear he is the stronger candidate to beat Trump, and has always said he will be in it until the convention.

But the “liar” issue aside – many of Sanders’ supporters are not just Democrats who are trying to pick their favorite Democratic candidate, like selecting a favorite ice cream cone. They include many of us who would never vote for Clinton, are not Democrats, and will not be voting for her in November. I think this is far more complicated than trying to get Sanders’ supporters to heel get in line and support the Democratic nominee if it’s Clinton.

Democrats are taking a huge risk here by nominating a candidate (Clinton) who has the best chance of losing to Trump. Despite the corporate media’s narrative about Sanders-as-spoiler, it could be argued that Clinton is the spoiler in the 2016 election, if you view a Trump presidency as undesirable.

The Democratic party is also risking losing a large amount of under-45 Democrats. I suspect the Democrats are going to regret their decision. There are lifelong Democrats here in MA that are leaving the party. Good job!

Also, I’m wondering if you could clarify this…

@Pandora: “By prolonging his campaign, isn’t he actually hurting the Democratic nominee and helping Trump by assuring that his voters won’t vote for Clinton?”

The general election is in November, right? How does prolonging his candidacy to the convention equal “assuring that his voters won’t vote for Clinton”? Second, this is far greater than Bernie Sanders. He’ll likely reluctantly throw his support behind Clinton during the convention after demanding some legitimate changes to platform and process during the convention. But this doesn’t mean Sanders supporters will blindly follow him. Many of us (I believe the polls are around 25%) will not be supporting Clinton – even if Sanders ends up doing so.

The longer he stays in the race, the more viable he is as a candidate if something happens that the President and his Attorney General Lackey can no longer come up with credible reasons to continue to put off the pending indictment for you-know-who.

Maybe we’ll all get lucky and Clinton will have a stroke sometime around August.

Or get indicted.

More of a desperado. If all else fails, FREAK OUT! If you can’t take over the ship, sink the ship. Like Hitler at the end of WWII: If the almightly can’t live, nobody lives! Get the idea? He’s going to pull a Ralph Nader on us if he can’t win the election for himself.
Not necessarily a liar, but not exactly telling the truth. A misguidance. Extortion. Blackmail.

Seriously expecting an indictment.

I’m a lifelong Democrat leaving the party at age 45. I’m so disgusted with both major parties and the media.

No, Bernie is not a liar

From what I was on his speech last night, I believe Bernie is caught up in the “millions of people” supporting him. He does not want to let them down.

Of course he isn’t.

I totally respect Sanders for staying in until the convention. Clinton did the same in 2008.

That said, Clinton will get the nomination because more Democrats voted for her. There are certain people who may not like it, but democracy is messy that way.

Bernie said he was going to stay in until the convention. He’d be a liar if he dropped out before then.

Sanders should stay in the race for as long as possible, if only to push the platform to the left. Both parties have capitalized for decades on “where else are the voters gonna go”. Well the Republicans have received their answer and it’s “fascism.” The Donald is as close to Mussolini as I’ve seen. While to the left an avowed socialist is putting a shot across the Democratic bow as the first black President steps down with a legacy to the right of Richard Nixon.

Does it matter? One bad choice is the same as the next. We lived through President Botch Bush, we will live through whoever gets in the White House.

Yes.

^ I’m curious to hear your reasoning here.

I get him wanting to stay in but it’s not like he has to drop out. He can simply say he is suspending his campaign and still go to the convention. If for some reason Hillary can’t continue he will still be a candidate.

I do get that the election is months away. But in the meantime it makes it difficult for others to help with the campaign. Something that the Republican side wouldn’t have to worry about.
The longer Bernie stays in the more he riles his base to be against Hillary because he feeds their delusion that he has a chance and the harder it will be for him to come around and convince them that Hillary is better than the alternative.

But maybe I have it wrong. The public has the memory of a gnat sometimes. Angry about one thing today and angry about something else tomorrow.
What I mean by him being a liar, is that he went from independent to Democrat. When people were saying he was not a true democrat, he said it was nonsense. That he was committed to the party. He still feels like he more of an independent who is trying to change the party to become more independent than actually work for the party he joined.
So for me, that is where the lie comes in. If he were a true democrat as he claimed then shouldn’t he be doing what is best for the party? He can still make changes and suggestions as a party member and go to the convention and suspend his campaign.

No, it makes him an accidental hero. Trump gets the gig in the white house, within a year, tops, he’s assassinated & Hillary never got to feast at the top table…win, win

@Hypocrisy_Central Of course it matters. Just because things are bad, does not mean they can’t be worse. Sure we all survived Bush and might live through a Trump administration. Offered the choice of running into the tree or going over the cliff, well you know what I’m getting at.

relevant

relevant indeed, and just what you would expect from the sane candidate.

@ucme You forget where he will choose Sara Palin as his VP or someone even worse. Then what?

@Pandora I factored in that his VP won’t be Palin, he’s not that fucking stupid…surely

I notice that @marinelife still hasn’t answered @DoNotKnowMuch‘s request that she explain the reasoning behind her previous answer. I wonder if it’s because she has realized there is no rational way to defend it.

Et tu, @SavoirFaire?

Bernie’s campaign has said in April and in May that they want a contested convention while at the same time saying that he wants to defeat Trump and will support Hillary. I just think that those two goals are mutually exclusive, and I think he wants the former more than the latter.

@marinelife I don’t think that the two goals are mutually exclusive. For one thing, they aren’t all goals. Wanting a contested convention is a desire. Wanting to defeat Trump is another desire. Saying that he will support Clinton is a promise of future action. You have also misrepresented Sanders on two of the three points. He doesn’t want a contested convention; he wants the nomination, and is willing to take it all the way to the convention if he has to (note the conditional). Similarly, he hasn’t said that he will support Clinton. He has said that he will support her if she’s the nominee (again, note the conditional).

But even if we leave all that aside and assume that there really is an internal contradiction in Sanders’ goals and/or desires, that still wouldn’t entail that he is a liar. Lying is (1) an intentional action that (2) requires one to say what one personally believes to be false (3) in an attempt to deceive. All three elements must be present. So to show that Sanders is a liar, you would have to show that he intended to tell a lie, that he believes the two goals are mutually exclusive (regardless of whether it is true or false that they are), and that his statement was an attempt to deceive the voters (which, in order to be convincing, would probably have to include some account of what he was hoping for his deception to achieve).