Progressives (Liberals)

You, personally, I don't know which candidates you support, or your rationale. Certain other people here sit on my posts and vote me down within five minutes, 24 hours per day. I frankly don't understand why you are so vehement in condemning Sanders, but these others defend the corporate shills and I feel comfortable trashing them right back.

The polls gave evidence of that assertion you quoted.

Welcome to the REVOLUTION!!

The downsides of Sanders' proposal? The big fear is the reduction in capital investments caused by taxing wealthier individuals at a much higher tax rate. If upper-income individuals have less disposable cash on hand, we could see less spending, less job creation, and fewer businesses started.

Along those same lines, taxing capital gains and income as ordinary income could be the real economic killer. The allure of holding investments over the long-term is that you'll be rewarded with a lower tax rate. Not only is this beneficial in that it allows an investor to keep more income, but it also encourages good investing habits, since compounding works in favor of the long-term investor. Removing this incentive could have a profoundly negative impact on well-to-do investors, and stocks in general.

Finally, Sanders' employer tax could very well wind up passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices, or be taken out of employees' wages (or perhaps some combination of the two). Substantially higher corporate costs could reduce foreign investment in U.S. companies even further, and could bring hiring to a standstill.

Now that a movement is born it is up to all of us to make it happen.

It’s still shocking every time I confront how poor people die preventable deaths to save billionaires and Wall Street from paying the same share of their money as we do.

See the change it will make when they do.

I condemn Sanders because he used the Democratic Party to further his personal ambition, but did not play the party game the way it's always been done. Having failed to secure the nomination, he did not go out to campaign for the standard bearer. Even if campaigning for Clinton was more than he could stomach, he did not go out to campaign for candidates for Congress, other than a few appearances in his immediate region. That has been expected of all party members, whether or not they secure a nomination, virtually since Jackson founded the Democratic Party in 1825. He also pandered to the electorate with promises he knew he could not keep, which makes him, in my view, just another self-serving politician, and no different from any other Democrat or Republican whom people are happy to brand political hacks. His interference in the 2016 campaign may well have put Trump in the White Hose by creating a wide swathe of sulking voters who stayed home on election day.

Whether or not that's true, he's another geezer, and the party needs young blood, new faces and realistic policies. I don't see Mr. Sanders doing anything in that direction.

All of which being said, I come from a conservative Democrat tradition, and tend not to be impressed with campaign promises which don't further and protect organized labor, farmers and all members of the working class. I think promising universal higher education is not just unrealistic, but cynical and self-serving. It also doesn't put food on anyone's table, and it doesn't help people to get and keep jobs that will put food on the table. In fact, it is an elitist goal, and that offends me.