Well the other option is accepting tyranny so I guess we're heading down that road.

@RoboGraham
But with a candidate like Bernie, who needs enemies?

It doesn’t say they aren’t happy to talk about “these”. Just class. The “these” they are happy to talk about, because they divide the public.

Nobody did.

@skado SUBSTANTIAL differences: there are very, very many, on virtually every conceivable issue.

Try explaining the differences to someone who did not grow up in this country. It is more difficult then you might imagine.
About all I could come up with was abortion, and religious influence on law. And if you are not careful, you can spark some anxious replies depending upon their own background.

@Storm1752
I guess it depends on what degree of substantial you're talking about. When it comes to how much power the parties are going to share with poor people... I doubt there'll be much difference. The Repubs give none. The Dems give only enough to co-opt the opposition. Everything the poor get beyond that, they have to fight for in the streets.

There are an abundance of similarities.

Both are in favor of constant foreign wars and feeding the military industrial complex with ever increasing military budgets.

Both operate on a system of taking bribes from wealthy donors.

Both are in favor of continuing the drug war.

Both put the profits of corporations over people and the environment.

Both want the government to be able to spy on it's citizens.

Both are in favor of policies that lead to mass incarceration.

Both embrace a neoliberal trickle down economic philosophy.

Both prefer a private for profit heathcare system over single payer.

Both are in favor of persecuting whistle blowers who expose government corruption.

Both are in favor of sanctioning foreign countries whose governments have leftist ideologies.

Both use voter suppression to stay in power.

This doesn't necessarily apply to all of them. I'm comparing the democratic establishment to the republican establishment here.

@skado That is sooo unjustifiably cynical. Is that how you rationalize not voting?
It's been a long time since radical conservatives took over government, not long after Reagan got elected, and things have been going steadily downhill ever since.
Maybe your memory is failing or you're not old enough, but this USED to be a fairly progressive country.
Now it's an utter disaster.
Explain that to me, other than the Pubs have turned it over to the corporations and the super rich. And don't try saying the liberals have had anything to do with it, because they've been totally defeated and roundly stomped on.
Why? Because of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" Hillary talks about; the relatively poor vote on guns, abortion and gays, the rich for ever more tax breaks, and the government, OUR government, is being bled dry.
Don't TELL me there's no difference! It's a lie!

@IRatherMove, @RoboGraham Baloney.
Very little of what you said is true, other than the Dems have been forced back into the rich-donor game just to compete. Unless you're Nader or Sanders (two heroes of mine, whom I voted for even though they had and have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected).
Dems didn't get us into Vietnam, Iraq, or any other recent war.
They didn't start the 'drug war' and are far more interested in decriminalization and rehabilitation, needle-exchange programs, counseling, education, etc.
They're for progressive tax policies, higher taxes on the rich and corporations, redistribution of wealth in general, and well-funded government agencies devoted to ordinary people.
They do NOT believe in trickle-down economics! Where did you get THAT idea? That's the brainchild of David Stockman back in the Reagan years.
They are TOTALLY against voter suppression!
Where are you getting your fake ideas, Fox News?
You are so far off the mark it's ridiculous to even talk about it with you.

@IRatherMove Oh? And what do YOU know, really, about, say, French politics.
Besides, you're not from some foreign country.

@Storm1752
First let's get a couple of misunderstandings straightened out. I have never not voted. I always vote for progressive values.
For the second time... I didn't say there are no differences.
I'm not lying - I'm completely capable of being mistaken, but I have no reason to lie. Let's look at the evidence, and try to figure out what the truth is.
Keep in mind, when I say Dems, I'm not talking about voters; I'm talking about the people who are controlling the Democratic Party.
Can you disagree with anything in Robo's list above?

Long time since conservatives took over - check.
Downhill ever since - check.
Used to be fairly progressive - check.
Now a disaster - check.
Repubs turned it over to the rich - check.
Libs totally defeated - check.
Right-wing conspiracy - check.
Government bled dry - check.

Looks like the only thing we see differently is that there is any real representation of liberal values in Washington.
Why do you think the DNC wouldn't let the voters choose a candidate in 2016? They proudly admitted they defied the voters. Why do you think they are doing it again in 2020? Both times there was a candidate the voters preferred, who was a real progressive, and both times the people who claim to represent the left did everything in their considerable power to shut that candidate out. In 2016, the DNC forced a candidate on us who polled at one percentage point above Donald Trump, over a candidate who consistently polled at 10 points above Trump. Why?

@skado Forgive me if I being hopelessly uninformed or naive, but I'm guessing because Hillary got more votes?
I think she would've been a good president. So would've Joe Biden. Or Sanders.
The problem is not with the presidential candidates per se; it's we:re getting our -sses kicked all the way up and down the ticket because Pubs lie shamelessly and rely on talk radio to drum those lies into medocre minds.
We're not losing the ideas battle; it's just that corporations took over the AM dial and, after Reagan scuttled the Fairness Doctrine, shut out divergent points of view. Obama had a chance to reverse that, but inexplicitly did not.
We we're tricked, lied to, and outmanuevered into ceding to the monied classes the levers of power, especially free speech.
Hopefully another chance will come.

@Storm1752

Here's how I see it. You're right that it's the republicans who keep pushing these terrible policies upon us. But the democrats seem to be rolling over and allowing them to do so and even getting on board quite a lot. The establishment democrats I mean, there are plenty of dems who aren't like this but they aren't the ones in control of the party. I think much changed during the Reagan revolution. That is when the neoliberals began their take over. And in the 90's, Clinton realized which way the wind was blowing. He understood that, to win as a dem, you got to go conservative. So we got the crime bill, deregulated banking, and NAFTA.

The republicans got us into Iraq but how many dems voted for it? I know Joe did and if I'm not mistaken, the vast majority of the dems agreed to get into that illegal war. Obama continued that legacy by getting us into Syria and lybia and using drones to rain death from above. Also, didn't Vietnam begin under Kennedy? I know he began sending in military advisors but perhaps it was Johnson who actually got the war going. Either way, both were democrats.

The drug war began under Nixon but it certainly continues right up to this day. And it was ramped up by the crime bill put in place by the Clinton administration. Now we have mass incarceration. Sure it's mostly democrats who are in favor of legalization and using treatment rather than putting addicts in cages but it's also many democrats who have been very much perpetuating that stupid war on our own citizens.

I do believe that democrats are generally more in favor of progressive tax policies. But the neoliberal dems get their bribes from the same corporations that the republicans get theirs from. Why did Obama make the Bush tax cuts permanent? I don't see the establishment dems as being all that much more friendly to the working man than the reps are. They don't bite the hand that feeds. I only see Sanders and Warren making serious efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy. The idea that taxing job creators will increase unemployment is so pervasive that even most dems don't advocate for it in any serious way.

If democrats don't do voter suppression, why did hundreds of polling places in hispanic areas and near college campuses close abruptly right before super tuesday.Why don't they hold their elections on the weekend so people have time to go vote? They are very much against voter suppression during the general because they know they need high turnout to win. But during the primary, they know they have to suppress the vote for the establishment to win, which it always does.

The democratic party is no longer the party of the working class. There are differences and they are still way better than the republicans but their priority now is to the donors, not the people. They are like a moderate version of the republicans. I think they will continue to move further right and become even more plutocratic unless a true progressive can get in there and make it once again the party of FDR.

@Storm1752
Did you not know, or not remember that the DNC was taken to court for rigging the primary in Clinton's favor, and they didn't deny it? They said they had a right to choose the candidate. The court dismissed the case. What they did wasn't illegal, just unfair.
Hillary got the most votes because the DNC made sure she did. The Democratic establishment does not work for the people; it works for the oligarchs. Just like the Republicans.

@Storm1752

We were tricked, lied to, and out maneuvered not just by republicans but by establishment democrats who have basically the same agenda and serve the same corporate overlords.

@RoboGraham Thank you for summarizing how the Dem establishment and even most Dem pols in DC are at best Repub lite and at worst a fake opposition party. The amount of collusion between them, including the Wall Street bailout in 2008, voting for the Iraq War, and voting for the new NAFTA agreement as well as the old NAFTA agreement, is obscene. And guess what? Bernie voted against all of those things, the only one with integrity who couldn't be bought.

@TomMcGiverin

Absafuckenlutely.

@RoboGraham
Same here.

@skado I've said all I want to say on the matter, for the time being.
You are either deliberately obtuse, or demented with impotent, unreasoning rage.
Either way, I tire of your sophistry.

@Storm1752
I’m open to evidence and reason.
If you have some, please share it. Personal attacks don’t enlighten anyone.
Get some rest.

@skado It seems like their "divide and conquer" tactics are bearing fruit.
You actually think your all-or-nothing, politically purist, ideologically simplistic politics are helpful?
Either that, or you know they are not, and are deliberately sowing seeds of discord to undermine whatever feeble resistance to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" yet remain.
People like Hillary Cinton and Nancy Pelosi are not the enemy. When you say you'll no longer support them, calling them the "establishment," you are thereby and by default supporting those who you claim are your enemies.
It's hard to tell where your loyalties lie, actually.
Who, then, DO you plan to support? If Bernie loses (not at all certain, and I plan to vote for him in our upcoming primary), do you plan to encourage an independent candidacy? I think I already know the answer to that one.
Failing that, throw your support to some doomed third-party bid or, just as likely, stay home on election day?
If yes to any of the these three options, you are playing right into the hands of the anti-democratic, radically reactionary, libertarian forces which threaten to disenfranchise common, ordinary people.
We will all be, literally and figuratively, much poorer for it.
Rather than reject anything less than perfection, I'd accept what is possible, a half-full glass of watered-down but still palatable wine.
I'd work to, and argue for ways to, improve our discourse, rather than abort the whole thing. After all, even though I'm sure you're pro-choice, you must want to save THIS particular baby, don't you? Or does it go out with the bath water?

They are superficial differences.

THANK you!
I'm stunned by these people's complete ignorance.