Let's be 100% serious here for a moment:

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Soon the American people will have to make their choice. A vote for Donald Trump, a vote for peace at home and abroad or a vote for Hillary Clinton, a vote for war and human suffering.

Democrats need to realize what a hawk Hillary is before she gets the nomination. Because if it only happens after she gets the nomination, turnout will be quite poor for Democratic nominee Hillary.

remind me again what Bernie Sanders has been saying about his foreign policy views? Oh yes *crickets*

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It's very easy to vote against a war when you're some backbench nobody from a state nobody has ever heard of (much like it was very easy for Barack Obama to vote against the debt ceiling as an Illinois junior senator,but not when he was in office). What about the decisions now? On every foreign policy issue of any possible relevance to 2016 - the pivot to Asia, Russia's adventures in Ukraine, NATO expansion, the CIA and the creep of military intelligence, militarised drones, ISIS and the rise of Salafism, the Iran-Saudi proxy war, nuclear weaponry, Korea, Israel/Palestine - I have seen no real distinction between him and any other generic democrat. The only thing I've seen is protectionism, because Vietnamese people deserve unemployment and poor working rights, I guess.

I mean, not that I support, say, the sudden abolition of NATO; but it is a bit disingenuous of Sanders to dress himself up as the most left-wing thing since nationalised sliced bread factories, and then parade a foreign policy essentially identical to Obama's and Clinton's.

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I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that Democrats need to run candidates on substantial and ideologically left-wing grounding - as the disastrously empty Gore and Kerry campaigns have shown. But is Sanders the one to make it? Well, possibly, but the current SAndeandersrs 2016 campaign. Sanders campaign is:
- hyperfocused on one niche group (urban, educated and underpaid). Though these people have needs that shouldn't be trivialised, you need a broader coalition than that to have a remotely left-wing platform.
- too focused on a smattering of "nice" policies, without a sort of weight. All cake and no beef.

- irt the Iraq Vote: err yes. Sanders and Clinton are both politicians. The former at the time had no presidential ambitions and only needed to prove himself to a small electorate of hippies, the latter wanted to prove her "chops" on the national stage by voting for a war that was - at the time - popular. It's like when people say stuff like "oh well Benie endorsed gay marriage seven centuries before Hillary, lol". Who cares? If your breaking message is that politicians are feckless, well, congrats. I don't need convincing.

The important thing is that neither Sanders nor Clinton (nor Obama nor any other candidate in either party) have really put in a safeguard to stop such a disaster happening again. Because that was the true scandal of Iraq. Not that a bunch of politicians decided it would be easier on their careers if they voted YES; but that the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and State Dept in conjunction with politically ambitious members of the Bush admin repeatedly lied to Congress and the Public. And the disasters of the war, and its ludicrous aftermath and handling by Coalition forces, have never really been accounted for.

Sanders (now he caters to the national audience) has fallen into exactly the same traps as every other candidate: further entanglement in the Iran-Saudi war, the fruitlessness of bombing campaigns and (most ominously) the continued support of the intelligence agencies and their allies, who have (without fail) given fycked up information and led the US into an incredible series of failed ventures. And in return for what? A series of domestic bills and (lmao) congressional amendments that will never ever pass congress in a million years? Bernie Sanders 2016 is a campaign based around political cowardice and avoidance at every important level. He's a nice guy, but I see no substantial differences between him and Hillary.

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You all agree with him because he's touting the Democratic Party line!

Investing in infrastructure used to be a common-sense bipartisan thing. This is not some kooky left-wing scheme; it's one of the fundamental purposes of government! It's not our fault the GOP has gone crazy in the past ten or twenty years.

I'm all for investing in infrastructure. Everyone knows this. Even Adam Smith agreed with you. But this anti-war posturing is just out of the 2008 Obama playbook. Regardless of whether or not it's right, it's just not a Republican position. If Donald Trump is going to ignore more or less every agreed-upon party principle, what point is there for him to run as a Republican?

So do you think political party platforms should just not change based on the facts?

Simfan thinks the Republican party platform should include becoming a Commonwealth realm, so presumably not.

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afleitch, I'm pretty sure President Trump will nuke Scotland for the SNP's disrespect though.