Your View on Political Assassination

[Brian Schmidt]

This is slightly off topic, but I wanted to get members' take on it.

A lot of members have expressed their view that Kennedy was killed by wealthy, powerful civilian forces - Eastern establishment, oilmen, etc - with influence over government institutions.

Now, let's pretend Bernie Sanders is doing well in the Democratic primary or even wins the nomination on his populist message - a long shot, but it's possible. Would he die before getting elected?

I think the way you answer this says a lot about your view on the assassination and politics in general.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[Greg Burnham]

FYI: A post like this could invite a visit from the Secret Service.

[John Dolva]

I wasn't aware of this bloke before. A number of his policies are certainly such that powerful forces would not want him or any one in a position of power to carry them out. Obviously the thing they will do is to use means to discredit, margianalise et.c. him and I think that wouild probably be successful. It's also possible he is a 'wrecker', likely unwitting.

The reason he as a percieved socxialist gets such high votes is because what he suggests is popular.

One way to manage the lefts popularity is to drain it into separate groupings. Naturally any real change can never conme from within the system. Uneducated who think the system can be reformed will gravitate towards him, spend their enthusiasm while being educated by the system and then choose apathy.

Should he ever come into a position of popularity and power within the system to actually carry out his platform certainly he would be a candidate for physical assassination. However by then the world would be dramatically different anyway. It's not going to happpen. He'll be marginalised gy the usual suspect in the usual ways. The real change will come from elsewhere. The lessons people can learn as a result of his campaign can contribute in some way.

It's most realistic to be cynical.

[Mark Knight]

In 1992, H. Ross Perot was initially discounted by pundits, much as Sanders has been. By June, Perot was leading in opinion polls. In late July, Perot announced he was withdrawing from the campaign. He revealed later that he was threatened that Republican operatives were threatening to release digitally altered, compromising photographs of Perot's daughter just prior to her wedding. In October, Perot rejoined the race and ended up with 19% of the popular vote.

If Sanders' campaign continues to gain momentum, an attempt to assassinate the campaign, if not the candidate, would not surprise me. Considering how close the Bush/Gore race was in 2000, the political establishment would not allow an "interloper" like Sanders to accumulate that large a percentage of the vote.

In the recent Kentucky governor's race in the Republican primary, one candidate had abuse allegations raised against him, and a second candidate tagged the third candidate's campaign with responsibility for releasing the allegations...and with asking the second candidate to participate. The second candidate distanced himself from the release of the allegations, and went on to win the primary by the slimmest of margins. So if the governorship of one state would bring about attempts at character assassination, you can imagine the character assassination that might be directed at a camapign for the Presidency of all 50 states.