She has been a super reliable advocate for a great many positions that progressives support, and almost certainly has advanced those causes more than every poster on the board considered in the aggregate, so that's pretty silly.

RBG is an awsesome person overall, but I’m still not going agree with everything she does. I’m done pretending there’s any benefit to being civil towards people like Scalia.

And she opposed 99% of them, notwithstanding her personal friendship with Scalia. It's not as if her friendship somehow compromised her as a justice.

For ****'s sake, Bernie has friends who describe themselves as lifelong Republicans.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b024a52d2cc703

I think everyone should be content to judge people in public life based on the positions they support, not based on whether they adhere to ideological purity in their personal relationships.

Even RBG can't escape 2p2's wrath!

I wonder which Dem candidate will just come out and state for the record that everyone with a different viewpoint, opinion, or political ideology is a hateful, racist, despicable sack of ****. They will prob book the nom if they do and then get crushed in the general.

I’m sorry, if you’re being nice to people like Chuck ****ing Grassley and Antonin Scalia and even people like Paul Ryan or Ben Sasse, you just don’t ****ing get it.

These people are evil. The fact that they can be socially appropriate and show occasional signs of humanity does not diminish their atrocities. **** them, and nobody should legitimize them with friendship.

No 2+2 post, nor the consensus opinions of the regulars, have any effect on the results of an election. I don't really understand your point.

I'm not arguing that RBG's civility toward Scalia was an intrinsic virtue.

I'm arguing that incivility is not an intrinsic virtue, especially for someone like RBG who does so much good.

I wasn't arguing that RBG has advanced the ball more than 2+2 posters in the aggregate have advanced the ball through their posting on 2+2.

She likely has advanced the ball more than 2+2 posters have advanced the ball in the aggregate, taking the totality of the public and private lives of 2+2 Politics posters into account.

It’s like you’re not even pretending anymore.

Bernie doesn't get it either? Should I find other Republicans that he is personal friends with? We all know they are out there.

It's an absurd purity test that no politician can pass.

Edit: Holy ****. Bernie is friends with Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who (i) brought a snowball into a Senate proceeding on climate change; (ii) supported an amendment banning same sex marriage; and (iii) proposed to make English the national language of the United States and require that new citizens take an English proficiency test.

I guess Bernie is out.

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...-i-are-friends

dth, now that we know Bernie DOESN'T GET IT in your opinion since he is friends with one of the most deplorable senators, who should we support in the Democratic primary?

I was replying to Ben Stiller.

I think it's absolutely ok to be friends with lawyers.

I'm really dying to hear dth's take on Bernie's relationship with Jim Inhofe.

Is/was dth a Bernie supporter? I don't think this kind of purity test really comes from the Bernie wing.

I actually don't know, and I'm not trying to accuse Bernie supporters specifically of demanding purity tests. My point is that if Bernie can't pass dth's ridiculous purity test, then no Democratic presidential candidate has any prayer of passing it.

To be clear, I don't think anyone should take Bernie's friendship with Inhofe into account when deciding whether to vote for him.

Just being facetious.

The point was that if the purity tests have reached the point where even good old RBG is getting shade for having civil relationships with conservatives, then one of the dem nominees should just come flat out and say screw civility - all republicans are evil mother*******. Who knows, might be a winning strategy in this political climate.

Bernie just keeps his friends close and his enemies closer. He's way smarter than people think. As soon as it becomes politically expedient he'll make Inhofe eat that snowball

Nah an uncivil candidate would never have a chance in a general election...

Bernie can get ****ed for being friends with Inhone

But seriously I'm still a Bernie-stan and will vote for him, so the get ****ed is temporary. Booker sucks hard in many areas in addition to grabbing pints with Grassley so he's perma****ed

LOL touche.

But do dems want to go full Trump? I'd like to think not.

I honestly think when Biden says he gets along with Republicans (even Pence), that helps him in the election because a lot of moderate dems/independents are sick of the hyper-partisan craziness we've got now.

The word moderate can have a lot of meanings here and I'm not confident it's being used well. Like, "let's fix ObamaCare" instead of "M4A" has nothing to do with this.

I agree about independents though. A lot of people hate politics and everyone getting mad all the time is part of that.

Sure, but how will that play out when Trump calls him Pedo Joe on twitter and at every rally? Will Biden be able to stay on message and keep his composure then? No ****ing way. He's not cut out for this ****

I'm suggesting that's not true. Bernie is not Dem candidate least likely to be friends with Republicans. He's the most dissimilar policy-wise, but that's not the same thing.

I should also further clarify that my contention with Booker sharing his deep friendship and great respect to Grassley was also the forum and public manner it was done in; i.e., the farce that was the Kavanaugh hearing where the Republicans were clearly pushing through a serial sexual assaulter to the highest court in the land. I don't like that Ginsburg and Bernie consider some pretty deplorable people friends, and yes I think the time has come in our discourse for strong democrats to have such strict purity tests for their friends, but overall I'm not burying Ginsburg's great accomplishments or canceling Bernie.

Perhaps, but if you think there is a Democratic candidate for president who is not personal friends with any Republicans, just tell me who it is and I'll prove you wrong in five minutes.

And even if you are correct, according to dth, Bernie's friendship with Inhofe means that he just DOESN'T GET IT. I'm sure you don't endorse that opinion.