SANDERS 2020 is seriously dangerous <3

[Wombaticus Rex]

Very much agree with Willow and bks.

Speaking of old times, Jesus, as I get older I wish I could change my mind more often. The past year has been really good in that respect. On Bernie, though, nothing changes.

Your assessment is dead on; he's about as serious as Ben Carlson.

Nobody on his staff seems to think this is a serious bid for anything but raising his national profile to increase his clout in DC. It's a PR campaign; it is not a presidential campaign.

Edit: I want to state things strongly and clearly. The cynicism of this bothers me.

Bernie Sanders is going to spend the next 12 months promoting Facebook memes about "inequality" -- forgive me if I don't think being an info-warrior means much in the filter bubble echo chamber that is Big Blue -- and all of those memes will feature his fucking face. Bernie Sanders is working with a ghostwriter on a book. If not for the seriousness of the issues he is discussing, this would be Herman Cain level shit.

Bernie Sanders is going to be fundraising for a campaign he not only knows he won't win, but won't even seriously pursue. He is going to burn donations from idealists until it's time, inevitably, to get in line and support Hillary 2016.

Well, not nothing. At the time, I thought Bernie's main role was a spoiler against Warren -- I definitely changed my mind on that front.

So who is he really campaigning against? Elizabeth Warren. He's doing the Clinton family a big favor with this. And I get to spend a whole year watching people praise him for his courage and vision and message.

Whatever. Hopefully I get some contracts out of it, right? Let it burn, let it burn.

I managed to avoid any political work since then, which is a glorious turn of events and I'm grateful for it every day.

[JackRiddler]

For all that you guys say he's a fake-out candidate who was never meant to challenge a thing, and who turned into a prop for the Democrats as planned, it's weird how the Tammany mob* seem to think they have to keep killing him ritually, and never get enough of that. (SURRENDER, DOROTHY!)

* Referring to New York State Board of Election decision today to keep Sanders off the presidential ballot on June 23, even though Sanders asked to stay on (having only "suspended") so as to pick up delegates, and although this was not requested by the DNC (directly) or the Biden campaign. Since it's New York, talk of Tammany becomes almost literal. The election is being held anyway, because of the many down-ballot races, and that's probably what the power-brokers are thinking. They want to suppress turnout to harm the many progressive challengers in the Congressional primaries, and maybe even get to punish AOC. Corporate media are obediently pulling the total lie that this is virus-related, even though the election has not been canceled, only Sanders has been removed. We are all supposed to be mailed REQUESTS for mail-in ballots. And the election will still be held live, also. Hilarities.

Meanwhile we have Tara Reade's mother posthumously confirming (via the Larry King show tape) that Reade was telling the same story already in the 1990s; and now a friend has stepped forward to corroborate this. This makes her claim more solid than Christine Blasey Ford's (whom I also believed, because this stuff is common!). It is still not how big political decisions should be made, but fuck them, we don't have a sensible let alone remotely democratic system. And it's deadly anyway. The most important thing remains that Biden is cognitively incapable of answering any of the accusations against him in a coherent fashion. It's an absurdly transparent fraud. Even though the Ds are ready to lose, they're still almost certainly going to be forced to swap him out before the final show. This is another reason to minimize Sanders delegates at a convention -- assuming that isn't on Zoom, in which case they will just switch "exit call" with "raise hand."

.

[8bitagent]

In a perfect world, it would be a Bernie/Nina Turner ticket. Was depressing seeing Nina Turner on a recent radio show saying she's essentially been cast aside, and definitely wasnt invited to be part of any Biden/Bernie task force. Nina is the sort of revolutionary campaign coordinator that Im shocked any "Democrat" candidate including Bernie would have given her speaking truth to power in a way that we rarely see(sorry Chomsky)

Biden is literally the most lucky of luckiest Democrat election year candidates of all time, probably since Clinton in 1992 had Ross Perot to siphon votes from GHWB. Here Biden is in shocking mental decline, who won big against Sanders in states where Biden didnt spend a dime or both campaigning in. He's getting the bin Laden basement tape treatment(even luckier, Dr Jill speaks for him most of the time) The "Metoo/TimesUp" movement pretty much wrapped up when Harvey went to prison, just in time for Democrats to ignore Tara Reade and lord knows what other skeletons are to come out of the closet.

So many Democrat voters were urged to risk their lives in March and April to vote for Joe Biden. Republican's Game Show death cult may muse about chlorox, but Democrat party big wigs were urging people to wait endless hours in a deadly pandemic to vote for the guy responsible for destroying black communities through 80s/90s racist drug sentencing bills he personally introduced...a man who helped cheerlead Bush's wars and then personally lead Obamas wars(including Libya, that destroyed the country and lead to the reopening of black slave markets for the first time in a century) Biden, who continually voted to cut social security and repeatedly says he doesnt care at all about young people. Democrats forget Obama deported millions of Latinos and was the one who invented the migrants in cages optic.

There is literally nothing "Orange Cheeto" and the MAGA cult can do or say to make me vote for Biden as the "lesser of two evils". Because at that point, massive general strikes and a dismantling of the entire rotten political system is the only thing that makes sense if both ruling parties are owned by the oil/weapons/pharma/wall street hooligans. Bernie lied about being a revolutionary. I hate to say it, but he took impressionable youth and progressive's money in a time when they sure could have used that money...and now is urging everyone to bow before and pay fealty to a corrupt political party and a senile predator warmonger creature of wall street.

[stickdog99]

Very much agree with Willow and bks.

Speaking of old times, Jesus, as I get older I wish I could change my mind more often. The past year has been really good in that respect. On Bernie, though, nothing changes.

Your assessment is dead on; he's about as serious as Ben Carlson.

Nobody on his staff seems to think this is a serious bid for anything but raising his national profile to increase his clout in DC. It's a PR campaign; it is not a presidential campaign.

Edit: I want to state things strongly and clearly. The cynicism of this bothers me.

Bernie Sanders is going to spend the next 12 months promoting Facebook memes about "inequality" -- forgive me if I don't think being an info-warrior means much in the filter bubble echo chamber that is Big Blue -- and all of those memes will feature his fucking face. Bernie Sanders is working with a ghostwriter on a book. If not for the seriousness of the issues he is discussing, this would be Herman Cain level shit.

Bernie Sanders is going to be fundraising for a campaign he not only knows he won't win, but won't even seriously pursue. He is going to burn donations from idealists until it's time, inevitably, to get in line and support Hillary 2016.

Well, not nothing. At the time, I thought Bernie's main role was a spoiler against Warren -- I definitely changed my mind on that front.

So who is he really campaigning against? Elizabeth Warren. He's doing the Clinton family a big favor with this. And I get to spend a whole year watching people praise him for his courage and vision and message.

Whatever. Hopefully I get some contracts out of it, right? Let it burn, let it burn.

I managed to avoid any political work since then, which is a glorious turn of events and I'm grateful for it every day.

LOL at Sanders' being run to spoil for Elizabeth Warren's bid. In what universe did Warren's bid need spoiling? Her baggage, personality, and especially political instincts make Sanders' look like Obama's.

While Sanders and his recent Presidential campaigns have all the foibles their detractors here suggest and more, excuse me if I do not buy into the revisionist history of the Democratic party establishment's "inevitable" leftward drift with or without Sanders. For whatever reason, the US electorate can only get passionate about Presidential politics, and for whatever reason, this "passion" historically consists of nothing but meaningless fretting about which "designer" candidate can appeal to the largest number of "moderate" voters.

In contrast, Sanders and Sanders' entire campaign focused almost exclusively on fundamental issues of inequality and still proved to be a viable political fundraising juggernaut. And many young people who would have otherwise ignored politics completely or else engaged only in the 4 year ritual of fretting about which "designer" candidate could best lead their preferred political "team" to "victory" have been awakened to the fact that the current US two party system has been wholly captured by oligarchs and corporate interests whose sole political agenda consists of continuing to rig the system to their benefit.

Of course, this is old news to all of us jaded commentators here. While the obviousness of this still escapes the collective consciousness of our professional managerial class, Sanders' campaigns have exposed the hypocrisy and mendacity of our oligarchs more starkly to more young people than perhaps anything since the Vietnam War, IMHO. I mean, what politician (or even influential political actor) dared even to call them oligarchs in public before Sanders did?

[bks]

LOL at Sanders' being run to spoil for Elizabeth Warren's bid. In what universe did Warren's bid need spoiling? Her baggage, personality, and especially political instincts make Sanders' look like Obama's.

100% agree. Sanders, whose political instincts are trash as well, tried to get Warren to run as far back as 2013.


Bernie Sanders won't rule out presidential bid, touts Elizabeth Warren

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/pr ... AAcc3Xn740

[Wombaticus Rex]

It was very funny to read that again on this end, as well.

All I knew about Warren at the time was that friends in HRC's camp were very concerned about her. Came to find out that was more about vanity and paranoia than any semblance of killer instinct.

In contrast, Sanders and Sanders' entire campaign focused almost exclusively on fundamental issues of inequality and still proved to be a viable political fundraising juggernaut. And many young people who would have otherwise ignored politics completely or else engaged only in the 4 year ritual of fretting about which "designer" candidate could best lead their preferred political "team" to "victory" have been awakened to the fact that the current US two party system has been wholly captured by oligarchs and corporate interests whose sole political agenda consists of continuing to rig the system to their benefit.

I agree but that's the point, right? His deal is he gets a bigger platform to discuss his pet issues in exchange for keeping all of that energy, momentum and money away from third parties and their candidates. I'm not saying Bernie is completely disingenuous -- he wants to talk about those issues, all day, every day.

But he's also very witting about the deal he made, and who he made it with.

[stickdog99]

It was very funny to read that again on this end, as well.

All I knew about Warren at the time was that friends in HRC's camp were very concerned about her. Came to find out that was more about vanity and paranoia than any semblance of killer instinct.

In contrast, Sanders and Sanders' entire campaign focused almost exclusively on fundamental issues of inequality and still proved to be a viable political fundraising juggernaut. And many young people who would have otherwise ignored politics completely or else engaged only in the 4 year ritual of fretting about which "designer" candidate could best lead their preferred political "team" to "victory" have been awakened to the fact that the current US two party system has been wholly captured by oligarchs and corporate interests whose sole political agenda consists of continuing to rig the system to their benefit.

I agree but that's the point, right? His deal is he gets a bigger platform to discuss his pet issues in exchange for keeping all of that energy, momentum and money away from third parties and their candidates. I'm not saying Bernie is completely disingenuous -- he wants to talk about those issues, all day, every day.

But he's also very witting about the deal he made, and who he made it with.

True. But all things are relative. We have no saviors in US politics as far as I can tell, just as we have none in medicine or for that matter any applied science. And, at least to date. that includes any and all third parties and their candidates.

IIRC, the last major party Presidential candidate who talked about Sanders' "pet issues" even half as much as Sanders did was Jesse Jackson. And before Jackson there was this other guy who got shot after winning the CA primary. That's three Presidential candidates in the last 50+ years.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Bernie didn't need to be a "Savior" -- those are myths anyway -- he needed to be a serious candidate.

In one sentence: if Bernie wanted to win in 2020 he would have run as an independent.

Instead...

[Belligerent Savant]

.

In one sentence: if Bernie wanted to win in 2020 he would have run as an independent.

Damn right. In that respect he may be more deserving of ire than TRUMP. Sanders willingly took dollars from idealistic, largely young, or otherwise frustrated would-be voters, KNOWING he had no chance as an f'ing Democrat.

Trump is an asshole, but he doesn't hide the fact he's an asshole.

[mentalgongfu2]

In what world would Sanders have stood a better chance running as an Independent or on a third-party ticket?

While I would like to consider it is possible to be successful doing so in America, the evidence of every election since long before I was born argues against this.

Why do you think an independent Bernie would have stood a chance in our current system, and a better one than pinning himself to the Democratic Party?

[Belligerent Savant]

.

It's a good question. And you're right: the current system is not set up for 3rd Party success. But he would have been far less encumbered as an Independent; he would have had the best chance of any candidate, given his base of support, to have truly posed a challenge. Would he have won as an Independent? The probability is no. But it's a moot point as the version of Bernie that would run as an independent is the version that was truly interested in winning, and therefore, would always have a better chance than the version that we observed.

In other words, stating that Bernie had the best chance to win as an independent is no less fanciful than stating that Bernie was truly interested in winning. He was never in it to win it.

[EDIT - see WRex's more concrete response below]

[Wombaticus Rex]

In what world would Sanders have stood a better chance running as an Independent or on a third-party ticket?

While I would like to consider it is possible to be successful doing so in America, the evidence of every election since long before I was born argues against this.

Why do you think an independent Bernie would have stood a chance in our current system, and a better one than pinning himself to the Democratic Party?

All the DNC did was fuck him.

Would Bernie have had a hard time getting name recognition? Would Bernie have had difficulty building a mailing list? Would Bernie have been challenged to build a national network for his campaign? Would Bernie have struggled to get press coverage? Or garner donations?

No candidate in US history I can think of was better positioned to run as an independent than Bernie Sanders after 2016. He would have been justified in doing it, he already had a built-in base that's still loyal to him even after he betrayed them twice, and he's already a household name coast to coast.

So, yes. And the fact he never even considered it speaks volumes about what he was actually here to do.

[Joe Hillshoist]

In what world would Sanders have stood a better chance running as an Independent or on a third-party ticket?

While I would like to consider it is possible to be successful doing so in America, the evidence of every election since long before I was born argues against this.

Why do you think an independent Bernie would have stood a chance in our current system, and a better one than pinning himself to the Democratic Party?

I agree. To a point.

Maybe he could have run as an independent this time on the back of last time if he'd played the last four years right and spent a lot of time identifying then talking about problems and specifically how he planned to fix them.

But that would have taken (the last) four years of effort.

Maybe he didn't expect it plan to win. Maybe he just wanted to associate idealistic young people with the Democrats in the hope they'd take over eventually and do something useful with the party?

[bks]

Would Bernie have struggled to get press coverage?

He would not have, but the media coverage independent Bernie would have gotten would have been the most vicious, scurrilous brand imaginable. He ran as a Democrat, and a Foxified MSNBC took him apart. As an independent, he'd have been cast as Attila the Communist. No chance he wins.

Ironically, that may have been fine, if he actually gave a shit about a radical winning down the line, which would take the building of an electoral movement. With his resources and cultural standing, it would be quite possible for him to make the cable press into the villain it certainly is, drawing on Trump's playbook but doing so more intelligently, pointing out that the nightly smear job was really about keeping people from power, not him, and showing the degree to which Maddow and the others are simply propagandists dead set on pushing through another centrist/corporatist/(and ultimately, a serial confabulating senile rapist centrist corporatist) in order to further starve the heartland and mismanage the pandemic and climate crisis, etc. etc. Several months of that, with hundreds of millions in small donations coming in (much of which he wouldn't have to spend trying to win something he was never going to win), and poll numbers in the mid-to-high teens nationally, would have solidified a radical movement that would make presidential Democratic party victories impossible going forward without that movement's say-so. That hundreds of millions could have been used to build the foundations of a movement responsive to real need in the society - it would just take vision. In September and October, a lot of money WOULD have to be spent electorally to make sure you got out the vote in those communities you've been responding to for a year already, to at least achieve the 5% margin needed for matching funds and public viability. Might have some actual leverage then. But not now.

[Elvis]

After 2016 Sanders consistently polled as "the most popular politician in America" by far. An independent run would have had meat. I'd kinda like to see him do it now.

Is there, um, a Jesse Ventura thread?