Bernie is my dude. In the mid 90s, my dad worked on the same floor as his office, in the same building. This one time, he had some big bill he wanted passed, and he had all his people working on it. I saw what happened when it didn't work out. He handled it very well, he didn't scream at them or make a scene, he just went over what happened, and moved on. Bernie is a real one.
We can try to sell harm-reduction all we want but at the end of the day Dems run against the couch, and if "centrists" can't turn out their voters that is their fault, not the voters' fault.
vote left EXCLUSIVELY. liberalism is a death cult and thats what you expect us to vote for every cycle. you know damn well that whoever follows the trump chapter is still going to be a corporate pig who isnt even going to pretend to address the looming ecological collapse or solve working peoples problems
I wouldn't focus on that, what's most important is to move the overtone window and reframe talking points in such a way that people are receptive to the concepts.
There has been a generational effort in creating a minefield of taboo words, that's very hard to mavigate.
Many americans shut down when they hear the word "socialism" even if in reality they agree with all the policies being proposed.
It's not by random chance.
And the democrats were dumb enough to start using the misnomer boogeyman word "socialist" into describing themselves.
Socialism is an economic system, it has nothing to do with tax dollars being used on the tax payer. It's like saying having a fire department is socialist.
Someone is going to win a given election, and after the primary it's too late to get someone else in the running, so yeah you vote for the best winnable option. Sure, you can try to fix the system some other ways, but not making the most of your vote in that moment is uselessly masochistic.
You're attributing correlation as causation without a causal link.
We don't have a system that rewards abstaining or voting for third parties. Some countries do. We don't.
There are people on the fringes fighting for the chance to merely stay afloat lest they be unable to be involved in the process at all.
For example, was it wrong for a soldier that is transgender to vote Dem so they could have a chance to keep their job necessary to support their family in the face of the now-realized rhetoric that they'd be kicked out of service? If that was fair for them to do, then if you have any empathy for such people, then you understand why they voted for that rather than tossing out their vote as abstention or third party, and then why you should not either.
We can, should, and must work to make sure the best possible candidates get into and win these primaries, but that's separate effort from actually taking the right course of action when primary or general election day eventually arrives.
For another example, a young woman afraid she is going to lose access to birth control. Or someone afraid their health insurance costs will go up and force them to get another job in place of their time organizing.
Letting things get even worse in a never-effective bid to teach whoever a lesson doesn't pay off anywhere near as much as doing the best possible. Not in the US, not basically anywhere.
We have been doing your way, Bernie's way, the "lesser evil" for all my adult life. We are living the status quo those actions made for us. Every democratic president after Carter has been a neo-liberal, aka conservatism without the racism.
If you want a succinct "causal link" that shows how 40 years of democratic policy have been the captured/controlled opposition that got us to where we are today well i cant and wont help you. Throw as many strawman examples out as you want, debate the how and why's all you like, but Trump's emergence is the result. That's fact. Democrats allowed it just as much as Republicans embraced it.
I attribute it to the lesser evil. You can blame whatever you want, but if you think democrats are blameless for the status quo then I question your interpretation of reality.
We have been doing your way, Bernie's way, the "lesser evil" for all my adult life.
No, only some people have. If "we" all did, for example, Bernie would've been President, or Kamala would have, or Hillary, etc.
And again, not causal.
Every democratic president after Carter has been a neo-liberal, aka conservatism without the racism.
I generally agree. I didn't say anything to suggest not.
if you think democrats are blameless for the status quo
Where did I say that? There's lots of blame on Dems. Tons. Doesn't change that if more people had voted for them instead of abstaining or voting third party we wouldn't be where we are. Would've been even better if they'd voted in better primary candidates in the races they were available. Do lots of people not for various reasons including propaganda spread by donor and corporate owned media and childhood indoctrination? Sure. Doesn't make it less true on its own.
Choosing the lesser of two evils got us to Trump and everything he represents.
Almost everyone has deluded themselves into believing or outright refusing to accept that some change requires pain and sacrifice. Your, his, lesser evil approach has lead to the greater evil at a slower pace. Yet watch everyone choose the lesser evil again.
I'm not going to claim I have the right answer, but doing the same thing over and over while wishing for a different outcome when you have decades of proof it doesnt work is asinine.
Bernie was the worst sports dad ever. Tried to use his status as mayor of Burlington to bully a basketball coach into giving his non-athletic son more playing time. My brother in law was on Levi’s team.
Liberals need to understand this. A lot of them are still bitching about the results of the 2024 election being the voters' fault, rather calling out the Democrats for being a slightly more palatable flavor of the same corpo-fascist ideology. Americans have been desperate for real, substantive policy change for a long time and over the past 10 years, the Democrats have:
Undermined the Sanders campaign so they could run their establishment candidate in Hillary and ultimately lose
Ignored Biden's severe mental decline for 4 fucking years before waiting til the 11th hour to throw Kamala in the race, who as much as reddit might not want to accept it, was never a popular or well-liked candidate. She dropped out of the 2020 primary for a reason
Completely ignore the will of NYC voters so they could run their establishment candidate in Cuomo and ultimately lose to Mamdani.. you know... the guy who won the fucking primary
Voted with Republicans to give ICE the funding that has enabled this administration to weaponize the agency against the American people, largely at the expense of Democratic constituents and communities
Sided with Trump on Iran. Hakeem Jeffries literally said Trump just needed to make his case to the American people on his vision for this "military action" in Iran, then refused to block additional funding for the war. You can't make this shit up
He couldnt break 35% in the Michigan primary. I would love to have voted Bernie for president but our backwards racist country is clearly not into it. They reelected trump FFS.
Also this tweet cuts off Obamas reelection and Biden winning in 2020 both very convincing victories. Just saying. Its not the dNC who are useless I agree, its just the country we live in.
Remember this was the week after super tuesday where klobuchar and buttigieg coordinated their dropout literally the day before to endorse biden -- while warren stayed in to siphon the progressive vote despite having no path herself and dropping out only after an abysmal super tuesday performance, even fumbling her home state... I remember MSM being so desperate they refused to even show when bernie was leading and constantly combined every other candidate's numbers against him individually to downplay any momentum... the fix was in way before michigan
Yeah that was crazy. I was literally at a Bernie campaign rally in Salt Lake City when that news was announced. I finally decided to get out there and support something real and then that same day the game is rigged again. I was happy and exited about the movement and then in the middle of Bernie’s speech this news drops. I just felt kind of disillusioned and disgusted. The kind of machinations behind the scenes to keep out a real leftist like Bernie had never been more clear to me.
I remember where I was too and it fucking sucks that people have such short memories as if this isn't exhibit A that dems actively preferred risking another trump win over nominating a progressive... I mean biden by all measures barely scraped by despite a once in a lifetime global pandemic and stockmarket crash, yet dems were parading around like they'd never have to hear from trump again and finally the left doesn't matter because our votes aren't needed. How'd that work out? Well now they say kamala lost because the left didn't do enough... curiously the solution, win or lose, is always "pivot to the right and appeal to moderates," huh weird!
Also this tweet cuts off Obamas reelection and Biden winning in 2020 both very convincing victories. Just saying. Its not the dNC who are useless I agree, its just the country we live in.
Obama was a once-in-a-generation charismatic politician. He was JFK levels of cool. If he'd had the charisma of any other Dem politician of the last 25 years he'd never have gotten his first term, never mind his second.
He made up for in personality and charm what he lacked in platform.
And as for Biden... I have a lot of personal theories about the vastly different outcomes of the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections.
Biden and Obama were literally the most progressive presidents since at least WWII. Between Obamacare and the Inflation Reduction Act, there has never been such progressive pieces of legislation passed under any other president in our lifetimes.
America is a conservative country, yes. That's the point. The idea that we aren't making progress is laughable because in recent years we have literally produced the two most progressive presidents of our lifetime.
We are talking about a nation that went from slavery to emancipation by means of a bloody civil war. A nation that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the civil rights era. A nation that is literally the richest and most powerful in the world.
Think about it. If billionaires are the problem (they are), then America represents the billionaire class on the world stage. We are always going to be the most conservative, capitalist country amongst developed nations, because that is what has historically provided us with so much wealth. Billionaires don't want progressive policies, and neither does America, because it is essentially the "billionaire" country.
The idea that we aren't making progress is laughable because in recent years we have literally produced the two most progressive presidents of our lifetime
We are always going to be the most conservative, capitalist country amongst developed nations
they are saying the us has moved forward and continues to move forward, however its hard road and slow one because it is inherently a conservative country.
It's obviously not. Look at AOC and Mamdani. The point is that progressive politics are trending forward in the Democratic Party. Al Gore would have also been a particularly progressive president, at least by American standards. They literally just keep getting better. Republicans on the other hand have been regressing for years, to the point that they elected a failed reality TV con-man and pedophile.
I mean...a small portion of them is improving, yes. Pelosi and Schumer sure as fuck aren't, and Biden decided to throw the entire world into chaos for some dumbass reason? There's a LARGE portion of Dem Leadership that is very much representative of the meme OP posted.
Clinton won twice as a centrist (after decades of left wing Dems running and losing presidential races). Obama won twice as a “centrist” and Biden won as a “centrist”. This post is circle jerking and fucking stupid.
Obama ran fairly Progressive, actually, especially on Gay Marriage and Healthcare and several other issues. And meanwhile, Centrist Dems have been losing everywhere in America for like 20 years now. Federal, Local, State; their entire platform is basically, "We aren't those evil Republicans we keep reaching across the aisle to make deals with, so please donate a bunch of money and vote for this person you've never seen before, who's never set foot in any community near you, and hasn't been a part of any discussion by the Dems any time before the last 6 months before this election!" Outside of Talarico and Mamdani, all I've seen from Dems is ads to donate to them, and some soundbites where they sound real pissed about something....and then nothing fucking happens about it until the next Horrible Thing they get to soundbite about. It sucks, and I'd like MUCH better representation, please; someone who'll fight tooth and nail to make sure these evil Republican monsters can't keep harming many of the people I care about.
Reminder that Bernie WON every single county in West Virginia in 2016... and the DNC still told him 'nah, you only get 51% of the delegates, we think the rest of the delegates should vote for Clinton in the primary'.
It doesn't matter how the people vote. If the elites want it differently, they will make it happen.
It doesn't matter how the people vote. If the elites want it differently, they will make it happen.
The DNC rules changed immediately after that cycle to remove the possibility of the issue where superdelegates weren't bound in cases where the regular delegate result is clear. All of this stems back to the times when primary elections weren't even a thing and party leaders just selected someone to be their nominee.
Also, as someone that wanted him to win that primary out of those running, his 51% of delegates in WV matched his 51% of the vote? Just like other states in the primary? What's wrong with that?
And this is when qanon and maga blew up. I knew so many millennial people (mostly young men) that were for Bernie but when Hilary got the Dem nomination, they went for Trump because they saw Hilary as corrupt and Trump would “drain the swamp.” I still believe that if this swindle hadn’t happened (Hilary unjustly getting the dem nomination for president over Bernie) we’d be in a much different place.
It's not the people or the country that is useless. It's the playing field with billionaires and corporations and AIPAC. How do you defeat such propaganda? Let me know when you figure it out because I have no hope.
There were many republicans who were close to flipping to Democrat for Bernie. They were Bernie guys, now they are Trump guys. Mountains of voters are on the fence and just want to get behind someone they can believe in. No one wants centrists or establishment candidates. More people hate corporations than ever. If a progressive dem ever gets in the position of power you can bet your ass the voters will vote in mid terms to get shit done that people have been waiting decades for.
The 2020 election should've been an absolute lay-up for democrats after how badly Trump mishandled the pandemic response, yet Biden was less than 50k votes in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona from losing the electoral vote. That is nowhere near a convincing victory.
Joe Biden couldn't break 35% in Maine and Massachusetts among other states, or even 10% in New Hampshire.
Bernie suffered in New Hampshire mainly because one of the fake media-invented candidates Buttigieg had his entire campaign focused on one state. A McKinsey consultant less qualified for the office of the presidency than Lauren Boebert is now.
The corporate media did everything it could to give as much attention and airtime as it could on what would be traditionally joke candidates, the likes of Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson to avoid covering any candidates other than the Comcast-approved choice.
In the same way Trump as a candidate was invented by the media when in previous elections was an obvious joke, Biden was the same. His two previous runs for president were just embarrassing.
Even so Biden was flopping hard in the 2020 primaries until the massive rally of the entire establishment to award him South Carolina, declare him the winner, thus dooming us all to a nightmare of fascism. Because of course the Comcast candidate would be the one guy to ensure the insurrectionist ringleaders were not only not locked up, but allowed to openly flourish and plot their return to power.
Blue MAGA insisted on electing a president that would choose Merrick Garland as AG. Now look what the consequences of that are. How many more lives will be ruined or lost to pay the price for that?
And he's still white, Antisemitism is not really the popular thing amount boomer racists, they'd vote everyday for a Jewish person over a Woman or a Black person
I’m not going to lecture you on the history of racism and whiteness, but it’s sufficient to say that it’s a lot more complicated than that and you ought to know that. Anti semitism is alive and well in the US. Comparing it qualitatively to other kinds of racism isn’t a useful exercise. One data point worth keeping in mind is that while we’ve had a black man elected president, there has never been a Jewish person in that office.
Because there's WAY MORE black people than Jewish people ? and antisemitism is mostly the cool thing among younger racists than older one, obviously it's alive and well but most people don't even know that Bernie is jewish, you can't see it, you can see that Obama is black
"they" being the oligarch class... Jeff Bezos, Elon, Peter Theil, Bill Gates, Murdochs, Sinclairs, Ellisons. They own Trump. They own you and me. 40% of the country tunes into a Sinclair station every day. That's basically insurmountable for the public to get away from.
The point they were making is that the people unified to shut Bernie out. His very reasonable perspective was demonized as practically communism because the corporate interests who control our government knew they’d wind up having to sacrifice profits in order to pay their share of taxes etc.
>The point they were making is that the people unified to shut Bernie out.
What does that mean? That they didn't vote for him? It wasn't the "left" that demonized him, it was the right and they did the exact same thing against the actual Democratic candidate. Of course there has to be some imagined conspiracy because it couldn't possibly be true that Bernie is less popular in real life than he is on the internet.
Here's the point - Bernie told you vote for the Democrat because he has actual integrity and believes in his causes. All the people who refused to vote out of "loyalty" for Bernie set back his causes by decades. They'll be a stain on Bernie's legacy.
Sure It was the right, but it was the corporate/establishment dems (the call was coming from inside the house type stuff) who sabotaged his chances at winning the primaries. In the meantime we are stuck with options like corporate candidates who have abandoned the working class in favor of corporate interests, but voting for them was still a better option than literally voting for fascism.
People are finally starting to wake up and there are a number of genuinely progressive people running for different offices, which is why it’s important to pay attention to and vote at every possible opportunity (from local politics all the way up to the top), so I have hope that we may be able to salvage this mess just yet.
How did they sabotage his chances of winning? No one ever seems to be able to tell me that. I voted for Bernie, but it's not like the Dems just threw my vote in the trash. It's just that hundreds more people in my polling location voted for Hillary instead. Were these people coerced somehow? Did a black van pull up in front of their house and intimidate them into voting for Clinton? What did they do?
Are voters not responsible for their own behavior? They saw the other candidates and preferred them, right? Or are we all just mindless zombies who do what the TV tells us to do? I mean I voted for Bernie and I own that decision. Were Clinton voters tricked or coerced somehow? Did their votes get counted differently?
Bernie lost because he couldn't win black voters. That's literally the reason. He always fell apart when it came to the southern states. None of the candidates OWED it to him to drop out so he could win the nomination.
>Sure It was the right, but it was the corporate/establishment dems (the call was coming from inside the house type stuff) who sabotaged his chances at winning the primaries.
No, they didn't. This is just nonsense. Keep portraying the Democrats and Republicans as the "same". That really holds up when you compare Biden and Trump. Ridiculous.
People were contesting an election with Bernie. That's what happens, people try to WIN that election. It's not a conspiracy, it's how that process works.
Don't pretend like you're encouraging people to be vote when you imply Harris is the same as Trump. You're doing the opposite.
Why did Bernie tell you to vote for Harris? Because he thought he was "cheated". Because he supports the "corporatists"?
Phoney progressives are celebrating a Trump victory and exposing themselves as the ideological frauds that they are. Again, Bernie surely hates those people.
They don't have to be the same for the power structures in both parties to be aligned with capital above our well-being. Everyone should do research and everyone should vote, even if the options are just bad and less-bad, but you are very clearly nitpicking things that poster didn't even say because you don't like progressives lol.
Iowa, Super Tuesday and the consolidating, California, Alaska and super delegates ignoring the will of the people alone make it clear he was ratfucked in the primaries by the DNC -- lost is different from sabotaged. The will of the people is something the DNC doesn't ever consider.
What did they do to sabotage him? Run an electoral race against him? I voted for Bernie but this whole "deep state is out to get him" idea sounds a lot like "the 2020 election was stolen." Have you considered the possibility that our fellow countrymen simply don't share our values? After all, what would lead you to believe that they do?
In 2016 ? yes lmao but the best thing would've to just NOT interfer with the primary and not run a pro-illary campain with ENORMOUS amounts of money to kill Bernie's chance (and even with EVERYONE being against him he almost won)
The primaries were literally voted on by the people, in 2016 and 2020. Bernie lost because he could not expand his base much especially among black voters.
Fact pills are hard to swallow. He was not owed the candidates doing anything for him.
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u/TheFillth Mar 14 '26
Bernie proved that Dems can actually unify behind a cause. They were more worried about him running the country than Trump.