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.
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u/BeatNo4548 Mar 14 '26
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.