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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Well, here's your problem.
Republicans, by and large, want Trump.
Democratic voters, by and large, want to make sure that Trump loses (much like the person he is), and would like any candidate that can offer a high probability of that happening. Biden has already beat Trump once, and has, overall, been a pretty decent president. (Yes, the Israel thing is a mess, I know. From the river to the sea, etc.) Dems might prefer a younger candidate that's better at ramming legislation through--which no Dem could do right now, not with Republicans controlling the House--but preventing a Republican victory is more important.
So that's how we've arrived here.
Bernie would be better. But we already know what the old establishment dems think of him.
Sanders, while I love the guy, is a more polarizing figure than Biden.
Biden was pretty much always going to be the nominee in 2020 for that reason: he was never anybody's favorite, but he was the one face in that field with the important distinction that while nobody really super liked him, nobody really hated him either. Cast a wide net, big tent, and all that.
While the people who like Sanders really like him, there are also a lot of people who would vote Biden to block Trump for whom being asked to vote for Sanders would be a bridge too far. Not that they'd vote for Trump instead...but they just wouldn't cast a vote for either main party candidate.
...which of course also segues neatly to the fact that Sanders isn't a Democrat, and asking the DNC to nominate someone who's not even a party member is a big ask anyway.
If Sanders is a polarizing figure, it's because democrats (and republicans, obviously) paint him that way because his policies diaagree with their donors. In reality, Sanders' policies align with the vast majority of Americans, but there's no way that'll be allowed through our bought-out election system.
Bro I'll let you try and explain the difference between communism and socialism to my boomer Conservatard father, this is your average Con, Neo-Con, and Neo-Lib, they simply often can't separate the terms, and with Bernie unabashedly displaying the socialist/democratic socialist moniker he scares the people who can't get over the red scare and the anti-communist/socialist programming they've been brainwashed with for decades, and it's specifically that kind of stuff that makes Biden the better and safer pick against Trump, plus Bernie is older than both Trump and Biden, so there is the age factor as well.
The scaremongering about communism and socialism is something both republicans and democrats benefit from. Again, neither have any interest in countering this narrative since the kind of policies that Bernie supports, which a majority of Americans do as well, are the kind of policies that republican and democrat donors do not want.
This in itself is BS, George Soros, yes Right winger Boogeyman George Soros, he supports many groups that advocate for socialism and Democratic socialism, there are a few other Democratic donors that do as well, however of course most rich folks aren't going to back candidates that operate against their interests, and pushing back against the wealthy, regulating against them and their businesses, and taxing their wealth is obviously against their own self-interests.
My point was more about the lifelong hold that cold war propaganda has on our boomers and my fellow Gen X'ers, and how it does dissuade people from accepting Bernie's stances qnd getting past how he describes his political ideology, and I say this as a 100% Bernie supporter, I'm just a realist, and the reality is that cold war propaganda still has a hold on our nation, and until we break we'll still have to deal with people like my conservatard father saying "hurr durr socialism is communism!!" despite being given shit loads of evidence to demonstrate the differences.
Biden was bragging that he was "the guy who beat the socialist" (referring to Bernie) to show how not a socialist he is. Democrats are anti-socialist. If there are democrat donors who advocate for socialism, they're crowded out by the vast majority who advocate for the opposite.
I feel like this is indicative of a general shift in the electorate in America. It's hard to be someone that most people like. It's really easy to make most people hate the other guy and then just not be him. In 2016 Clinton tried this with the pied piper strategy, but Trump did a better job of it. People know Hillary, and they don't like her. They didn't know Trump at the time, and I personally know some Bernie voters who went for Trump just because "He's not just another politician, we need a change." In 2018, 2020, and 2022, name recognition hurt Trump and the GOP. Democrats successfully positioned themselves as the people you vote for if you don't like Donald Trump, and they succeeded by a comfortable margin in 2018 and 2020. 2022, historically speaking, should have been an absolute bloodbath for Dems but Trump's polarizing dickishness drove democratic voter turnout and the GOP failed to take control of the Senate and took such a narrow majority in the house that they've been basically non-functional since then. In 2023 Glenn Youngkin was thinking about what a GOP-controlled legislature in Virginia would do for his presidential chances and then Dems overperformed again and now he's not even in the presidential picture and his agenda is being thwarted at every turn.
Now it's 2024 and each candidate is running on a platform that boils down to "vote for me, I'm not that guy that you hate and fear". It'll be interesting to see how it works out, and by interesting I mean that as a queer person I'm terrified because of all the violence.
Against Trump? Probably not. Republicans and independents that lean Republican view Sanders as a communist, which is generally a bad thing. (Sanders is more a democratic socialist, which is generally a positive thing.)
Sanders is more SocDem by policy, but I think any reasonable Socialist is a Communist as well, just with vastly different time frames for achieving Communism. The ideal of a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society is a noble goal, whether that be in 50 years, 500 years, or 5000 years.
Nah, I don't think Sanders wants actual communism. More power to the people and more corporate accountability, sure.
There are countries that already do this successfully. Don't you remember how Republicans were saying "Sanders?! Do we want to be another Sweden?!"?
I am not saying he's a Communist, rather, I'm saying he's not really a Socialist and just a Social Democrat, like Sweden.
I understand what you meant, then. Apologies, I'm an ignorant in terms of those types of definitions. When I read:
I thought "being a SocDem" and "being a Socialist" were the same thing.
It's an easy and common misconception! Social Democrats believe in Capitalism with strong safety nets, while Democratic Socialists believe in Socialism as the form of economic structure instead of Capitalism.
What I don't see talked about much is the record breaking oil extraction done under the Biden administration.
Is record breaking oil extraction actually news? Isn't that a record we've been consistently breaking since fraking was discovered? I feel like it's more "Oh shit, the money machine might be turned off soon, best run that shit as fast as we can until then" from oil execs rather than "I, as Supreme Commander of the United States, demand more oil be extracted"
I'd say it's news, as it's directly tied to the ongoing climate apocalypse.
Yeah, but the point is that Biden is neither the cause nor culprit behind the record breaking, so why put it on him?
Because he's the current president and he can do something about it.
I mean if you think the fossil fuel companies don't have close ties to whatever administration is in power, I've got some bad news.
Still missing the point. You're trying to pin it on Biden as if the record-breaking thing is a direct consequence of Biden being Biden - and "Biden bad."
No. If Trump, Zombie Kennedy, Jesus Christ or even freaking Al Gore were in power right now, the "record breaking" thing would have still happened.
So you're saying your vote doesn't matter on this issue?
Unless you find someone that can kick oil barons to the curb and change the mentality of the entire society, then no.
No. I'm not saying that. Because some presidents are worse than others on this issue. For example, Trump.
Lol.
Lol indeed.
This is the point that is lost on the "just vote" crowd. If the only candidates you can viably vote for are in the pockets of rich donors then you've already lost.
Whataboutism at its finest
then by your own admission this is lost regardless of who's in power and we need to look at where the candidates stand on other issues, such as Trump and the GOP being completely against renewable energy in any form and looking to defund the EPA
I think y'all need to protest and riot but I'm pretty far left.
oh I also think we need to riot but I remember what happened the last time I tried to have a riot all by myself and all of a sudden I'm "clearly intoxicated" and "under arrest" and "going for [the officer's] gun"
Still better than a dictatorship, no?
Doesn't really matter anymore, climate's fucked.