“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said.
“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders asked.
“Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”
Jesus Christ still more sharp than Trump or Biden. We got fuckin robbed, man.
Twice too.
Thrice you might say, considering we could have had a primary this time too but for Biden’s hubris
Robbed twice, still tries to help people. Can’t say that about most politicians.
Now is about the time of year I remember to say “Fuck Debbie Wasserman Shultz”
I would vote for Bernie in a heartbeat.
He seems to always be on the right side of history, he understands the root causes of our national crises, and he has solutions.
Problem: Two-party system, voter apathy.
Solution: Ranked choice voting, remove electoral college (popular vote interstate compact).
Problem: Bought elections.
Solution: Repeal Citizens United.
Problem: Federal deficit spending.
Solution: Reform government contracts with private corpos so we’re not getting gouged. Repurpose military budget. Tax the rich.
Problem: Ignorant and misinformed voting population.
Solution: More school funding, pay teachers more.
Problem: All surplus value is siphoned away from the working class.
Solution: Tax incentives for employee-owned companies. More support for unions.
Problem: Consumer price gouging.
Solution: Break up monopolies, punish anti-competitive behavior.
Problem: Irresponsible banking.
Solution: Un-repeal Glass-Steagall.
Problem: Expensive healthcare.
Solution: Universal healthcare. Don’t even try to tell me we can’t afford it.
yeah but how can we get any of those solutions when fascists keep getting elected?
I think ranked choice voting and the popular vote interstate compact can happen at the state level. Just needs more local campaigning.
Then people would feel more empowered to vote for who they really want. I think that would be a big push towards nominating an actual progressive candidate.
None of that stuff is going to happen, unfortunately, not while the Rs control everything. And it’s not official but it looks like they’re going to win the house too. So they’re going to run buckshot on this country with no one to stop them. They’ll control all 3 branches.
None of it happened while Ds had any modicum of control either. Bernie represents what the democratic party should be, not what it is and has been. They pivoted hard to the status quo and we are footing the bill.
I honestly feel like this must be how partys flip. The Democrats are the Republicans of the seventies, the new conservative party.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the Republican party hasn’t exactly moved left, and is the biggest hole in my theory. Who knows maybe this populism will pave a path forward for them.
The Republican party has moved left in rhetoric. The promise to fix everything and put America first. Create all the jobs. The best economy!
The will not do it. But that is irrelevant.
They need to swing for the fences more. Don’t just bring forward the items that might pass, bring up the bills that really matter, again and again, and put that in an ad. I’m probably more politically in-tuned than most voters (clearly) and I only know of ONE vote to raise the minimum wage during Bidens term. It should’ve been a dozen votes and then Dems get to say they were fighting for the working class while the GOP gets paid to show up and say “No” to everything.
I fucking love Bernie. He needs a protege.
Not positive, but I think AOC is the closest thing right now in terms of message and visibility.
She should start a Democratic Socialist party as a leader, with Bernie as the spiritual leader/Grandpa. Start convincing sitting Democrats to switch parties. Now is the time
Too soon. Wait 2 years.
Bernie Sanders is talking that shit.
Almost like he could have saved this whole scenario in 2016. Fuckin DNC kiss the ring Hillary bullshit.
Why isn’t he running for president? Or he just never won the primaries?
Because the dnc would rather lose running center right to right wing policies than be actually progressive.
We don’t deserve Bernie. He’s to pure to be infected by being president. With that said, I’d give my left nut to see Bernie in the oval office
The typo is staying just to annoy you grammar nazis. I know the difference in to, too, two. You can suck our collective too nuts
If it meant my testicle for un-gerrymandering the voting districts, ranked-choice voting, and abolishing “first-past-the-post”, you can call me the one nut wonder, brother.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said in a statement Wednesday. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
Dems 100% sold them out and assumed they’d still vote D as long as a handful of issues were different.
The worse the Republicans got, the worse Dems got. Because they could get away with it and it increased donations.
The thing is it just energizes republicans and depresses Dem turnout.
If the goal is winning elections is a terrible strategy.
If you only care about money and the election is just a grift to you tho, it’s a win/win. The result of the election doesn’t really matter.
and now the ratchet effect will kick in again:
“See? The people WANT the republicans. That’s why they keep electing republicans. Therefore, if we want to be competitive, we must become more like republicans.”
That is the only lesson they are ever capable of winning. If they win, it’s because they were like the Republicans so they should be more like the Republicans. If they lose, ti’s because they weren’t like the Republicans enough.
The Democratic base, and i say this as someone who willingly voted straight D ticket and has for a long time, keeps trying to kick the football and the Democratic Party keeps yanking it back at the last second. Every time.
There was never really that much risk of Dems losing voters to the Repubs (at least as long as Trump was the R candidate). The real damage came from Dems losing enthusiasm.
This. I just had a very long argument with someone else that completely and utterly failed to grasp this simple concept. Trump ran as the most conservative conservative ever and his base loved him for it. Harris ran as the most conservative liberal ever and her base gritted their teeth and grudgingly trudged to the polls. And then the DNC is shocked and flabbergasted that they didn’t get a better turnout.
The thing that has driven me crazy for so long is this is the situation in America.
There are 70M Americans that will vote Republican and nothing will ever change their minds
There are 70M Americans that will vote Democrat and nothing will ever change their minds
There are a couple million independent undecided voters that everyone goes after
Then there are 100M+ people that sit out the election and no one seems to try to understand what would make them vote. It’s so crazy that we have just decided that there are red states and blue states and that’s how it is. A party that could retain some of either party while activating half the people that sit out would be a force to reckon with.
As the Democratic Party has tried to find some way to win again they have gone after which group? The handful of independents and the 70M republicans that aren’t going to vote for them ever. And the people sitting it out probably aren’t looking for them to shift right, if so they would be republicans.
I think this is a bit naive. Both partys will have done their homework and have a fairly good idea what it is those disenfranchised voters want. The problem is is what they want is at odds with what the party’s big donors want.
Naive is the Democratic party’s current position of favoring those donors over voters.
I understand that they’ve done a cynical calculus and decided to leave those voters on the sidelines. It is a failing strategy that successfully got them billions of dollars and lost the election.
It is not that I do not understand the deeper reason, it is that I reject it as a failure.
To be fair, they should’ve voted Dem, but instead sat out against their own best interest.
The electorate is incredibly fucking stupid.
The strategy made sense to anyone with half a brain. It seems I overestimated the median American, though.
You’re right. Lot of people sat out because of inflation, which was driven by corporate greed, which of course a Republican is not going to address. The electorate needs a fucking education. Prices have stopped climbing aggressively. They’re not going to go back down. Wage growth is the next step, which is another thing a Republican will not address. Americans cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Dems had 3 years and change to address insane profiteering and price gouging that started with COVID “supply chain issues” which was wrapped under the guise of inflation and record profits. Where’s that bill again?
Kamala made 1 mention of a plan to scrutinize this issue and then backed down because of some potential backlash.
There’s education and there’s gaslighting. Your point is the latter.
Remind me again when Biden had a supermajority in Congress?
Edit: That’s what I thought.
Just didn’t get to responding to this ignorant take.
Dems’ job is go out and get votes by appealing to their voters. The fact that Dems haven’t had a super majority in the decades past as our protections, economy and civil liberties are under attack means that they are absolutely terrible at their jobs and you just made my point for me.
You clearly didn’t think anything through. :-)
Haha it took you this long to come up with this shit take?
Better give yourself a month next time.
Then their job was to be sure we all knew they were not ignoring it even if there was little they could do.
Their job was to demonstrate that they knew what was happening, had a plan to address it, and their plan was being blocked by politicians who had none of that. They didn’t even try and i don’t think they ever really wanted to. Same with Obama bailing out the banks and leaving the regular people with the bill during the financial crash of 2008. (That was in no small part Bush’s fault, but he didn’t even try something different.)
I think one way the party screwed up was by not cultivating younger Democrats to contend for the nomination this year. It’s not like 2024 or Biden’s age snuck up on anybody - they should have had a slate of viable options ready besides him. The Harris campaign was brilliantly run, especially on such short notice, and I don’t blame her or the campaign one bit for failing. But as many analysts have pointed out, the public didn’t feel like they knew her - the VP is surprisingly not super visible. One thing Trump had in his favor was that he was “the devil you know”. He had already been President and we’re still here, whereas they didn’t feel they knew Harris. I thought that changed radically as the summer went on. She really seemed to grab everybody. It was electric and exhilarating. But apparently not enough.
This man has always cooked. I wish Dems had the ball to let him have the ticket both times he was snubbed despite cooking what needed to cooked.
Damn ivory tower liberal dems.
They aren’t even liberals. They don’t have the guts anymore to be actual liberals. They’re slaves to their corporate owners.
Like I give a fuck about whatever Bernie says at a time like this. Shut up and stop acting like you know what’s best for us, this is some fine Monday morning QB that’s completely unhelpful. Come at me Bernie bros.
Edit: Looks like the Bernie Bros do know how to vote after all! Just not where it matters. Shame on those who sat out the election in 2016 and 2024 to enable the slide towards fascism. Shame on those who didn’t vote because of Gaza. Gaza and Ukraine are fucked now because of people like you. You do not have the moral high ground. Keep the downvotes coming, it means I struck a nerve. Shame on you. I sincerely hope the leopards come for you first.
Who do you want to listen to? The dem strategists that failed miserably?
Rings a bit hollow. Biden stood up for unions, did not interfere with strikes, and always sided with the worker.
The other party… celebrating layoffs, cutting the fat, blocking unions.
So sure, maybe they could be better. But to say they abandoned the American worker, thats a bit of a stretch.
Love Bern, but right now he’s playing Monday morning QB.
My guy, Biden blocked a railroad workers strike because it endangered corporate interests, and he didn’t give them a key piece they were asking for: paid sick leave.
Not trying to be rude, the media cycle buried that result.
The unions got the sick leave, after the media reported the strike ended without it.
It was accomplished a couple weeks later, if I recall correctly.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
4, not the 7 they wanted or deserved. he doesn’t get any credit for this. he broke the strike weakening their position.
I’m partially agreeing, I want to point out that they did get 7 days allotted.
Not all 7 of those are from sick time, so you’ve got a point.
I find it a reach to say the administration gets no credit when it’s definitely been assigned to them on multiple fronts for the effort.
Congress was involved here too. Do you think our president should be a despot?
Were you directly involved in negotiations?
The people who were directly involved, gave the Biden administration credit for an assist.
Dig deeper the people who gave credit were the same members who didn’t support the strike in the first place. iirc.
I blame everyone involved who voted to break the strike. don’t try to assert for me things I havent asserted.
So you don’t acknowledge when you’re wrong, and will continue to move goalposts. You’re taking a defensive posture.
It’s becoming clear now.
You’re a bad faith actor.
You’re of course welcome to continue believing that. Thats of course your prerogative. But I’m just going to point to the results since they speak for themselves.
Harris is missing 20million votes. You were warned and decided that arguing with me about the lesser evil ‘optimal voting strategy’ than realizing the danger harris was putting you in was a good idea. 👍 Good job. Now go convince those 20million other individuals since you’ve failed here.
You know what they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. (I know you struggle with analogies, you’re the 🐴)
That’s some nonsense from Bernie. Unions have fared better under Biden than any President for decades, and Bernie knows it. This is posturing image-burnishing for the naive; you think Bernie doesn’t market himself to all the young progressives? Then, when the cameras are off, he turns into a garden-variety Democrat, voting solidly with this elitist-run party every time, without pouting and making protest votes or anything like that.
That’s a pretty dishonest description of Bernie. I don’t dare to say if your statement about unions is true, and it might as well be, but what Bernie is saying here is that it’s not enough. He’s arguing the democrats need to be more progressive. Feel free to disagree with his suggestion though.
I do think that the bigger problem is that the average person lacks the general understanding of how policies affect their lives. They want simple answers and Trump is giving them that. People are shortsighted and have a hard time grasping the bigger picture, and rather vote based on a gut feeling.
We can disagree about Bernie. I think it’s deeply cynical of him to point the finger he’s pointing.
You are very right about simple answers vs annoying complexity, and this is a systemic problem the Democrats will always face. Being based in reality and choosing to try to solve actual issues instead of simplified strawmen means the Democrats never will have an appealing story to tell, for most folks.
I think what he is getting at is that democrats could be more “aggressive” in how to appeals to the working class people. These subtle policies that have marginal benefit don’t have enough perceived impact.
Democrats could promise something simple and with clear benefits to common folks, something that can be easily understood. People want change. I think Bernie was almost getting there when he was running.
MAGA fans have jumped on the bandwagon of “sticking it to the man”, and “draining the swamp”. Which is kind of what Bernie wants to do but sincerely, with a track record to prove it.
Edit: added “perceived “
The Inflation Reduction Act could hardly be less marginal. It is about as massive a thing that directly helps the working class in this country that the government is capable of doing. Right up there with the ACA which, shock, also brought by Democrats.
The reason the Dems lose is about messaging, and about media fear. Dems have a “we’re all weak so we need each other” message, while the GOP has a “you’re super strong and you’re being held down by the system” message. No need to prove it, and it sounds great to anyone with even a single complaint about anything.
The media fear is about fighting accusations of bias, which the GOP throws around as standard operating procedure. Lie about it all the time and people will accept it as true, and so the media treats the GOP with kid gloves. Pointing out lies gets called bias, instead of reporting the truth. The demands for “Harris to get specific with policy proposals” was a bunch of horseshit, because she was very specific. Trump gave no specifics, answered no questions, and skated on it all.
Dems gave up on the working class after nafta and have stayed that way ever since
Not under Biden.
Clinton fucked the party over with NAFTA, and sided with big business. Biden did not: Biden did more for workers and the working class than any other President since FDR.
But he doesn’t get credit for it, because people don’t pay attention. They remember he ordered the railroad workers back to work, and say it proves he’s anti-labor. They didn’t really follow up on the fact that a few weeks later, his administration helped get them the new contract that gave them more paid sick days than they had originally asked for. But the story was long out of the news by then.
I can’t stand idiot liberals who don’t read past headlines and drift with the news wind.
I can’t stand idiot liberals who don’t read past headlines and drift with the news wind.
That describes most voters. Either you find a way to reach them or you lose
I don’t buy this. In Nebraska there was an election between an independent union leader and a career politician. The union leader lost.
The consensus seems to be that people that voted democrat in 2020 voted republican this time because they experienced inflation under Biden that think it was his fault.
In Nebraska
Uh, that’s your answer. It’s not a magic incantation to win regardless of the odds, but in a presidential election that’s by default 50/50?
If the problem was that democrats did not support the working class enough then why didn’t the union leader win? This isn’t magic or rocket science. Many people thought democrats were responsible for the high inflation because they don’t know macro economics.
It’s not a magic incantation to win regardless of the odds
Sorry, I guess I should have said this twice. You don’t win Nebraska just by touching up the progressive message a little. Propaganda still exists, party loyalty still exists, racism still exists. But he did a hell of a lot better than any slow and steady liberal candidate would do. And in races that aren’t in deep red states, doing better is enough to win.
I think what’s missing is the anger. Trump can tap into anger. Bernie could also. The independent didn’t have the base of anger that the GOP did
Anger definitely motivated some but I know many moderates that were convinced democrats were responsible for the inflation.
But they were right! Dems did contribute to inflation (not as much as Trump but still)…Student loan forgiveness not explicitly tied to higher taxes on rich and corps, cutting back on subsidies to defense, oil, and corn syrup, while also not breaking up monopolies which create an environment of price gouging gave merit to the “democrats give out free cash and devalue it all”
Democrats did cause inflation. They did it by not clipping the wings of our oligarchs when supplying aid.
Biden kept his promise “nothing will fundamentally change” and the American electorate unimpeachably rejected it.
The main thing with Sanders campaign was it didn’t feel like a “democrats” vs “republicans”
It was us vs the billionaires
But the DNC could never bear to alienate their biggest donors.
Biden was calling out price gouging throughout his whole presidency.
Harris lost this election because she said she was going to tax the billionaires and so they funded the campaign against her.
For you to throw her under the bus after the billionaires campaigned against her is just going to ensure no future politicians will challenge the billionaire class again.
Harris had more billionaire donors than Trump and she out-raised him almost by $700 million. Of course there was plenty of dark money floating around and Musk dropped a ton of money into Pennsylvania, but don’t act as if Biden and Harris were working class darlings. Calling out price gouging is all good and well, and realistically, there’s only so much the president can do legally to combat inflation, but he did have the bully pulpit and a little bit of lip service to price gouging was not enough obviously. He could’ve been out there daily essentially doxing these companies and their ceos putting the fear of God in them.
Populism is a dirty word to the establishment, but both Trump and Bernie are populists. In fact, the first part of their message is essentially the same: America is going to shit, the Economy is terrible, and you’re getting fucked. The difference, of course, is that Trump points the finger at immigrants and others as the reason why this happening, while Bernie points the finger at the Oligarchs. The true power of populism is the threat of using the majority against the minority. It’s why it can lead to violence and mob rule.
People want someone to pay for the pain they are feeling, Trump is doing that, although of course it’s completely misguided and fucked up. The Democrats are not willing to do that. At some point, they’re going to need a Teddy Roosevelt like figure who comes along and essentially says to them, “hey listen I know it’s crazy, but if we don’t do something about the wealth inequality and the ruling class, we’re all gonna get our heads chopped off.”
