Democrats Now Openly Admit They Pushed Biden to Block Bernie
2 years ago by TokenBoomer to c/progressivepolitics
jacobin.com
With the powers that be, I wonder how much he could have gotten done with actually fixing America. He'd be blocked everywhere by everyone with power, hell he might even have had an "accident", or caught a bullet outright.
There is something to be said for setting a precedent. I believe Bernie would have recognized that he would struggle with the major powers and so strategized to make friends and move around them, towards a larger end goal. Would there have been sweeping changes? Probably not the first four years. A second term with the groundwork? I think we may have seen things change.
You have to understand that a lot of us trust that Bernie wants what's best. If it took time and he asked us to trust him, we would. Yeah, there are arguments against this and what I spoke of further above, yet it is my belief that there would have been positive change.
I think that both what you and the other commenter have said is probably pretty accurate, but I also wanted to note that the office of the president is immensely powerful on its own.
Executive actions can have immediate changes without support from others. And having someone like Bernie in a position to set the national tone by being ‘the face’ of our politics for 4 years could certainly shift the Overton window. Bernie speaks his mind, and as the leader of the U.S., folks listen, even if he can’t pass policy. So if he spends 6 months leading up to an election talking about preference voting, ethics reform, or campaign finance - candidates and primary challengers are going to discuss those positions rather than leave them off their platform.
Those issues could shift the baseline of political power in the U.S. - if we had an election cycle or two where the president was driving national dialogue about it, voters would also choose candidates who made those things a priority - empowering - perhaps not Bernie, but maybe the next round of candidates, and possibly leading to permanent changes to our democracy.
Which is, well, very hopeful. But it illustrates what he could have done. Could have changed trajectories, rather than circling the same old drain that leads to a two party system where both parties are on the take from someone.
The lab-leak theory for the origins of the 2020 pandemic was racist disinformation; now, commentators and experts acknowledge it’s a genuine possibility.
just gonna open with that with zero supportive evidence huh? Jesus Christ.
As an expert in another field, I’ll gladly go on the record refusing to rule out almost anything that is not actually impossible. That doesn’t mean I think it happened, or even that it’s even slightly likely.
If you ask your experts “is this possible” you are not getting your money’s worth.
Was there evidence supporting the lab-leak "theory" at the time? I think there was not. And yet, Fox News was harping on this hypothesis, Trump was calling Covid the "Kung Flu", and racists were hate-criming Asian Americans in the streets. There is a reason we were saying just shut up about the lab leak at the time. (Admittedly, it might be true, but that doesn't mean its proponents in 2020 were right.)
Fauci backtracked all his previous lies about the lab leak being a conspiracy theory https://youtu.be/AqYZw1TNFZ4?t=1m38s
UsRighttoknow found evidence that a US company outsourced virus research that described covid19 to the Wuhan Lab.
Of course it's no surprise that the Wuhan Lab of Virology is responsible for the outbreak of a virus right next to it. But hey that Pangolin wet market story sounds so funny let's keep repeating it.
wtf is a fauci and what kind of source is a youtube video.
The doctor who led America through Covid as official presidential advisor. And the one responsible for lab leak being called a conspiracy theory.
Him backtracking on lab leak says everything.
For the leak documents see https://usrtk.org/...
This is so dumb. We'll never know exactly but from what we do the initial infections don't convincingly point to workers from the lab, genetic evidence suggests zoonautic origins are probable, there is no proof either way. The Chinese government isn't allowing an audit, and by this point it's too late anyway.
There is no reason to believe it's likely. Let alone certain. It's literally just "China, who the usaians call red china, is uncooperative" and "there's a lab studying Coronavirus's in a region with lots of them"
If you call Stewart both an expert and a commentator it's true!
Bernie would've caused so much positive disruption that they wouldn't be prepared for. AOC could probably get behind whatever Bernie was selling; the rest of the Democrats, I'm not so sure.
Both parties are different sides of the same coin. They just have different ways of accomplishing their end goals. Bernie posed a huge threat to corporate interests and the wealthy. They knew that. They also knew that a vast, VAST number of Americans supported Bernie, even across the political divide. Why do you think Democrats did very little recently when a surge of unionization happened? They're basically insider traders with a day job ignoring the needs of the people who had no other political choice.
The next two possible candidates in the 2020 election were that Klob... umm the lady with a name that doesn't want to be spell checked and what's his face, the current Secretary of Transportation. We all know, now, what they were offered to drop out of that race as they took up their cushy administrative jobs. Both of them represented monied interests and were splitting the ticket three ways for the true democratic nominee between them and Biden. All while the American middle and lower classes were turning out in droves for Bernie.
I won't say that both groups are equal threats, but I'll never forget not forgive what the DNC did. I vote for them because I value more than myself and know the existential threat that Republicans have shown themselves to be. Fuck the DNC, but also I'll be voting for Biden the same way I did in 2020, and before with Hillary in 2016, holding my fucking nose.
Remember that "journalist" who admitted, in an interview on iirc "Joe Rogan" or something, that CNN+NYT++ systemically "shut down" progressive issues, & progressive voices, in that election..
I'd been wondering what the hell was wrong, but .. propaganda "journalism" won a "battle" I hadn't even known was being waged..
Now, of course, the deck is getting stacked,.
the economic house-of-cards still is being propped-up by China & the US ( different parts of it: the fake-economy of China, & the issue 7x as much currency, but pretend that that doesn't cause 700% inflation idiocy in the US ).. but it must come down.
IF that economic house-of-cards comes down before the election, then the incumbent is hosed.
Period.
It's a slam dunk election for the outsider, then.
You'd better pray, successfully, for that economic-collapse not happening, until after the election, then, eh?
Being the old cynic that I am, I'm expecting the republicans to win, to revert the US to Jim Crow's "reality", & to finish the Civil War that they pretended to surrender in, so long ago.
Gutting NATO, backing Russia, the whole everything that Trump promised..
I'd be preparing, not praying.
( & am, tbh: health's improving.. )
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Biden got my last ever vote for a corporate candidate. I vowed I'm never doing the pied piper bullshit again after 2020. If Dems want my vote they can try to earn it with real candidates. They could help prop up Satan himself on the GOP side to make their corpo dem look pallatable, I'm wholly done with the lesser evil shit. It needs to end, it's costing us our democracy and will never, ever produce an opportunity for real change.
So you're going to vote republican then?
Not vote at all?
If you're not voting get off your soapbox and fucking vote!
I'm voting Uncommitted for presidential if Biden doesn't step down. If he does step down that's enough of a referendum on his Israel policy that I'm willing to vote for his replacement in this context, but Biden needs to go. He's not only a deeply immoral person, he's now literally unelectable.
Democrats need to show actual signs of being able to listen. Not rhetoric or empty promises, but actual meaningful action. If they are unable to listen and submit to their constituency then they have no useful potential.
If they want to continue playing chicken then that's on them and we'll deal with the consequences of that when they come.
We have a first past the post-voting system and two major parties. You never vote FOR anyone. You only vote AGAINST who you hate more.
Voting third party or not voting is exactly equivalent to voting for whoever you hate most of the top two candidates.
The things I just said are facts. Logically proven. Look up CPG Grey's FPTP video if you want an easy primer.
So then the question just remains, do you think both candidates are equally horrible? If the answer is yes, then your strategy is correct. But if you think one of the two is slightly more horrible, that's the one you should be voting against.
I know how how our broken voting system works. You are trying to condescend, the same way neoliberals do when people won't vote the way they want. It won't work.
I believe that genocide is wrong and runs counter to every single progressive policy and principle, and for that reason it's literally impossible for any candidate that supports genocide to represent me or my interests. I don't care what they say they will do or what they claim to believe, a candidate's genocide support trumps any other consideration. Even when it comes to things those candidates might do that may benefit me or if the alternative threatens my privledged position and safety. I can't be bribed with policy or threatened into compromising on genocide.
If neither candidate can bring themselves to stop being genocidal, then I will vote to inflict a political price on the side that's least far-right. And I will do it again, and again until either that party recognizes the need to move left out of basic need for political survival or we reach the end of this farsical game of corporate duopoly grab-ass and it simply comes to blows with the fascists.
We cannot buy more time with lesser evils. We tried that. The time we bought over the past 50 years has been squandered, and now we're left with only really hard choices, none of which are good. You can thank stubborn, racist narcissists like Joe Biden.
You don't understand the American political system. The President isn't King.
Bernie couldn't have done more. It's a Republican Supreme Court and Congress. Biden has done a great job with the limited power he has.
The President isn’t King.
No shit. You know what he is though? Head of the executive and commander in chief with veto on legislation. And he also has the single most visible bully pulpit on the planet earth.
He's not helpless and I will not entertain a conversation in which we pretend he is or one where asking him not to give his full-throated support to the mass starvation and bombing of fucking babies and innocent men and women is "the best he can do.".
Get the genocide apologia out of here.
Ok Putin
That is not a reasonable response to someone having a cooler opinion than you.
Ok Putin
ur bald
Not a coherent response.
See, in America we have a two party system. It isn't great but it's what we have. As the oldest constitutional democracy, they made a ton of progress but didn't quite understand parties and how the systems set up would play out. Under this system, you don't get a great candidate to vote for. You get a middle of the road lukewarm candidate. And now we get that and a complete crazypants candidate. Choosing to not vote against the complete crazypants candidate because the lukewarm one isn't your ideal candidate is such an obvious trap that a lot of people think only Russian bots can fall for it. I'm not quite that optimistic. I know people are susceptible to propaganda, and if you throw on a heaping pile of repeated disappointment it's an excellent environment for it to work.
So, it was a fairly coherent response. But not for people who are Russian bots, or in the throws of apathy from a huge disinformation campaign and just generally awful human existence. Honestly? I hope everything gets better for you too. Cause it doesn't look like life is great for Russian bots or republicans or disillusioned people who don't know where to turn. Best of luck my dude (or bot)
You get a middle of the road lukewarm candidate.
Genocide support is not lukewarm nor middle of the road. It's entirely unacceptable. You might be willing to compromise over the deliberate starvation and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, I'm not and literally nothing you say can make me "come round" to the idea that a little genocide is ok to save my own skin.
And now we get that and a complete crazypants candidate.
Because people like you allow democrats to continue getting away with dircing ineffectual, right-wing politics under the excuse that there are only two oarties, therefore we tye voters work for the politicians instead of vice versa.
Your politics are los8ng us our democracy. Time to stop.
So, it was a fairly coherent response.
No. It wasn't. It was literally that they had no otger defense for their political position than "If you're not neoliberal/right-wing you're a rusdian bot". It's incoherent because Biden will lose this election, people making excuses for him and the political strategy that landed ys in this situation are the ones who are more likely sock puppets and trolls.
Wait, why is this a big surprise? Or even something that's wrong? Bernie never had majority support. That the moderates dropped out rather than taking their delegates to the convention and Voltroning then doesn't change the result. His plan of winning with a plurality was dumb from the start.
Seriously, explain to me what it is you think was done to him and why it was wrong. Pushing Biden because they wanted someone other than Bernie to win and thought he had the best chance isn't dirty politics. That's just regular politics.
Oh, no, I was commenting on how every other time this was brought up, the stock answer was "nothing happened, that's a conspiracy theory, stop making stuff up", then when there's evidence, it flips to "of course, everyone knew that, that's normal, why would this surprise anyone?"
I've literally never heard anyone say that moderates unifying behind Biden was a conspiracy theory. It's not only patently obvious but so utterly mundane it doesn't even make any sense to deny. I'm almost certain news stories at the time specifically said they dropped out to unify behind Biden and counter Bernie.
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@lemmy.world
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
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I'm still saddened by thinking of what could have been. I don't think we'd be as worried this election if it was Sanders running for a second term.
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