Assuming no DNC fuckery is like “assuming Andy Reid doesn’t waste a timeout…”
Tom fucking Perez is in charge of it
6 Likes
That coalition will just shrink into a corncob
1 Like
Debbie Downers are allowed aboard the Bernie party boat the next few months. I am just going to enjoy some chance at something besides complete despair going forward while it lasts
2 Likes
Sounds like your persuasion skills could have used some work in 2016.
OTOH, over the last few months I’ve converted several friends/family who ranged from apathetic to Biden-tards into Bernie donators/supporters by literally showing them Victoar poasts and other, less subtle and gentle, articles and posts.
Apparently, people are more willing to vote for someone who they think will fuck Trump up, than someone who has a plan for how to maybe do that no wait let’s do it in stages.
Bernie might be Mahomes.
1 Like
We can only hope.
Ok incel
You won’t win anyone over with this kind of language.
1 Like
Feels unfortunate that I never got a response to this.
Gonna call out Victor btw for him claiming I’m not a true Bernie supporter when in 2016 he was posting things like:
“proly. trump beats bernie and I dont think its all that close.” -In response to a post stating Hillary>Bernie
And this “many ppl preferred hil bc they thought she would do better in the national. bernie was a fringe candidate, esp to older voters that lived through the cold war. I think he gets crushed by trump.“
And this
“ republicans would have destroyed bernie on socialism and communism and all that.”
Lol Receipts. Vict0ar just going to say “I did it so what, Fuck Off” and easily defeat that weak shit. (We all know the cheat code now)
1 Like
Lots of us have taken a pretty hard left since 16 
3 Likes
At the same point me being the establishment shill that I am was making posts like this handicapping the remaining candidates from both parties.
“Everyone left except BERN is terrible, it’s just a matter of trying to choose the least terrible alternative if BERN can’t pull it off. I rate them as:
- Hillary (status quo terrible with an extra chance of war)
- Kasich (normal conservative levels of terrible)
- Cruz (ultra conservative levels of terribleness but vampirism probably stops him from pushing too many of his policies through)
- Rubio (ultra conservative levels of terribleness mixed with enough charisma to be really dangerous)
- Trump (once in a generation levels of terribleness that could be really hard for us to come back from)”
Can we not do this?
I think it’s totally reasonable to believe that Bernie’s presence/activism has been invaluable in shifting the Overton window left and forcing Dem candidates to adopt progressive policies, while at the same time preferring other candidates in the election. That’s where my household is at - Focusing on healthcare, I’m happy that the entire slate of Democratic candidates has basically said a public option is the minimum acceptable healthcare fix, which is a crazy shift from just a few years ago and IMO largely due to Bernie. That being said, Mrs. Spidercrab and I are both on Team Liz and would both vote for Bernie in the general, but aren’t super crazy about him as a candidate.
2 Likes
What bothers you about him?
I’ll start by saying that I’m 100% voting for Bernie against any GOP candidate. I’m going to vote for the Dem candidate 100 times out of 100. So I’m just talking about my relative preferences within Dems.
That being said, I just don’t agree with some of his positions, and even when I do agree with his views I’m not sure how a hypothetical Bernie presidency would differ from a hypothetical non-Bernie Dem presidency. Health care/health insurance is the topic that I spend most of my time thinking about, so I’ll focus on that. I believe that:
- our current system leaves too many people uninsured/underinsured
- the ACA was a significant improvement in the system, and should be defended and expanded
- a single-payer system would be better than what we have now
But when I think about the ideal system, I don’t believe that we should abolish private health insurers. And I don’t believe that a single payer system should cover the full range of what Sanders’s plan would. (As I understand it, his plan is more generous than any other plan in any other developed country.) I think that the federal government should provide a health insurance system that is very much like what the government provides in other contexts:
- Public education
- Policing
- Fire departments
- Libraries
In all of those cases, the government provides a minimum level (which could be improved), but individuals are free to supplement the government-provided services if they’d like. And Bernie’s proposed system (as I understand it) doesn’t share those qualities. It’s more like Canada’s system than Australia’s, with the idea that private insurers would be abolished. (The most recent Vox podcast had a good discussion about the different paths that countries have taken to universal coverage. If you listen to that podcast, I’m in the Matt Yglesias camp.)
More generally, I don’t have a good idea of what he’d actually implement if he were president, considering that presidents can’t act unilaterally on most topics. So when we talk about health care or health insurance or gun control or employee rights or housing, I definitely know the things that he’s in favor of. But I don’t know what he’s willing to do to actually accomplish those things, and how his actions as president would differ from alternative Dem presidents. Like, if we were comparing two worlds, where Amy Klobuchar was president in world A and Bernie was president in world B and both had the same congress, what would Bernie do that’s different from what Klob would do? Would there be a difference in what bills would be vetoed/signed? I doubt it. Would there be a difference in what executive actions would be taken? Maybe, but I don’t think Bernie has done a good job articulating what those executive actions would be.
As a non-health care example, here’s his website on housing:
- End the housing crisis by investing $2.5 trillion to build nearly 10 million permanently affordable housing units.
- Protect tenants by implementing a national rent control standard, a “just-cause” requirement for evictions, and ensuring the right to counsel in housing disputes.
- Make rent affordable by making Section 8 vouchers available to all eligible families without a waitlist and strengthening the Fair Housing Act.
- Combat gentrification, exclusionary zoning, segregation, and speculation.
- End homelessness and ensure fair housing for all
- Revitalize public housing by investing $70 billion to repair, decarbonize, and build new public housing.
I don’t actually think that he can do any of those things on his own. So even if I believed that all of them were good things to hope for, what benefit do I get from voting for Bernie (who can’t accomplish any of them) vs. Klob or Pete or Warren?
I don’t want to attack Bernie too much, but my perspective is that he’s an exceptional activist and he’s been great in terms of raising public awareness about worthy causes, but not the one who would actually implement them.
5 Likes
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
A little E-Dick for you all.
Sure, it’s reasonable, but it’s also wrong. Only incremental and temporary change gets done this way. Major long term chages require legislation, and historically have required decades of public pressure. 40 hour week, new deal, civil rights, gay rights, womens’ suffrage - - any big move left has alway a been preceeded by a popular movement too big to continue to ignore and suppress with violence. And it took decades of activism every time.
Movements also get people to the polls so it’s how you actually attain the power to do anything at all.
So yeah Warren may have a more detailed plan for what of her agenda can be achieved with executive action. So what. She still can’t do enough. Legislation is necessary and so winning more elections than one also is. We’re going to need to be fighting for this stuff long after this next administration, probably long after they’re both dead. Bernie is the only one who recognises the scale of the challenge and is acting appropriately imo.
6 Likes