Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 First Bernie Sanders Thread 2020

Apparently Bernie will remain on ballots in the remaining states that have primary elections, which means he is demanding concessions from the Biden camp.
And that is the right thing to do. Biden should not assume that this is a cakewalk or a coronation.

Thing is, Sanders did not wish to see a repeat of Chicago 1968, with the resulting fallout and the resulting path to Nixon, which in this case would be a path to reelection of Trump instead.

Yes, I agree with you about BRANDING.
I am convinced that Bernie saw his branding in a rather antiquated and romanticized manner. Think of the turbulent 60's and 70's where the term socialism was considered as a kind of "radical chic".
Maybe he was convinced that he could grow that chic into a wildfire and sweep America off its feet and trigger a kind of fashionable cache where it was suddenly "cool" to say you were a socialist.
That is precisely the kind of message that appeals, at least on the surface, to passionate youth.
Unfortunately it did not carry over into action at the polls.

America seems to insist on getting its socialism in a bait and switch style, where one does not even admit to it being what it is for fear of being accused of going to the dark side.

It's almost vaguely "sexual", if one goes back to the days when sex was considered "dirty" and sinful. One did not openly admit to having a sex life outside of marriage.
In a word: puritanical.

The problem with that is, we're now taking our socialism from a bunch of people who can't wait to leverage the authoritarian side of it, because quite naturally, they ARE authoritarians.
And in a truly perverse way, the run on toilet paper is a harbinger of things to come if we allow Trump to win.

We will all be reduced to begging him for toilet paper the way Puerto Ricans were reduced to begging for paper towels.
Except we won't be begging for toilet paper. We may be begging for our very lives.

Jeffery, I find nothing to disagree with you on. Most Americans like small steps forward, not gigantic leaps. Hence Obama's loss of the House in 2010, Bill Clinton's loss of congress in 1994. They don't want to be taken out of their comfort zone. Going to the edge is fine, but not over. Like it or not, the Trump campaign playing tape after tape of Sanders calling himself a self-described Democratic Socialist would have meant a good sized defeat. Yes, the fear of socialism does go back to the beginning of the cold war. With the USSR which many Americans equated socialism with communism. After all it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic.

Remember the saying, only Nixon could have gone to China? No Democrat could have done that and normalized relation with then Red China. They would have been hung. Nixon had the credentials to go to China where no one else could. Probably even no other Republican could have done that let alone a Democrat. Sanders was the wrong messenger, although I'm sure his ideas will slowly catch on and become law at some point in the near future. Perhaps whoever Biden chooses as his VP might be the right messenger in 2024.

Time will tell.

Sorry, but there is so much wrong here I am not sure where to start.

Americans took a gigantic leap in 1932, a gigantic leap away from the precipice of institutionalized Republican corruption and self-dealing.
They took another giant leap again in 1936, and again in 1940 and again in 1944, and again in 1948.

Even in 1952, when they again decided to give Republicans a chance, they elected a moderate liberal of the Republican Party, someone who made them feel assured he would not rip out the organs of the social contract but would instead help preserve them.

The Soviets could have called themselves Brethren of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all that's worth. The fact is, they were not socialists, they were communists, and they said so openly.
They viewed socialism the way any authoritarian views it, as both a stepping stone to communism and as a means to implementing more authoritarianism by controlling who got what and how, instead of functioning as worthy public servants.

Thus the LABEL "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" was worth about as much as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" or the "National Socialist Worker's Party" (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

In fact, all of that actually supports the argument about the problem with relying too much on labels to begin with.

It's a part of campaigning but when one gets right down to operating the levers of state power, both at home and in the larger world, it behooves one to drop the attention to labels and to observe the actions by which one is known instead. Thus even the most dour conservatives should recognize that the Russians were not socialists at all.

For the last forty years, Republicans have relied on tactics and methodologies that support dumbing Americans down so that they have no other frame of reference aside from that which Republicans feed them via well funded propaganda apparatus designed to foster distrust and hatred of essential domestic democratic institutions.
And no, I do not mean "democratic" as in The Democratic Party, I mean the essentials of republican democracy in a constitutional framework.

This is accurately admitted and expressed by both Trump and by Steve Bannon, when they have waxed poetic about "deconstruction of the administrative state".

That's too many syllables for Donnie, so he prefers "draining the swamp". Same thing.

And the only people who ever said "Only Nixon could have gone to China" were Nixonians. I don't remember anyone talking about "hanging a Democrat" who might have tried such a thing.

And the people who should have been hung were the ones who cleared the way for taxpayer subsidized outsourcing of all our manufacturing, while simultaneously muting any rewards for keeping manufacturing here at home.
Again, the above were policies endorsed by every Republican organ there was, from the US Chamber of Commerce on down...and UP to the TOP of the chain of command whenever a Republican has held the White House. Bush even claimed that outsourcing was good for the American economy.

Yes, Americans took a gigantic leap of faith in 1932 after 3 years of failure of the Hoover administration. Anybody but Hoover would have won in 1932. Americans wanted change and help, hope. But not in 1936, 1940 or 1944. Americans stayed with a known quantity. They stayed with the president that gave them hope and then steady guidance through WWII. 1948 was again staying with the party that lead us out of the depression and victory in WWII. People were comfortable with FDR and in 1948 with Harry Truman. They weren't comfortable with Truman in 1952. IKE won in 1952 not as a radical, but as a popular general who led the armed forces to victory, as one who promised to go to Korea to end that unpopular war. Everyone liked IKE, short and simple. No one knew what IKE's politics was or were to be. Truman's approval rating was down to 27%. IKE led the GOP to a clean sweep in congress also. The last time the Republicans would control the House for 40 years until 1994.

IKE provided no gigantic lead forward, small steps and he accomplished his agenda by working closely with LBJ, then the senate majority leader. In fact IKE had LBJ over to the white three times a week to work on how to get his, IKE's agenda through congress. JFK work closely with Everit Dirksen, then the GOP minority leader in the senate. Reagan and Tip O'Neal also worked good, closely together for the entire Reagan's eight years. Bill Clinton's tax increase via a party line vote, his failed healthcare initiative, his gun control ban lead directly to his loss of congress in 1994. Way too much for the normal American. But exactly what most Democrats wanted. But not the majority of Americans, he over stepped, over reached. He learned and adjusted, he made his last six years productive. Unlike Obama who didn't adjust to the new realities. Obama's last six years were wasted years of what might have been.

to understand history one first must place the events in the context of the times, not looking at them trough 21st century eyes.

Let's take a look and see how this plays out:
Donald Trump on Twitter


Follow #DemExit2020 #WriteinBernie trends?

When it comes to politics, Trump is a dunce. Warren had nothing to do with Sanders huge losses on Super Tuesday. It was the people deciding Biden was more electable and that was the main focus, defeating Trump.

Whatever else Trump is, the man is NOT a dunce when it comes to politics.

And Liz Warren drew votes away from Sanders voters specifically because of something you just finished arguing: BRANDING.

Warren brands herself as a Democrat.
Sanders does not.

Sanders insisted on tackling two incredibly enormous ideas at once:
Moving the country toward acceptance of a drastic change in the makeup of our social services and its impact on healthcare AND getting Americans to accept the label "Democratic Socialist" as something one should not fear.

And in the end, right wing messaging proved too much for the latter, because right wing messaging on that score is a seventy year ad blitz, a seventy year juggernaut of fearmongering.

Trump's 2018 midterm campaign was, in the words of Vanity Fair:

PURE RACIAL FEAR

Had Liz Warren not entered the race, we would be looking at an entirely different turnout.

Had Bernie not entered the race, we would be looking at an entirely different turnout.

Had Joe Biden not entered the race, we would be looking at an entirely different turnout.

But of these three, only Liz Warren was a progressive wearing a Democrat label.

And as you yourself have even argued, AND as I HAVE ALSO argued, branding and marketing is crucial.

Dude.


DUDE.


Close the computer, man. Go outside. Spend a couple of weeks doing yardwork and reading books. Recenter. Breathe.

I been tryin' to tell him that! He's off the deep end with the crazy Trump theories.