Summary
Bernie Sanders criticizes the Democratic Party for neglecting the working class, leading to their recent election losses.
He highlights issues like economic inequality, job displacement, healthcare costs, and foreign policy as key concerns for the American people.
Sanders questions whether the Democratic leadership will address these issues or remain beholden to big money interests.
I wonder why Bernie and other progressives don’t band together and announce their own party. With enough big names (especially Bernie) they could gather enough attention to be a viable third party that actually represents progressive and more left leaning ideas than the democrats. They have two years until the next local elections to get their foot on the race, I think they could get done traction if they actually go for that
Because they understand the spoiler effect.
It’s all too much. The Democratic party wants to be a big tent party, the party of all. That’s just not possible. Every group wants the party to prioritize their issues. Blacks and whites, straight people and gay people, men and women, young and old, religious people and atheists, owners and workers, cops and criminals, leftists, moderates, and conservatives, etc, etc, etc. We can’t give everyone what they want.
I’m sorry, I really am, but we can’t make everyone happy. Especially since a lot of these groups do not like each other. Look, it would be great if all these different groups could come together in one big rainbow coalition of peace, join hands and sing Kumbaya but it ain’t gonna fucking happen. Stop trying to please and appease all these people and instead try to materially improve the lives of as many people as possible.
Stop trying to achieve perfect justice for every identity group and just focus on making housing more fucking affordable for as many people as possible, and healthcare, and a decent education, and so forth.
focus on making housing more fucking affordable for as many people as possible, and healthcare, and a decent education, and so forth.
Didn’t Biden work on these issues, successfully or unsuccessfully, in the last 4 years?
A party for the working class would be the biggest tent of all. But focusing on divisiveness is more profitable.
Theres very little truth to this. Like most people that have broken the law arent identifying as criminals. Theyre not lobbying for more crime. Atheists arent trying to ban religion, etc. There are a lot of things that are just universally beneficial, like healthcare, environment, education. Its not a matter of opposing groups, its one group that wants to hurt people.
There are a lot of things that are just universally beneficial, like healthcare, environment, education.
Ok, so let’s focus on that stuff, then. My point is, maybe we can’t achieve perfect justice and fairness for everyone, so let’s just try to like make rent more affordable and make it so people don’t have to stress as much about paying their bills and maintaining a decent standard of living.
Oh that was up for vote, everyone here voted against it because it cant win.
I hate to defend a major party, but it does feel like people expect Democrats to fix all the nation’s problems when they have utterly no power to do so.
The reality is most Americans are not with Bernie on the things he’s talking about. The average American has been heavily propagandized by the corporate media (not just news media, all of it) to love corporate stuff. Capitalism good, socialism bad, cheap gas good, electric stoves bad. Go to most Americans in the rust belt, that’s how they think.
If Democrats are supposed to skip to the part where they implement policies that no one currently supports outside of liberal intellectual circles with all the power they supposedly have, that’s skipping to the end. What’s Bernie’s solution for getting people outside of Vermont on his side to begin with?
Yougov US: Support for universal health care - 55.9 % vs 24.4% oppose
Can’t find much data on the corporatism stuff, but don’t think that’s true either
Nah i dont think yall are willing to do it. 2028 you’ll be holding your nose again voting for an out of touch moderate to oppose trumps third term instead of giving a progressive you completely agree with any kind of chance.
I’ll be able to vote in a primary next time
Theres no primaries anymore. The wealthy party leaders decide the nominees.
There’s never been real primaries.
Real primaries would be open, plenty of candidates.
You dont think Obama in 2008 was a real primary? His campaign fought hard for that nomination, it definitely wasn’t handed to them.
Yep, that was the last real one. Since then the establishment didn’t want to lose control of the process, so they setup the primaries.
Oh, haha-ah, you sweet summer child. Sure you will, after all but two candidates drop out of the race and give their hard-won delegates to the conservative candidate in exchange for cabinet positions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
–I kid, with the condescension, because this is what happened before many of us got a chance to vote in the primaries in 2020 -A primary that Kamala Harris dropped out of because she was deeply unpopular.
Hrc was deeply unpopular. Biden was. Obama ran on personality and empty promises. He showed her was all too willing to sell himself when he first distanced himself from Rev. Weight, then moved his church membership. Phyrric victory, for him and everyone else.
God fucking dammit he should have been the fucking president in 2016. Fuck this timeline.
Gore should have been the president in 2000
Man, if he’d form a populist left party and stop caucusing with the Dems, he might get a lot of enthusiastic support and candidates running locally soon
A third party, eh? Nah, he needs to take over the Democratic Party once and for all.
No let it die.
No there needs to be a place for “moderates” and embarrassed former-republicans to gather. The actual left can mobilize around Sanders and the current Republican party can die.
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He had momentum, the DNC, also run by our oligarchs denied him of the opportunity.
Not for long
Bernie kicks ass like a kung fu fighter
Dems lost this election Bernie is still kicking and just won his seat back easy peasy
Dude is an old motherfucker but kind of in the same way Samuel L Jackson is a bad motherfucker
Yes please. Channeling my energy towards this future.
We could also do this ourselves, if we could find a way to organize it.
I’m sure with enough attention he’d acknowledge, and maybe support it.
It may sound silly but what’s the alternative?
I really think ranked choice voting is the answer here. It will open up the opportunity for third parties to actually gain traction.
Definitely need to change our voting system. I really like Veritasium’s recentish video on voting systems. Sounds like approval voting is even better than ranked choice. Anything but first-past-the-post, please!
We must only support candidates whose main policy position is electoral reform.
Me too but how are we going to get that changed before the next election?
Before ranked choice voting we need at least one party to rally around with a candidate that focuses on popular issues. Once we have someone in office that will commit to those issues we can then talk about these kinds of changes.
A good place to start would be at the state level since states run their own elections. For that all I can suggest is to get more actively involved in local politics than you ever have before.
Of course, that’s assuming we have another election.
Never underestimate the obstruction from establishment Democrats at every level of government. We passed a bill authorizing statewide use of ranked preference voting in CA and our neoliberal democrat governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it. I generally support his policies but this one was a flat out “fuck you” to everyone alienated by the neoliberal business as usual party that runs our state.
The answer to obstruction at every level of government is to push back at every level of government then.
That means getting involved in local government. You. Me. Us. All of us. Starting now.
That’s a good question. I think we need a massive push towards it, from our local officials all the way to the top. Bernie may get onboard.
True but nothings going to happen until we both demand it and actually do something about it.
The time to be hopeful that one of the major parties has an awakening is over.
Absolutely. I think that the best path of action is to let our local politicians know clearly that this is the desire of their constituents, and push hard to vote in candidates that support this. All of these politicians started somewhere, so the best hope for change starts locally and grows from there as word gets out.
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The DNC needs to allow voters to elect who they actually want during the primary. We were force fed Hillary because the DNC didn’t want Bernie. We didn’t even have a primary because we were force fed Biden, then given Harris because Biden was so unelectable. The DNC must allow democratic process to take place so that voters elect the presidential candidate that they want.
Democratic party aside, Bernie couldn’t get the votes. I actually think the news media has been a much much bigger problem with someone like Bernie getting power. They always try to paint someone like him as being radical, when anywhere else in the world he would be a normal person on the left.
we don’t do that anymore, having “democratic” in party name is enough. be prepared to have liz cheney as nominee with ben shapiro as her running mate in 2028.
Hi. Working tradesman. I still voted blue even when the 4 years under trump were mostly better for me than under Biden. Of course most likely coasting off of Obama’s era. But I got no relief under Biden. I pay $20k a year for my Healthcare and still have to pay thousands a year out of pocket for visits. My family in Ukraine is still unsure what’s going to happen in the next year. Many of brothers in my local are unemployed now during the hardest time to pay to live. We hear the record profits the corporations made and swindled the working class dry so we can eat yet there has been no relief. How did making 6 figures for a family of 5 turn into almost living pay check to pay check.
I’m ok with sacrifice if it means others get the help they need. But I don’t think anyone got the help they needed. We sacrificed for no benifit to anyone but the elite, and we are continuing to be ignored.
This is what Sanders is talking about. And I’m afraid of what Trump is going to do for many Americans. For my Ukrainian family back home. For my neighbor who is Taiwanese. But recently I’m more worried to keep food on the table for my kids. I don’t even care who won anymore. I have election and political fatigue. I did what was asked. I keep doing what everyone thinks is right. But I’m burning out.
Yesterday and today feel like I’m reliving my mom’s election loss back in 2016. I was too young then to understand the weight behind what was going on at the time, although I did at least understand why Trump seemed like a dumb candidate. Anyways, I distinctly remember how when it was obvious that Hillary lost, even though she won the popular vote, that something wasn’t right. My mom was sobbing while looking for places to move into, since we were moving out anyways. Now, 8 years later, I’m having those exact same feelings as she did except with my boyfriend on my side, knowing very well that come January that if nothing happens, we could very well be one of his first targeted groups. I fucking hate this timeline, man.
I was in college and living with a bisexual Saudi friend at the time. I’m a straight white man, so I wasn’t a target, but he absolutely was. I sat with him in the kitchen while we got drunk and he cried.
The good news is he made it through fine and I think is doing well today still in the US. It’s going to suck, but most of us are probably going to survive this. Don’t give up all hope. Build your community, organize, join mutual aid groups, and build what we need to take back power in the future.
They’re going to try to take us backward, but make them take us kicking and screaming. Don’t give up and let them have it for free.
He’s partially right.
Unfortunately, I think the bigger issue is that a majority of Americans are fascists or indifferent to fascism.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
majority of Americans are fascists or indifferent to fascism.
I’m not convinced of that at all. Here’s what I see:
A large portion of ignorant uneducated and easily manipulatable people who don’t even know what fascism is.
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Large groups of religious people who focus on voting red because Christianity, their churches, pastors, and religious groups, and the abortion issue.
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Actual bigots. There’s a lot of them and they like the racism, anti gay, nationalism, deportation stuff. Want women subjugated.
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Bullies, tough guys, “alpha male”, and the “get money” crowd. There’s a lot here too, and many in poor young black and Hispanic groups in addition to a lot of white males. Not necessarily bigots, but generally want women subjugated whether they know it or not (sex objects).
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The large group of just vote red without thinking because it’s what family and friend circles do and always have.
The above I think don’t understand fascism at all. Not educated or informed enough.
Edit: I would say to be “indifferent to fascism” you have to actually understand what it is, and I don’t think much of the maga crowd does. My opinion/speculation.
Yeah I also don’t agree. You honestly have to discard a lot of public information to force yourself into this level of ignorance. For nine years he’s told us he’s a proud piece of shit. If they didn’t listen for that long that’s on them.
Is it really so hard to believe that’s exactly how millions upon millions of people go about living their lives?
Yes, that does seem completely insane to people like you and me who don’t tolerate that level of willful ignorance in ourselves, but to someone else that’s all just noise that they tune out.
Ever heard the phrase, “Hell is other people“? I’m slowly starting to believe this existence is a punishment.
I didn’t say it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to stomach it, is my point. Yeah hell really is other people. After this, I now fully believe that most Americans wouldn’t piss on me to put out a fire.
We will always be known as a shameful group of probable idiots as a country, and we also will be known as happily setting the first huge fascist domino up then slapping it down carelessly. Autocrats around the world just got a blueprint that will work if they take advantage of idiots properly. We fucked the world, not just ourselves.
Completely disagree, a person doesn’t have to understand what fascism is to be a fascist or indifferent to fascism, any more than they need to be an expert on dogs to not kick or oppose kicking one.
Actually I changed my mind and disagree with my other comment LOL.
I still find it hard to call an extremely ignorant uneducated person a fascist, who is being manipulated by an actual fascist leader. They’re just potentially being manipulated. The dumber they are, the easier to manipulate.
Some or even many of these people conceivably would change their stances and choices if provided with lots of education. Some.
Ignorance ultimately doesn’t excuse or justify their actions. Your beliefs aren’t as important as your actions. Not to say that they should be dragged behind the shed and shot, but that actions have consequences and they need to be held accountable for theirs. If somebody votes for a fascist leader and supports a fascist political party, they’re at least collaborators in fascism.
You have to treat these people like they’re in a cult, because that’s what’s happening here. Trump’s rhetoric this past year has been eerily similar to Jim Jones near the time that they all drank the Flavor-Aid (almost identical, even). And when dealing with cultists, it’s important to remember that not all of them can be saved. After a certain point, even if they recognize that they’re in the wrong, most cultists will double down rather than admit that they were wrong - because they’re in too deep and to admit that they were fooled would be to admit that their entire life has been wrong and that what they did wasn’t justified.
Hope that you can make them realize why they’re in the wrong, but be prepared to grab the knife that they might pull on you. Because that’s probably the more likely scenario.
Kindly, I disagree again lol.
Indifferent:
Having no particular interest or concern; apathetic
I still argue you need to understand it to be indifferent about it specifically. However, I do believe these people are indifferent to having a desire to learn what fascism actually is and actual historical contexts.
But we can agree to disagree 😀
Edit: oops “to be a fascist” yes I’ll agree with you on that one sorry. They can be fascists without actually knowing that they are and how to define it.
The abortion issue is part of fascism. It creates a lower unequal class out of women.
I’d say most of the maga base don’t know this though. Complete ignorance. Just “libs kill babies” is their thought process.
I have a hard time thinking that someone who is dumb and manipulatable by a fascist, is actually a fascist themselves. They’re just dumb and easy to manipulate.
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Bernie is lashing out. Republicans don’t walk the picket line, democrats do.
You are confusing every day no political or financial power democrats with the democrats leadership… Democratic leadership gave up on their base 80 years ago. Can you name one major accomplishment the democrats have done at the federal level? The ACA? Maybe? But that was just a bandaid on a bullet wound.
ACA wasn’t even a bandaid. It only helped the middle class by reducing and capping costs and removing preexisting condition clauses. The poors still couldn’t afford it, and were punished for that either by having to pay for the still expensive insurance or being fined at tax time. It’s not an insignificant reason we got trump in the first place.
Lol you’ve drank too much of the coolaid. The ACA was better than what we had before but still not even close to fixing our disastrous Healthcare System. Middle class people still can’t afford preventive care and the line between the poors and the middle class just gets smaller every day with the shrinking of the middle class. There is no marginal growth/change when we know the answer to this problem. Anything short of universal health care coverage cost none wealthy people their lives.
He’s right. It is time to take back the Democratic Party.
I like your spirit but the Democratic brand and party are entirely dead. Someone will have to start a new progressive party (which will be coopted by capitalism as soon as it shows promise)
Establishing a new political party is often a challenging and resource-intensive endeavor that may struggle to gain traction. Instead, a more effective approach may be to launch a political movement, advocacy organization, or even form a caucus within an existing major party, such as the Democratic Party.
Drawing from my experience as a former chair holder for the Ohio Green Party, I saw firsthand how difficult it is for smaller parties to sustain momentum and influence. The Green Party was consistently unorganized and unstable, making it challenging to build long-term support or advance impactful policy agendas. Many of these organizational challenges are common across emerging parties, which often lack the resources and structure to compete effectively in a two-party system.
In contrast, launching a movement or organization allows for focused advocacy, mobilization, and influence on public opinion or legislation without the structural and financial constraints of a party. Additionally, establishing a caucus within an established party, like the Democratic Party, enables you to align with its broader base while still advocating for distinct goals and principles, potentially gaining a platform and influence within the party’s framework.
These approaches often provide a clearer path to impact than attempting to overcome the structural obstacles of party formation, allowing for dedicated action and coalition-building within a stable framework, especially in the electoral college system. We have to be realistic here.
Hell, it worked for the American Assholes caucus or whatever the House MAGAs are calling themselves.
Back? This is what its always been.
If he formed a new party with young, fresh faces, I’d vote for them regardless of how that affected whatever the DNC did. I feel like there’s enough similar sentiment that he could force change in the DNC
Finally. Everybody on Lemmy has been sucking donkey dick so hard. They’re not gonna save you. Need to start looking elsewhere or force their hand. RCV will help do that.
It’s the reality of first past the post. Third party voting is simply almost never an option. You’re mad at a natural law of the election system. Don’t hate the players, hate the game
If the third party is actually able to represent the people better than one of the current two why can’t it be switched to it? It could start with local elections to then state level candidates, it wouldn’t be a switch out of the blue, most people wouldn’t even know it exists the first few elections (hell, just the amount of people googling if Biden had dropped out of the race on the day of elections shows how uninformed people can be) but the current state of the democratic party can’t stay, it either gets kicked out or it adapts because of competition
If I hate the game, and the players are the ones with the power to change the rules of the game and choose not to, where does that leave me?
Exactly. No players, no game. We need to organize and plan.
It leaves you stuck in the system you have along with those players. You can vote third party, organize around a different election system, but don’t shit on people who see that as wasted effort at best and sabotage at worst. They’re not wrong, because it’s an all-or-nothing play. You’re shooting the moon. If you vote third party, you’d better be 100% sure they’re gonna win or you’re just wasting your vote you could have used to cancel a fascist’s vote. Don’t say “they choose not to” but realize you’re demanding they take a huge risk with small chance of success (zero chance if you don’t organize and just complain on the internet)
evidently, as this election proved, it’s not like voting on the lesser of two evils worked either. better to vote for a third party who actually stands on the side of the people.
What does that do?
Then make the Democrat party the third party lol
That could force a change in the DNC, but the change would be to push them further to the right. The issue is that the right-wing party won the election. They got more than 50% of the total votes. So the democrats aren’t going to see splitting their own base as a viable pathway to victory. If a left-wing faction splitters off, then the DNC will be forced to try to capture more votes on the other side instead.
If the democrats won the election then we’d be in a situation where we can talk about pushing them further left. But when they lose, that’s not really an option. (Most of these strategy problems disappear with ranked choice voting… but I doubt the current government has any interest in pushing for that kind of change!)
But the DNC has to shut down, because then it will just be a 50/25/25 split and that won’t work either.
I really don’t think that’s true anymore. Maybe looking at decades of political party data but I think the games kinda changed with MAGA taking repubs extreme and Dem’s going center-right. There are a lot of republicans who could find a home in the democratic party since we know 2028 will see a cult leader retiring and you know the Dem’s are gonna run an old white guy out of fear. I’m hoping another party can cause a splash that election cycle but I see it going blue and hopefully the infrastructure for this third-party progressive moment can become solid in local with sites on national.
I’m no longer holding out for election change. Oregon just voted against RCV, the push-back from changing the voting system is just too much for our set-in-stone political machine we have running now. I’m definitely gonna look into the data about why that went down though, a lot of opposition from Dems and Repubs in Alaska and Maine so would be interesting to see what coalesced.
There either won’t be a 2028 election or it will be a sham. They have control of the entire government. The constitution will change. The courts will be harder right. The ONLY things holding them back will be a senator or two philibustering (until it’s outlawed) and the senses of high military command.
Also since trump will have ultimate immunity in office he can simply ignore the constitution altogether without consequence. He won’t have to step down. As admitted he’ll be a dictator.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but focusing on what you’re saying this early is only going to cause you panic when we need to be gathering our strength. We’ve seen from the MAGA movement that our democracy is fragile. The safeguards and protections that make everything "so difficult"tm to change these past decades aren’t necessarily that difficult after all.
I can see a few well established Dem’s like Bernie and AOC jumping aboard a progressive party movement disguised as a blue wave much like was overtaken on the right. We see that there is room to capture voters that didn’t turn out and from both parties, a small band CAN take over a movement if their dedicated enough.
It’s just unfortunate that it was someone on the right who first abandoned party-lined politics and showed you can tame a party while speaking to the base (again, it was only like 20% of the population). It really makes me think that Bernie should’ve handled the fiasco in Nevada and South Carolina differently during the 2016 primaries. No blame to him, and I’m not sure what lesson there is to be learned besides authoritarianism and narcissistic tendencies are a way to brute force yourself into politics. But, I would’ve loved to see Bernie politely take the gloves off and took it to the people to back him up as well like Trump did with his group (just not, you know, all murdery and dark).
Oh yeah the way they did bernie dirty destroyed enthusiasm and that echos even today. The dems showed they don’t care for a populist movement.
Im not saying give up. Just be real and listen to what trump and the right is saying. They don’t shroud their intent anymore. They say it up front. Dictator day one.
We won’t see a restoring change come from a political party. Whether the goal is pushing the current political structures left or superceding them it must come from popular mobilization.
What is strength gonna do if he literally does succeed in being a “dictator on day one” there is only one way to stop a fascist.
Organization can have more than one plan.
the Dem’s are gonna run an old white guy out of fear.
Hey that’s not fair, maybe they’ll tap Hillary to turn this around /s (I hope)
Don’t give them ideas!
50/25/25, huh? So that must account for Republican/Democrat/Left of Democrat -Where do you think the Libertarians stand in all of this? Do you think the Democrats lost this election because of third parties or was it because a significant chunk of former Democrat voters chose to stay home altogether? If former Democrat voters chose to stay home, then I ask you why?
Well, it’s because democrats are dumb and didn’t show up. Either way it would have been closer than last time.
That statement calls for self reflection. Maybe it’s not the disenfranchised, refuse to go further right voters aren’t the “dumb” ones. Insanity is doing the same things over and over, expecting different results. Maybe it’s time to roll up our shirt sleeves and pant legs and get to work for something better. We deserve it and we’re worth it, maybe it’s time to develop serious worth and stand on it, ten down.
He’s 100% correct. This failure is a failure of the DNC to actually pay attention to what the voters want.
This election, like every failed election effort since 2000, was a referendum on the democratic party platform: neoliberal business as usual for the top 15% sprinkled with “we’re not Republicans”
I hope Kamala is having tea and eggs Benedict with dick Cheney tomorrow morning
“we’re not Republicans”
Trust us, we are different. Oh how specifically are we different? What a great question, is it not the best part of this nation to be able to ask such things. Anyway, as I was saying…
I hate how accurate this shit is
