Bernie Sanders: a left wing, twenty-first century Ronald Reagan?

Reagan only had the support of the establishment after his insurgency in 1976. In 1976 they hated him and, in 1980, Bush, Jim Baker, etc., all still hated him. But they lost and Reagan reformed the party and the nation. I think the Sanders/Reagan analogy is actually a good one – and I am a great admirer of President Reagan – both spent years in the wilderness, articulating a singular vision for what they thought the country should be. Reagan’s diaries and letters and radio manuscripts all show a guy who was deeply devoted to ideas and the application of those ideas to the country he loved.

I don’t agree with Sanders on much and don’t want him as my President, but I see a lot of my favorite parts of Reagan in him.

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If Bernie Sanders gets within a mile of the Presidency, the good ol’ boys will have him killed. Very sad, but if the US goes by past performance then that’s what will happen.

Who the hell are the “good ol’ boys”? These guys?


Seriously, who are you talking about? CIA? Clintons? Racist red necks? Pretty sure if Obama can get elected and spend 8 years in the White House, we don’t need to worry about any “good ol’ boys”.

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I hear he was an okay actor too.

Surely not, I think killing people counts as meanin’ harm.

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Sanders would be a threat to the comfortable, established order in exactly the way that Obama isn’t, which is why I think he’d be killed. Political murders are a traditional US activity, and with the advent of Fox News there are huge numbers of willing fools with rifles ready to be pushed over the edge.

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I’m still holding a grudge from 1982. Ronald Reagan cut social security for college-bound dependents. In order for me to keep this benefit, I had to enroll in college full-time during the second semester my senior year of high school. Oh, and he broke this news after the enrollment period closed for colleges that were on semesters schedules.

Thankfully, there was a college on the quarter system 40 miles away. I was taking four rigorous high school classes, driving forty miles three times a week for three rigorous college night classes, participating in a spring sport, and working every other weekend. Good times.

Reagan and his cronies were a-holes.

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Toucan deserves a like!

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Traditional? We haven’t had one since the 60s. Hardly traditional. I think you’re worrying about something that will most likely not happen.

I remember Michael Heseltine (UK politician) citing that remark in a talk. He suggested that if the government didn’t help, the answer was to fix the Civil Service, not abolish the government. The problem is as usual the managers (pols) not their employees.

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Wow what a HUGE stretch, this is a pretty weak correlation. Regan and sanders are almost nothing alike and couldn’t be further apart, but sure, they are both white men and have hair. They have both peed standing up. They both have two legs. Yep, must be the same. Since the correlation is so weak and obviously forced, you have to ask what is the original authors agenda?

Really this is a political slam piece with a hidden agenda disguised as a comparative inquiry. I’m ashamed that this was re-posted here on Boing Boing. You’d have to be daft to fall into the original authors trap and buy what he is selling.

This piece was designed to spin the idea that Sanders will be a ineffectual and weak president. It highlights his old age, tries to compare him to reagan’s weak mental capacity, says he’ll be unlikely to get anything passed through congress and will be ineffectual, etc. What a transparent piece of propaganda.

I think if Sanders is elected it will be startling to the establishment and will really wake up the American people. Obama’s biggest flaw was he tried to compromise and work with people who were unwilling to do so, Sanders will stick to his guns and make them look bad for not doing what the people want, which will trigger some real changes. He does not have a history of compromise.

Sanders is the polar opposite of Regan, he isn’t some good looking show piece whos main sway is the in the americans minds. He isn’t running on his charisma, but rather some very sold ideas. He has a long political track record of voting well on most important issues and very strong stances and plans to enact real reform, like changing the messed up 2 party electoral college gerrymandered voting system, which will pave the way for even bigger changes. He obviously scares the establishment enough that they are trying to undermine his credibility with propaganda pieces like this article.

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Reagan dismantled the US Merchant Marine as well. I was happily on my way to a great career as a Chief Cook in the Merchant Marine. That cut in our medical services, retirement plans, and lastly the entire US Merchant Marine fleet was the last straw for me. I took myself elsewares.

PS. After WWII the USA had 200K merchant vessels, after Reagan less than 3k. Do the math, he killed an entire way of life.

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One other point on American politics that I want to get off my chest…lol.

We are all being played. Right vs Left. Getting us all angry and pointing the fingers at each other while multinational corporations pull the strings and walk away with all our money and drain our economy dry. It isn’t by accident that America is polarized into two extremes, it is to take the power away from the people.

Really the Right and Left have more in common then most of us would like to admit. We all have families we care about. We all want good jobs. We all want a better quality of life. We’ve been told the lie that OUR party will do that and the OTHER party is against it. We’ve been whipped into a frenzy over smaller issues so that the bigger issues can slip by. In reality the strings of both parties are being pulled by the same organizations with one agenda and working against the best interests of the people to take all the money.

Late stage capitalism! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

The most important changes we need to make, and the only ones that really matter at this stage, is shifting the power back to the people and reforming how the system works and who it represents. Once that happens both sides have more of a chance to enact real change, and we can stop Americas hemorrhaging which will take off some of this pressure we are all feeling and has us at each others throats. Maybe we can even start to work together and be less polarized.

Only one candidate isn’t in the pockets of the established string pullers and has pledged to reform the very system that will put future candidates in place. In my mind that is huge and the linchpin to all future progress. Whether you fall to the right or the left, your interests will never be represented unless we reform the underlying system and address the cause not the symptoms. The Right and Left will both benefit long term from some of the fundamental changes that Sanders wants to make even if they don’t agree with some of his other ideas.

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Thank you, I was too pissed off with the parallel. So I kept my anger to myself, flatly Reagan and Sanders have absolutely zero in common, ZERO!

Clinton better start taking some risks, she is playing this whole 2016 campaign way to soft. I like Bernie for his “fire”, that’s what we need to change this fucking mess of a government.

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couldn’t agree more! :slight_smile:

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Roger That!

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What you’re describing sounds like hypocrisy, something most Republicans (and a disconcerting number of Democrats) excel at.

On a side note: I’m not sure why ‘idealism’ is automatically assumed to be a positive attribute. Daesh is full of idealists, and they’re a living horror.

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That’s why you have Elizabeth Warren as VP.

It’s an iron clad insurance policy against right wing assassination attempts :sunny:

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I can’t decide – is this satire? Or hagiography?

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Roger that!

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