Bernie Sanders announces 2020 presidential campaign

Speaking as a woman of color, glibly putting our issues ‘on the back burner’ is NOT the way to help us achieve justice and equality.

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And yet, Clinton won the Democratic primaries. Including the popular vote in the primaries. Any argument that Sanders was what the voters really wanted, instead of Clinton, has to contend with this fact: that the primary voters preferred Clinton to Sanders.

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I think this is the crux of the widening split on the left. It might not be possible to reconcile those who don’t want to deal with anything other than “class” issues, and those who would like an intersectional approach.

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And what should make me sure they are incorrect?

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He’s not a strict socialist but he means that the solution to problems like racism, that puts them on the front burner, is (democratic) socialism itself.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/baldwin-harry/1973/socialismmeansanendtoracistnonsense.htm

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Uh yeah (well fingers crossed anyway)

Just maybe pointing to the source o the narrative.

I’m not particularly excited about Sanders running. I do think that mainstream democrats would be wiser than to run discredited memes against Sanders if they really want to win.

But hey I’m not even a dem so ya know grains of salt w/e.

Great. Although I can’t think of any politician who said they were against justice.

To my ear, that still sounds like he believes in some kind of “trickle-down” social justice, where racism will disappear by itself without special effort, after you solve the other issues you think are more important.

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So he means that we should tolerate racism until such a point where relationships like “employer to employees, landlord to tenant, buyer to seller, rich and poor” are abolished at which point racism will magically disappear?

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And that is highly problematic; because millions of marginalized people aren’t going to disappear into a puff of smoke, and dilemmas don’t ‘just go away’ on their own.

I don’t believe that democratic socialism is some great ‘cure-all’ which will instantly fix the deeply rooted problems of ingrained systemic bigotry and sexism which are baked into very foundation of this country.

I concur; and again, that is problematic as fuck.

‘Trickle-down’ anything never seems to work, and just leaves those who put any faith in it severely disappointed.

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I like Bernie’s policies but “institutional racism will go away if we enact democratic socialism” is some magical thinking. Racism and Xenophobia are still very much a real problem in countries like Sweden.

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Did you not see people holding up signs to the camera at the convention when states where announced for HRC showing the real results? Did you not see those states pledged delegates who voted against the popular vote? Sure, the votes went to HRC giving her a 10% margin of victory. The problem is that states and their votes were announced for HRC that Sanders won. Go back and watch the convention footage again.

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Indeed the whole ‘look at these brown people taking advantage of our social safety net/healthcare system’ is the core argument in a swathe of xenophobic and racist movements.

I’d argue that Sanders has it exactly the opposite way round. Solidarity and protection of minorities and the marginalised is a required condition for socialism to emerge, to prevent the services provided by the state being weaponised into tools of oppression.

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He will. After pushing the primaries further from neoliberalism :slight_smile:

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Certainly not until we get a visionary progressive who is able to sell the positive converse of Bernie’s “all boats” style. Just reverse the primary target and the secondary target of social justice. Basically:

What you do to fight justice for women and POC achieves justice for everyone

rather than:

Our colorblind/genderblind class policies will eventually de facto lift up women and POC

I think that will be the winning message. Same with rebranding class warfare/trickle-down econ. twist the Republican zero-sum definition and incessantly remind everyone that justice for poor people makes the world better for everyone.

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Which specific members are you referring to?

The closest I know of is Elizabeth Warren, whom I don’t dislike. But she doesn;t have much of a voting record, and I’m wary of someone with a short resume and fancy talk tricking me like I was with Obama. (Who campaigned on transparency and non interventionism then prosecuted more leakers more vigorously than others while executing people with robots).

I’d support Warren in the general a lot more enthusiastically than I supported Clinton, but if the primary was today I’d support Bernie.

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It makes me cringe more the thought of another moderate running like HRC and handing the presidency back to Trump (in the case he’s not impeached by then). HRC ran an out of touch campaign and the people who defend that campaign are delusional.

True. And his remedy for societal injustice is to work for a just society. If you don’t think his vision of democratic socialism represents a just society then you disagree with his approach. But it’s not fair to say he has deprioritized certain forms of great injustice.

Again, who cares? Worrying about HRC is running an out of touch campaign.

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Because those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it? the language that’s being used in this thread is what got Trump elected. You want to get another person like him or him elected? No? then learn from history.

No. Why are you looking for exact words of his on a page I specifically said does not strictly represent his politics? I had to run an errand but I will be happy to find things he specifically did say.

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