That’s me directly after I met my wife, “SWOON”…
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Except Mr. Sanders might actually be a real liberal, and not another Clinonesque (either one) crypto-liberal who actually represent the same people and issues as those on the far right. The only difference between most of the modern Democratic party and the Republicans are social issues (and even then those are so dilluted to be pretty much pointless). The Democratic party lost its spine long ago, and Mr. Sanders seems to be a good return to form.
Sanders is more like Kucinich, but with enough support that the media is forced to take him seriously (albiet very grudgingly).
This election is going to be very interesting.
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Don’t give me this, both “parties are the same” stuff. There are massive differences in outcomes between red and blue states. You look at education, poverty, incomes, infant mortality, life expectancy, etc. in the blue states, and they look like other modern industrialized nations. Look at those same measures in the red states, and they look like the developing world.
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I’m talking about on a national level, where generally the liberals get sanded down to be as close to center as possible to appeal to the country as a whole. Also, in the national arena, more money is needed, so policies have to be massaged as much as possible to appeal to where the money is.
Yes, there are good local and regional democrats, even a handful of good ones in national offices like the house and congress. But the higher up you go, the more watered down they get.
Look at Obama, his actions and policies not his words, how is he very different than anyone in the right center, outside of issues like abortion (not LGBT rights, since he pretty much sat on it until he was grudgingly forced to do something)? Look at most the the Democrats in Congress.
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Please put a title tag on this one so folks not following the <a href=“https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/why-or-why-not-to-vote-for-bernie-sanders/59394"target=”_blank">why or why not vote for Bernie thread can see wha’s up.
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The problem remains that Bernie is, as a self-avowed socialist, unelectable. That he’s a Democratic Socialist will be obscured by the persistent perception here (US) that Socialism = Soviet Union = commie pinkos.
People here would rather vote for an atheist than a socialist:
If you understand how poorly atheists are viewed here (US) you will understand how significant this is that socialists are viewed… more poorly.
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You might find this comforting, depending on how genuine you consider the response by his campaign, but they apologized and have said it was a mistake by the staffer who excluded the activists. (This is, of course, campaign damage control 101, but the Palestinian cause isn’t one that many American politicians would apologize for having offended.)
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Cut that out. You know what they call a Republican who compromises? Unemployed. You think Democrats should be equally rigid? I disagree. Obama is a compromiser, and he’s gotten some amazing things done. He’s not pure enough for my liking, but success beats purity in my book.
If Sanders can deliver both, then let’s go! But honestly, I’ll be satisfied if he continues to not be Donald Trump.
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Well, but isn’t Clinton relying more on corporate donors? The Sander’s campaign’s biggest large donors seem to be unions (which can have their own problems, of course), with the rest coming from more grassroots contributors.
But then there is the core problem of funding these massive campaigns anyway… why in the age of ubiquitous mass media, are we having to rely on so much $$$ in the first place? We absolutely need to address this issue, or it’s just going to continue to favor the rich and corporations over the rest of us. i think the question is who is looking to change this and who is just paying lip service to corporate money in campaigns being a problem.
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This is entering dangerous territory.
As far as I can tell, Obama hasn’t gotten much done, and much of what he’s gotten done has either been half-assed, or completely in favor of corporations, the security complex, and the 1%. Off all the issues on my personal check list, he basically hasn’t completed a single one. I knew this was going to happen the second he basically said everything Bush did was fine by him (sure, illegal wiretaps are bad, but not illegal enough to actually be worth it, and we don’t want to dissuade multibillion dollar corporations from breaking the law in future; sure torture is bad, but whatev, sure those Wall Street people did terrible things, but… shrug…).
Obama is business as usual. He speaks a mean game, but his actions say something different. And actions are all that matter. The War on Drugs is as strong as ever. We’re still being illegally spied on, with pride and gusto. We’re still killing innocent people in other countries. We still favor the rights of corporations over people (hey TPP!). We set back real public healthcare by a generation, and instead just get forced to funnel money to evil insurance companies for shitty service. We still have people illegally imprisoned in Guantanamo. We’re still randomly murdering people in other countries because “We’re AMERICA!”. We still don’t take global climate change seriously, or at least as seriously as big hydrocarbon’s bottom line. We still don’t give two shits about the enviroment. Education still cripples poor people with debt, but not as much as the misfortune of getting sick.
And I get that no president can fix all of these things, but they could AT LEAST attempt to do so. Obama hasn’t. Fixing many of these things are against his ideals (active, not stated). Compromise is great (unless, of course its on torture and human rights violations… which sadly were the first compromises Obama made), unless it makes you completely ineffectual.
Most of the progress made in his tenure has nothing to do with him. The economy went from horrible to just brutal for no reasons of Obama. We got our of two wars because, ironically, Bush. LGBT rights happened because culture got sick of Obama doing nothing. Actually, these are the only two changes I can actually think of (from a liberal perspective) that happened in the last 8 years. Everything is about the same as when Bush left.
Regardless of all of this; America needs a real liberal. Someone willing to crack some skulls. The Republicans aren’t scared of wearing their ideology on their sleeves, why should the Democrats be? If they can have Trump, why can’t we have an actual, honest-to-goodness, socialist?
Sorry, I got a bit heated there. Please don’t take it as a personal attack. These are nothing but my opinions, please take them as such, and not as any way me trying to say anything about you personally. Picture me as that obnoxious, semi-drunk, uncle you’re forced to put up with on holidays.
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In 2007, I heard people saying that it was too bad Barack Obama was black, because, no matter how much the grassroots liked his message, America was simply not going to nominate, let alone elect, a black man.
There’s a whole new generation that was never indoctrinated with that whole “Socialism = Soviet Union = commie pinkos” thing.
Indeed, many of Bernie’s most enthusiastic supporters were born after the fall of the Soviet Union, so they don’t have that old bugaboo embedded in their brains.
Times change, and an awful lot of people have seen democratic socialism at work in Europe, and they like a lot of what they see.
And of course, we now have a lot more experience with what unrestrained corporatism looks like, too, and even some older, once-fearful folks are beginning to see that there are worse things than socialism.
Honestly, I don’t think Bernie is unelectable, but I do think that one of his biggest current problems is people who would otherwise support him, but are convinced he can’t win.
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That must be why he’s spent 30 years in elected office.
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well for one’ he’s jewish, and therefore whether or not he’s “white” is…a bit complicated. The Nazis certainly didn’t think his parents counted as white, that’s why they had to leave europe.
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Bernie who? Is that crazy hair McGee?
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I’m old enough to remember the Jesse Jackson campaign, and it was a lot worse then.
But ‘electability’ is a very important consideration to voters–just ask our great electable presidents–Kerry, Romney, McCain, Dole, etc., etc.
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The theory that Bernie can’t win was destroyed some time ago.
This is 2015, the only people misinformed enough to think that Bernie Sanders is a scary commie would never vote for a Democrat in the first place.
Bernie is beating Hillary against the Republicans in the general election already. How does that translate to unelectable?
Bernie is surging in rural areas and red states where Obama faltered.
Bernie Sanders most certainly can win. The facts and evidence increasingly support this reality.
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Who would have thought that racial/gender/age stereotypes could be wrong? Who?
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I know right?
I mean sure, ending two wars, a complete turn around of an economy headed towards a Depression, the first major comprehensive health reform in nearly a century, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the prohibition of gays in the military, ordered that the Defense of Marriage act not be defended leading to it being quickly overturned, put two women on the Supreme court, ended the diplomatic freeze with Cuba, tracked down Osama Bin Laden, pulled together a deal to get China to implement cap & trade, raised minimum wage for federal contractors, got Russia to agree to reduce nuclear warheads deployed by the US & Russia by 2/3rds, creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, banned arbitrary rate increases by predatory credit card companies, saved the American automotive industry, dramatically increased the number of people qualified for overtime pay, among other things, but…
Obama has basically done nothing.
Except possibly more than any sitting President since LBJ.
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Apart from those things though, what has Obama actually done?
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Well… it is now illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform equal work, stem cell research can now get federal funding again, hate crimes now include gender/sexual orientation/gender identity/disabilities, massive student loan reform expanding affordable loans and Pell grants, provided health care to 11 million children in poverty, the FDA now has a mandate to prevent rather than simply respond to food contamination, took out some Somali pirates, stopped deportations of undocumented parents of children who are US citizens, massively expanded the amount of Federal data that is available to researchers, ended the Federal sentencing disparity that made crack cocaine subject to 100x the jail time as cocaine, put 100,000 poor kids on school lunch programs, extended benefits to same sex partners of federal workers before gay marriage was the law anywhere, forced federal government contractors to offer paid sick leave, lowered the taxes of the working class, pushed tough Net neutrality through the FCC, enacted limitations on ozone emissions, dramatically improved the healthiness of school lunches (and got rid of sooo many junk food vending machines).
But obviously, he has barely done anything.
Seriously though… people who claim Obama hasn’t gotten anything done are either woefully ignorant or wish he went around boasting of his accomplishments all the time even if that would make future accomplishments harder given the anti-Obama coalition in the Republican party.
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