Bernie Sanders is more popular than Trump, but the press ignores him

boing
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Hugely agreed. I was heavily embedded in the healthcare world at the time and that absolutely infuriated me. In fact I’m still of the opinion that in the long term the ACA is going to do a lot more damage because it makes it even harder to add the Public Option now.

Yup, that’s another one where I think we’re misrepresented. Heck, I don’t even think flipping burgers is a legitimate skill…we can automate that (they do in Japan!)

Instead we shouldn’t have people worried about their family becoming destitute because they don’t work multiple jobs or heaven forbid they actually try to stand up for what’s right in an environment where that’s not popular.

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Not in actual practice. That’s just been fear-mongering.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/16/3438723/minimum-wage-small-business-jobs/

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You don’t have to convince me that the Republican field is dangerous. I have never believed “both parties are the same”; there are issues where the two parties differ and on every single one of them the Republicans are strident champions of the wrong side.

But Hilary is a war hawk, with a history of being on the wrong side of issues and then switching sides when it’s convenient. She campaigned to oppose the Civil Rights Act while Bernie was marching for it. She was firmly against marriage equality until 2013. She supported the Keystone XL pipeline and “owned” the TPP (David Axelrod’s words) until backing away from them once she hit the campaign trail.

Increasingly the choice between the GOP or a “centrist” Democratic candidate looks like a choice between Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil. Choosing either of the two major parties means that short-term corporate interests take precedence over the health of our environment, our bodies, our minds and our economy. It’s just that Republicans are more gleefuly hateful about the whole thing, and openly appeal to bigotry and ignorance. Democrats have basically been defining themselves as “not Republicans” – the people you “have to” vote for to stop them. And the line that “a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for the GOP” plays right into that.

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The way these things connect isn’t a simple cause and effect. In Scandinavia governments tend to do socialist-ish things to support their citizens, and polls show that people have a fair bit of trust in their government. In America (and Canada) the government does corporatist-ish things and the people don’t trust the government. That might look like a one way street but it isn’t. Politicians run their country badly, use that to claim that government is bad, then run on small government that they are still conspicuously at the head of. The solution isn’t to vote for “small government” parties because they are really “bad government” parties. They don’t think you should trust the government, so they don’t have to do anything that would give you reason to trust the government. Small government parties are fad diets, they somehow succeed by failing.

The solution is to vote in politicians who are going to actually run things better, and enact policies that benefit people. In order to succeed they need to do these things well - that’s their incentive. In Canada, Left wing parties just have a better fiscal track record than right wing ones because those left wing parties actually care about spending money. They see money as healthier people, happier people and a brighter future. Right wing parties tell you that public money is just a slush fund for politicians and then they use the money that way.

Supporting candidates who politically succeed by making government fail seems like a losing strategy, while supporting candidates who politically succeed by making government work for the people seems like a winning one.

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And it’s not like it’s a secret. At the time a lot of us were fuming and talking about how yet again we were betrayed by the Democrats because we never have any choice but to hold our noses and vote for them.

It’s a hugely complex problems with a fair amount of evidence on each side. I think that metro areas tend to be able to support high minimum wages with few negative side effects because they tend to have higher GDP and higher costs of living than elsewhere; in fact, I could see minimum wage helping the capitalist class in metro areas because without it, fast food workers (for example) wouldn’t be able to afford to live close enough to the city to commute.

But in rural areas, I tend to think the minimum wage is very likely to be disruptive to small businesses.

However, thank you for the article! I’d like to understand the issue a little better from both sides.

But even if minimum wage laws don’t have such an impact on small businesses, I’d still prefer a BIG, if only to replace welfare, unemployment insurance, and minimum wages with one policy to simplify administration and reduce the overhead (and opportunities for corruption) associated with these programs.

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But they are, aren’t they? The President will come from one of those two parties. And Clinton, with all her faults, is better than any of the Rep candidates, because they share all of her faults (other than Rand Paul, who isn’t a war hawk and is good on the 4th amendment, terrible as he is elsewhere), and have a whole load of others to boot.

I support Sanders because he is running as a Dem, and can help down-ticket where it also matters a great deal.

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I’m not saying that they have total control, though I didn’t really make that clear in my post.

Again, I am not saying “you” or “we”, because I don’t even know for sure what that group is. Nor did I ever say it was just giving random control.

My point was if the gov. is overly corrupt and has too much outside influence, giving them more power is mostly likely going to aid the corrupt and the influencers.

I agree with wanting this.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

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Pro tip: If classical economists predicted something with their models, put your money on the opposite.

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Well, to be fair to @wrecksdart, you can’t just naively use the labor participation rate either. Labor participation rate is falling in part due to retirements, higher proportion of graduate students, etc. So whether the unemployment statistics are misleading at this point is actually an open empirical question. If you have some data on it, then it might make sense not to use the unemployment rate as the good indicator of a somewhat healthy economy, but as it is, it’s the best we have.

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So what other gummit-funded speech (and sundry activities) would you wish to defund because you disagree with it? A much bigger list and sum than campaigns, I’m sure, or you are just blowing smoke.

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[quote=“crashproof, post:215, topic:70876”]
Increasingly the choice between the GOP or a “centrist” Democratic candidate looks like a choice between Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil. Choosing either of the two major parties means that short-term corporate interests take precedence over the health of our environment, our bodies, our minds and our economy.
[/quote]And, that’s exactly why we must put into place the strategically weaker of the two evils. That is the Democrats. With Democrats in office, we can and DO move forward towards reform (despite them). I can tell you this with some certainty because I’m not a Democrat. I’m very much at odds with that party and who they often represent.

I am a progressive, independent activist who has been in the trenches working with other activists to change this country for the better. This isn’t a point of view from an ivory tower. Others and myself are the people that got marijuana decriminalized here in Colorado (which is now spreading across this nation) and never going back.

Do you have any idea how many so-called progressives continued to tell us that was an impossible feat right up until we did it? Fucking frustrating, unhelpful naysayers that told us how wrong we were to even TRY, yet didn’t lift a goddam finger themselves? Well, fuck them sideways, WE DID IT ANYWAY.

(and, yes, I’m still bitter about that)

After that stepping stone, we’re now working on getting non-violent drug offenders out of prison as well. We’re slowly (but surely) moving this nation forward despite being faced with some of the most well-funded lobbying groups in the nation that very much tried everything to stop us (personally and otherwise). We worked locally, statewide and nationally against powerful forces and we fucking won.

How did we do it?

Without first getting Obama into office, there’d be no way in hell we would have gotten this far. As bad as Obama has been on the drug war, there’d still be no way in hell we’d have marijuana finally getting decriminalized with Romney or McCain in executive office. Strides with gay marriage? Forget it. Empowering progressive parties by attacking gerrymandering? Forget it! Those kind of openings ONLY happen with “weaker” Democrats in power.

See Sun Tzu - The Art of War: http://www.puppetpress.com/classics/ArtofWarbySunTzu.pdf

The only reason I want Democrats in power is to be able to reform and dismantle them. I want to create pathways for progressive third parties to take hold in the near future. With Republicans in power, there is only one insurmountable brick wall after another against progressive reforms like this. With Republicans in power, we simply go backwards.

More on this here:

Provocative, friendly thread on EVIL - #29 by Cowicide
https://bbs.boingboing.net//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boingboing/original/3X/9/b/9beba339665318d38bd95c0e2a3f13d3b32c8164.jpg

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Reading through this thread, and others like it, it’s disheartening to see support for lesser-of-two-evilism. Look where it got us with Obama. More war, record numbers of deportations, a healthcare system that’s still broken. It’s sad. Even Bernie’s not anti-war, and that’s on his website.

There was a recent article on Jacobin that talks a little bit about where the logic of the lesser of two evils gets you. Quoting the 1935 diary of a Jewish intellectual, Victor Klemperer:

A lot of people have said that Trump is fascist, or that he’s helping usher in a new flavor of fascism. Well, if we keep going with the lesser of two evils, something we all agree by definition is already evil, then that’s where we’re headed. We’ve already got an ongoing genocide in the Middle East to show for it, with over 6 million dead.

Will our great grandchildren read textbooks and look at our moment like we look at Germany in the '30’s and '40’s? I can only hope.

I do think that Americans are ready for something else; certainly low election turnout and dissatisfaction with government indicate as much, not to mention Sanders’ ascendancy, even given his problems. I just think it’s time to forge new political traditions and make a clean break with the old.

Spain has elections in two days that will break the back of the corrupt two-party system that has ruled here since the transition away from fascism in '75. Americans take note.

Source: When Trump Is President

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[quote=“Comrade, post:224, topic:70876”]
Reading through this thread, and others like it, it’s disheartening to see support for lesser-of-two-evilism. Look where it got us with Obama. More war, record numbers of deportations, a healthcare system that’s still broken. It’s sad.
[/quote]Are you kidding? Without a filthy democrat in the executive office, we’d be in ALL OUT WAR by now with Iran, Syria and even perhaps Russia. We’d very likely be pushed into World War III instead of pushing for ANY progressive reforms at all right now. Have you not listened to any of the Republican debates? Listen to their campaign promises. These guys are NOT kidding. They are not fucking around. Nor was GW Bush:

More on this:

[quote=“Comrade, post:224, topic:70876”]
Even Bernie’s not anti-war, and that’s on his website.
[/quote]Ok, comrade… who is your pacifist leader we should all support for 2016 that can actually win?

What gains are to be had by ushering in more Republicans that stonewall near all progressive gains? Did you not read my last post?

I get the feeling you’re barking from an ivory tower. Those of us who are in the actual trenches of progressive activism know that our pathways are blocked by Republicans in power and so-called progressives like you hinder us by continually empowering Republicans with false equivalence and induced apathy.

[quote=“Comrade, post:224, topic:70876”]
I just think it’s time to forge new political traditions and make a clean break with the old.
[/quote]Sounds great, comrade. How do you plan to accomplish this in our reality? Or are you promoting pipe dreams instead of real change like so many ivory tower liberals do?

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I think it depends on what you mean by that. Earlier you mentioned that you can’t see how the political system could undergo significant change only with campaign reform. But if you look at what for instance @Cowicide, our main lesser-of-two-evils advocate, has actually been saying it’s nothing of the sort.

Instead he talks about grassroots movements and all sorts of sweeping efforts beyond the electoral system. He isn’t arguing for being satisfied with small victories like even Sanders or finance reform. Instead it’s just that while we work at things, we should additionally use the mechanisms in place to keep out the greater evil. Not because that will provide significant change, but because they would be more effective opponents as we work toward it.

Is that really so disheartening to see? Voting the lesser of two evils may not have gotten us very far, but then people are still only doing it half the time; it’s hardly a surprise to see an Obama when Bush, McCain, and Romney still enjoyed broad support. If nobody considered voting for anybody worse than Sanders, then we might start to see improvement, especially if that were only a sideline to more important efforts.

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Eh. I’ll read that thread, but I doubt I’ll be convinced at this point. I put a lot of thought into this in 2012, and have done so again several times since then.

I kind of feel like the white cat from “The Dream of a Thousand Cats” in Sandman #18. Third-party candidates “can’t” win because people believe that they can’t win, so they don’t vote for them. It’s a frustrating kind of self-defeat.

I reject the “spoiler” narrative where it comes to elections. In the disastrous and farcical 2000 election, in Florida which was so pivotal, 12% of Florida Democrats voted for Bush, but less than 1% voted for Nader. Even among independents less than 8% voted for Nader.

If you took all the independent/third-party votes from Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and forced them into one box or the other in a ratio consistent with how those groups voted, Bush would still have won… and by a slightly larger margin than the final count was in reality.

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“Feel the Bern, bitches!”

?

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None of you seem to understand the difference between a candidate and a government agent.

A government agent can use tax money for various projects because he or she has already gained the consent of the people via an election (if I object to his use of the tax money, I can elect a new agent during the next election).

A candidate seeks power, and is trying to convince his or her fellow citizens to consent to give him that power.

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Let’s call an onion an apple and make a bunch of pies!

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I don’t think Sen. Sanders would likely believe that either version resonates favorably with women voters and voters allied with women voters who may be wondering why they shouldn’t vote for the first woman POTUS.

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I don’t think the government should fund campaigns, that’s all, because it’s explicitly not a government activity – it’s a campaign seeking government power.