Both factors are true. You are the one who brought up the polling numbers in California after all. But seriously, do you honestly believe Sanders is a viable primary candidate? Or is it simply that you expect that Trump will win and that afterwards you can claim that if only Sanders had been running against him things would have been different?
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I would say that the standard progressive candidates are saying little to nothing about reducing military spending and military adventurism. That’s the problem. They’re either unconcerned or cowards. At this point in time, the specifics of Gabbard’s approach–and I can’t say I follow that trail of buzzwords to her positions–mean little. In the current climate, none of these people will accomplish much wrt foreign policy reform.
She’s going nowhere, so I feel her single value is that she’s the only one questioning the imperialism for profit machine. If that idea persists, again, maybe some stronger candidate will do something about it. Once she’s gone, foreign policy reform goes down the memory hole. That seems like a shame to me.
It’s not about it being a corporatist plot, it’s about systemic issues (see Chomsky ‘Manufacturing Consent,’ etc). Newspeople who would be more open to Sanders politics are never hired in the first place, or (systemically) weeded out. Understanding how it happens is important, to know how to work against it moving forward.
Complaining about the coverage is tricky. You obviously don’t want to spend too much time doing it, but it’s also a mistake to just let it go in silence. The corporate media can certainly be manipulated into covering things – our current prez demonstrates that every day.
When Bernie and his surrogates started talking about the coverage, it pushed the issue into the dialog. Yes, the media feigned outrage, but the end result was that a lot a people got tuning into it as an issue. I’d call that a win.
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[quote=“Wanderfound, post:38, topic:156909”]
Gabbard is problematic as fuck, yes. She is much too far to the right on a whole host of issues…as are most of the other Democrats.[/quote]
Agreed, particularly with regard to foreign policy.
[quote=“Wanderfound, post:38, topic:156909”]
However, that is not why Gabbard has faced universal hostility from the liberal press. She was attacked because she revealed liberal complicity in the crimes of empire.[/quote]
As Bernie was/is shunned because he showed how corrupt the DNC machine is. People may forget that she quit as Vice Chair of the DNC to support Bernie.
Supporting Gabbard here is pointless, and I am not saying vote for her. I won’t. I think supporting the idea of foreign policy reform staying alive in discourse shouldn’t be problematic.
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I don’t know if you meant to include Sanders here, but he has been anti-war his whole career (voted again Iraq invasion, etc), and is currently leading the effort to end U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, going as far as getting a bill to do that passed through both houses of Congress.
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I’m glad Cory’s been adding “I am a donor to Warren and Sanders.” to his political posts. In short, it’s a straightforward reminder that we have good choices. (Yes, there are other choices–and all of them are better than Trump–but it seems to me our best chance for reforming the Dem party and our best odds of keeping the US from outright rejecting Democracy is electing Sanders or Warren.)
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Local news is systematically dying; hardly any journalists are being hired in the first, second, or any place.
Polls tell us that most of the journalists who are hired are soft-left, so – while not necessarily d-soc – should be as open to this political message as the average American. This despite any dire predictions of Chomsky during the Reagan era. If Bernie is too radical for these journalists (which I don’t believe, it certainly isn’t true for the students who major in journalism on my campus) then that is already a problem.
Sanders has been consistent on both issues throughout his career, so Gabbard isn’t the only one. Warren could do better on both counts, but she is trying to limit corporate influence on military policy, which is at the root of a lot of the spending issues.
I’m fine with a Dem candidate who fights militarism and imperialism, but I’ll choose the one who’s been doing it for decades without buying into “clash of civilisations” BS and without somehow getting plaudits from RT and alt-right YouTubers in the process.
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“That’s already been established. Now we’re just haggling about the price.”
This article from August from Vox covers some aspects of the Bernie Blackout controversy. Doesn’t seem to take a specific stand one way or the other, but I found it interesting for context.
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When Bernie and his surrogates started talking about the coverage, it pushed the issue into the dialog.
No, because the GOP has been doing the same thing for literally decades, and no one else is listening at this point. We have long become accustomed to politicians or their surrogates making false claims of this sort of media bias (there are other sorts of bias as mentioned, but THIS one is a lie) since the Bush campaign of 2000. As others have posted, Fivethirtyeight has a done some breakdowns of which candidates are receiving the most press each week, and other studies show Bernie is consistently at the top over the past year. From December 2018 to October 2019, he was number 2 behind Biden. Media bias in the Democratic primary | by Tomas McIntee | Towards Data Science
The “Bernie blackout” is easily disproven. Let’s talk about facts, not fiction.
One progressive to rule them all,
One progressive to find them,
One progressive to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
They’re both “true progressives.” It’s these sorts of views that really turn me off to Bernie and make him a second choice for me. I don’t want another president with a cult following. If you love Bernie for his proposals, Warren is right there with him, and in only one case can you even suggest she might have waffled a little. But the same can be said for Bernie and his waffling on gun control issues during the 2016 run. Setting a high bar is likely to trip up your preferred candidate as well once people dig in.
And anyway, she’s good enough for Bernie, who was willing to wait to see if she jumped into the race in 2016. He works with her daily, knows her FAR better than we do. There’s a reason they’re not attacking each other.
If she’s good enough for Bernie, she’s definitely good enough for me.
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How bout a candidate who’s better than good enough? Like, you know, Bernie?
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So’s Warren, if you ask me (and a lot of other people, too). 
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I’ll agree about Warren but besides Sanders that’s about it, as far as a broadly progressive platform goes.
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She talks a lot of good talk, but I don’t trust her to walk it as much as she talks it.
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I thought Biden was the weird creep with bad ideas… the genius who brought us civil asset forfeiture (so if any money left after his credit card pals ate their share, corrupt cops can grab the rest) and treats us to delightful stories about his long, curly leg hair…
Meanwhile Tulsi has been pretty clear and consistent - with efforts against regime change wars her signature platform (granted, the war machine thinks anyone not in favor of bombing anything that moves is weird)…
And the mentions she does get in the media tend to be debunked smears (ie the BS about Assad)
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It’s much more than one case of minor difference. While Warren was still a Republican (to age 47) and voting for Reagan, Sanders was voting against “free trade” deals and wars, and speaking out in favor of gay rights.
During one of the debates Warren stood with Bernie and agreed that private health insurance should be replaced by M4A; then later came out with a plan that introduces a public option but leaves private (duplicative) health insurance in place (and a plan to pass real M4A three years later, as if that is more feasible).
Warren’s foreign policy views (on the rare occasions when we hear them) are in line with the neoliberal consensus (use U.S. power to enforce economic hegemony and markets). Sanders just recently lead the effort to pass bipartisan bills through both houses of Congress that would stop U.S. involvement in the Saudi War in Yemen – a remarkable achievement.
Warren has taken large sums of corporate money during her past campaigns (and recently funneled a big chunk into her presidential run), and has stated that she plans to take corporate money for the general election. Then she said she wouldn’t; then she said she would only raise corporate money for the party. Railing against corruption rings false when you take the money. Sanders and AOC have shown that you can be a viable candidate without being bought by moneyed interests.
Kulinski has a good segment laying out these points and more:
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I’m mostly going to ignore this since it would require me to attack Bernie, something I’m not willing to do. Not because he doesn’t have plenty of flaws, but because ripping down each others candidates only weakens us. These progressive purity tests are ridiculous and serve the GOP more than the do the left wing of America.
But I will say the following because it’s a bad reason not to vote for her: Bernie took big chunks of corporate money during HIS last campaign, and funneled it through to his presidential campaign. I suspect you didn’t know that. He literally did the exact thing you think is a problem with Warren. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/30/are-sanders-warren-grassroots-funded/
Yeah, she was a Republican for a long time. She’s been a Democrat for a long time, too. She went out, did the research, realized she was wrong and changed her views long before she ever ran for office. That’s a pretty damn laudable way to go through life. I think she’s done enough to uphold her progressive bona fides.
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This is a primary, the candidates are opponents. Bringing up reasonable criticisms of your opponent is fair game; smears are not and should be called out. Playing the “let’s not attack each other game” just advertises weakness and serves establishment interests.
The claim is not that Sanders has never taken a dime of corporate-connected money – that’s a strawman. The claim is that there is a substantive difference in how they did their fund raising. From the WaPo article:
“The open secret of Ms. Warren’s campaign is that her big-money fund-raising through 2018 helped lay the foundation for her anti-big-money run for the presidency,” the Times reported this month, noting “trips to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, Martha’s Vineyard, and Philadelphia — all with fundraisers on the agenda.”
The core criticism is that, while Warren will talk a good game, she is too cozy with the corporate and political elites and will be unable/unwilling to fight against them. There is ample evidence that Sanders will fight for working people, they way he has done for decades.
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