So Bernie is immune to criticism? I hear this from the Bernie Cult all the time: “Oh just get in line and support him otherwise Trump is 100% your fault!”
Hmm… don’t remember Bernie doing that a year and a half before the last election. or before even all the candidates were in the race. Or before a single debate.
No Democrat SHOULD go on Fox News. Outfits like Sleeping Giants are doing amazing work getting advertisers to flee shows like Hannity, Tucker and Ingram. Now here comes Bernie (and Mayor Pete) to help prop up Fox with viewship numbers that will help them charge more for advertising - effectively subsidizing their dying shows. Well done!
So you’re saying Trump would be better? Because if you don’t vote for whomever is on the D ticket (even if they don’t pass your arbitrary purity test) or don’t vote at all, that’s effectively what you’re doing.
This “lesser of two evils” vote shaming needs to stop. The simple act of voting is already making a better effort over 40% of the country, voting with your conscious and living with your decision is a priviledge, and the bullshit two party vote hijacking system is the real problem and not the person that is voting against it.
But you haven’t answered my question. You think Trump would be preferable?
Fuck that shit. The system may be broken but it’s what we’ve got and complaining about it won’t fix anything. Anybody that votes for Trump - either explicitly by ticking his name in the ballot box, or implicitly by staying home is culpable.
If it were down to Sanders v. Trump, which candidate do you think would more likely support your stance on nuclear power? I think for myself, it can never just boil down to a stance on a single issue, and I would choose the one who supports more of my desires. That said, there is no calculation that would lead me to choose Trump. Ever. In a million years.
I get that if Bernie was the nominee you wouldn’t literally be voting for Trump, but if that happens you’re already not getting what you want no matter what. Voting for Bernie would at least contribute to progress on other important issues, and maybe make it more likely for your goal to be met further down the road (by, at the least, promoting evidence-based reality over anti-science bullshit, in most areas if not nuclear power specifically).
Voting for a write-in may make you feel good because you’re choosing a candidate you actually like, but in the end it ignores the reality of the utterly broken election system we have to deal with and is a symbolic gesture with no positive influence that will be ignored by everyone except you personally. I wish it wasn’t that way, but until we can take steps to reform our screwed-up election system (by, for example, voting for viable candidates who want to end voter suppression and gerrymandering, hint hint), that’s the unfortunate truth.
This. For better or worse, the system we have is the system we have. When it’s down to two candidates, I pick the one most aligned with me on multiple issues. While I might prefer someone like Warren, if it’s Sanders versus Trump, I’ll vote Sanders. Hell, I’d probably even vote Gabbard, though she’s so close to being a Republican it would stick in my craw. But she’s still marginally better than the fanta colored twitler.
Now if every state can get ranked-choice voting like Maine, we MIGHT have a chance of removing some of this two party hegemony and getting more third party candidates elected. The only way of really having this happen, though, is to break the cycle of money in politics, and that’s not going to happen at this point without a Constitutional amendment declaring that money is not free speech and limiting campaign donations and lobbying.
Yeah, not voting for whoever the Democratic opponent to Trump (or the hypothetical other Republican candidate, if the Orange One blows a gasket, throws a temper tantrum and quits, or runs away to Russia) is essentially supporting the “Climate change isn’t real, and if it was, we shouldn’t do anything about it, and if we should, it costs too much, and if it doesn’t, it’s too late anyway” party.
Yes, I think nuclear power is going to be an important part of getting away from fossil fuel based economy, but I don’t want perfect to be the enemy of good. President Sanders would be vastly better on climate change and the ecology in general than any imaginable Republican president.
That’s not what you responded to, however; vonbono was talking about attempts to shame via “the lesser of two evils” bullshit. And yes, it IS bullshit; you simply do not get to define “evil” for other people or what they want from a candidate. Period.
Actually, Buttigieg made an interesting point about that on the Ezra Klein podcast (I know, gross). It was something to the effect of, red states are voting against their self-interest if you only consider financial interests, but it makes sense if their overriding interest is in group status – “will this candidate make people like me feel more important?”.
You think a real leader would be so original, nobody else ever had any of their ideas? Did you know Bernie Sanders totally stole that whole Democratic Socialist thing from Democratic Socialists?
So, first it’s “Has anyone OTHER than Saint Bernie been brave enough to go on Fox News?” (I know, not you another Bernie Bro.) Then as soon as it gets pointed out that 1) Obama went and 2) other Democratic candidates are going, suddenly it’s “They’re just copy cats. How DARE they do what Bernie did?” We get it, you guys will only accept Bernie as your candidate. You would rather let Trump burn the world down if you can’t get what you want.
Gosh, it’s almost like the majority of politics is just a big side show meant to distract us all from the fact that both parties are almost completely compromised by wealthy actors who don’t have our interests at heart or something.
That’s only true with individual candidates at a local level. With two party FPTP systems it is possible to win an election with as little as 25% of the national vote.
For nuclear energy to combat climate change you would need nuclear plants not just in the US but also in Iraq and Nigeria and Venezuela and Congo. Do any of your candidates support the transfer of nuclear technology to all countries? If not, it’s pointless.
On the other hand, no one opposes selling batteries to all. That is why it makes more sense to me to spend money on researching better batteries and improving grids to facilitate solar and wind rather than developing nuclear.
I agree with you about fission: it’s by far the best option in pretty much every practical respect. If the will were there to build thousands of new nuclear plants, I would totally support that.
But you can’t just wish away the political baggage, no matter how ill-founded and irrational it is. If I had a magic wand, I’d do that, but then if I had a magic wand controlling greenhouse emissions wouldn’t be a problem anyway. I’m not sure there is enough political capital in the world to rehabilitate nuclear power.
In short, I don’t think this is the right political hill on which to die. Even if you could elect a single-issue pro-nuclear president, the tsunami of opposition at every level will still mean few if any plants actually get built; meanwhile, you’ve slept on inequality and corruption and civil rights and all the other things that are also critically important to having a tolerable world in 100 years’ time.
When an issue is this far from the mainstream, you can’t even make a point about it by voting. No one would even guess that Bernie lost your vote because of the nuclear issue; you’d just be counted as someone who thought he was too left-wing. At this point your play should be to vocally support nuclear power, but secretly vote for the best overall candidate, even if they’re against it.
