I mean, I was super curious what Sanders could’ve done if he had the chance.
There is a lot of speculation that Sanders would have faced enormous opposition both from the “centrist” media and conservatives within his own party, such that he was hobbled for his full four years. But the expectation is predicated on Sanders playing by Clinton/Obama rules, where you float a progressive idea and Congress says “NO!” and then throw up your hands and spend the back half of your term glad-handing dictators to sell F-35s.
I don’t think Sanders would have the Trump/DOGE enthusiasm for shredding the norms and imposing radical reform at the executive level. But if this Presidency is any indication, all you really need is a ketamine fueled cartel of techbros, a stack of EO stationary, and a fresh sharpie. And you can fully remake the federal bureaucracy from root to branch.
If democrats in the US vote for stuff like Biden, then they’re not voting for any radical change.
Biden made a very conscious decision to run to the left of Bernie in 2020. He avoided Clinton’s fumbles through the Midwest in large part by echoing all the Obama '08 and Sanders '16 pledges, while the national media amplified his electoral platform in the middle of a COVID-induced campaign freeze.
American Dems are just as vulnerable to a coordinated propaganda campaign as their conservative and libertarian peers. So its no surprise people who’d fallen for the corporate sponsored faux-populist schtick in elections prior would fall for it this time around. But there was also a very deep and not unjustified fear among moderate Dems that running anyone but Biden would guarantee the kind of news cycle smear campaigns against Sanders that brought down Hillary.
The failure of the American liberal movement is largely rooted in their lack of faith in their own base and their own message. Liberals have convinced themselves that every year is 1972 and every progressive is going to lose like McGovern did. They’ve bought fully into the Republican propaganda machine and only ever know how to fight on the Republicans’ terms. And, as a result, guys like Reagan and Bush and Trump can stake out turf to the left of Democrats, win on narrow margins, and then govern uncontested as fascists.
There is a lot of speculation that Sanders would have faced enormous opposition both from the “centrist” media and conservatives within his own party, such that he was hobbled for his full four years. But the expectation is predicated on Sanders playing by Clinton/Obama rules, where you float a progressive idea and Congress says “NO!” and then throw up your hands and spend the back half of your term glad-handing dictators to sell F-35s.
I don’t think Sanders would have the Trump/DOGE enthusiasm for shredding the norms and imposing radical reform at the executive level. But if this Presidency is any indication, all you really need is a ketamine fueled cartel of techbros, a stack of EO stationary, and a fresh sharpie. And you can fully remake the federal bureaucracy from root to branch.
Biden made a very conscious decision to run to the left of Bernie in 2020. He avoided Clinton’s fumbles through the Midwest in large part by echoing all the Obama '08 and Sanders '16 pledges, while the national media amplified his electoral platform in the middle of a COVID-induced campaign freeze.
American Dems are just as vulnerable to a coordinated propaganda campaign as their conservative and libertarian peers. So its no surprise people who’d fallen for the corporate sponsored faux-populist schtick in elections prior would fall for it this time around. But there was also a very deep and not unjustified fear among moderate Dems that running anyone but Biden would guarantee the kind of news cycle smear campaigns against Sanders that brought down Hillary.
The failure of the American liberal movement is largely rooted in their lack of faith in their own base and their own message. Liberals have convinced themselves that every year is 1972 and every progressive is going to lose like McGovern did. They’ve bought fully into the Republican propaganda machine and only ever know how to fight on the Republicans’ terms. And, as a result, guys like Reagan and Bush and Trump can stake out turf to the left of Democrats, win on narrow margins, and then govern uncontested as fascists.