politics

I love Bernie. I know he would have beat Trump in 2016. Both tap into populist sentiment, albeit on different sides of the political spectrum. The difference is Bernie wouldn't have any of the baggage that Trump brings with the racism, misogyny, incoherence, etc. he would have won easily. I weep for what would have been. He would have been a champion for the working class, not the charlatan that Trump is.

I think one thing that the Republicans did that Dems didn't is they let the people pick their candidate. It's that simple. They didn't care how unpolished he was, his lack of pedigree, anything. There was no ideological purity test. They duked it out in their primary and let the people decide. Something for the Dems to learn from.

He’s 83 years old, older than both Trump and Biden.

I’d like to see AOC throw her hat in for 2028. She’ll be 39 then.

As impossible and abstract as it seems to realign the Democratic base by shared class interests, it’s still much a more concrete plan than “reduce bigotry in strangers”

Amen. Amen. Tried and failed, twice. Populism is the only way forward. Democrats must become the party of the poor again.

Strange thing to have to say.

He always would have. He knows how to get the people motivated and straight up fucking torqued. He hits every nail when it comes to social or economic problems. On top of it all, he's so passionate about it he'll argue until he's red in the face for us. Honestly fuck everyone who worked to move that man out of the way.

Anyone can win, just as soon as you guys stop fighting tooth and nail to keep anyone but the most moderate democrat from being allowed to compete.

It seemed that it was a rejection of whatever political group was in power across the globe for the most part this year. This is largely in part because the world as a whole is still healing/recovering from the damage of COVID, and in the US the Dems were left to clean up an economic disaster left by Trump. And we have a large number of people who felt the effects of inflation and for reasons I can't wrap my head around felt the Dems needed to be voted out. Then we had all the people who wanted to teach the Dems a lesson because of Gaza by making sure Trump was elected to help Israel level the area and make sure there was no future for Palestinians (which is another contradiction I can't wrap my head around).

So really I think the Dems could have had a unicorn candidate (Bernie) and they still would have lost this election, because enough people only vote for themselves.

Everyone loves Bernie.

But dang it the man is 83. He should be enjoying the last years of his life in retirement. It makes me sad to think he still needs to be working in politics.

He's as old as Trump, who is already too old for this shit, will be at the end of his term.

Maybe there should be a hard limit at 65 or something for politicians. Both to keep out people in whom dementia is clearly starting to appear and to let old people frickin' rest.

Man the delusion is always so real in a circular firing squad lol.

Honestly I think he would have simply because with the evidence we've seen, Americans are really that stupid and racist they as long as you promise them you'd magically fix all of their problems without any plan behind it.

Americans are rightfully concerned about the economy and I, even as a upper middle class person, was concerned about inflation but I'm pretty plugged into what's going on in the world because I have the luxury of having a job where I'm posting on Lemmy in the middle of the day.

Bernie would have offered loud, in your face I'm going to fuck corporations and get you a living wage, wither he could actually do that given America, it wouldn't have mattered because that what Americans wanted to hear, even if you never wanted to do that in the first place.

God I hate that Greenday is correct.

Is pretty clear that people are unhappy and want change.

There's no meaningful change to be had. The political parties and their funders have got very wealthy the way things are, and they'd like to keep it that way thank you very much.

The whole process in almost every country in undemocratic as shit. We need to be able to vote and have referendums on individual policies. Few people are 100% behind any candidate. What if you want abortions but hate immigrants? What if you're transgender but still think corporations should be able to stomp all over us?

A lot of democrats could have won this election. Ultimately the big mistakes were allowing Biden to run unchallenged, then sticking with Biden until it was too late. Harris then had an impossible task to win.

If the democrats had an actual democratic process, and put their best possible candidate forward they may have won. Instead this election was very much a repeat of 2016 - the wrong candidate, being favoured through to the election by the DNC. In 2016 the DNC closed ranks around Clinton because of fear of Bernie and also because of a crazy notion that it was "her turn". Biden didn't run when he should have. This time Biden ran when he shouldn't have, and other strong candidates in the party didn't get a chance.

But it was more than the candidate - the election focus was totally wrong. 1/3 of the electorate did not vote - and this election is not a story of Trump breaking through. Trump got 74m votes in 2020 and about 74m now. The Dems got 81m votes in 2020 and 71m votes now - Trump is basically static; but the Dems lots 10m votes because they ran a bad campaign. Those missing 10m voters are in the 1/3 who are not included in polls; because Trump has not broken much above his 74m ceiling. The Dems floor fell out under them instead.

The polls always showed 50:50 but that was just "likely voters". Really 1/3 support dems, 1/3 support reps and 1/3 weren't going to vote. That vast pool of people are not all never voters; the missing 10m are in there. THAT is where the Dems should have been going for votes. Forget the republicans; they should have been reaching out to the disinterested and disenfranchised. A positive message that actually addresses their concerns.

The "moderate" Republican votes were never in play nor worth courting, and the abortion and democracy focuses were not the priorities of voters. The dems needed to listen to the actual voters - and the message of what the voters cared about is clear: the economy. The Dems needed to have a clearer message on the economy - "it's doing great" does not tally with voters experiences who are living with high cost of living after inflation. Prices haven't fallen back, they've just stopped rising as fast. The message to voters should have been "we've done some stuff but there is more to do" and offer clear policies are wage growth, housing/rent costs etc. Give the disinterested in particular something to vote for.

So yes, maybe Bernie would have won. But lets not forget he chose to endorse Biden, not run in the democratic party primary. So it's actually his fault too.

Only Dean Philips, Marianne Williamson and Jason Palmer actually stood up and challenged Biden in the primaries, and they were criticised for doing so as if they were the reason Trump would win.

I've been saying that since the DNC muscled him out in 2015. Stupid establishment Republicrats.

someone should figure out how to clone him