In an interview with the Guardian from his home base in Burlington, Vermont, Sanders urged the Democratic president to inject more urgency into his bid for re-election. He said that unless the president was more direct in recognising the many crises faced by working-class families his Republican rival would win.
“We’ve got to see the White House move more aggressively on healthcare, on housing, on tax reform, on the high cost of prescription drugs,” Sanders said. “If we can get the president to move in that direction, he will win; if not, he’s going to lose.”
The US senator from Vermont added that he was in contact with the White House pressing that point. “We hope to make clear to the president and his team that they are not going to win this election unless they come up with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country.”
Sanders’ warning comes at a critical time in American politics. On Monday, Republicans in Iowa will gather for caucuses that mark the official start of the 2024 presidential election.
Biden faces no serious challenger in the Democratic primaries. But concern is mounting over how he would fare against Trump given a likely rematch between them in November.
Dems are just mid rights who don’t care if you’d rather slave away and not afford healthcare or housing with a masculine pronoun instead of feminine (or vice versa)
Centrist Democrats would rather lose and have a hereditary dictatorship run by the Trump family than treat workers with respect.
Your comment seems detached from reality, Biden appointed people to the national labor board and they changed the rules so that when companies try to do their anti-union fuckery, unions get automatically implemented:
https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/
This is why we’ve been seeing so many successful unionizations and strikes lately.
You can’t cherry pick Biden’s appointments and claim worker support. Biden also appointed Janet Yellen and reappointed Jerome Powell who are both in an outright war with the working class. Fuck Joe Biden.
I think the operative word in his post was “centrist.” By that, I’m sure he means center to right Dems like Pelosi and Manchin.
The corporatist profit loving ones who would rather climb a ladder to tell a lie than stand on solid ground and speak truth.
https://fortune.com/2024/01/03/members-of-congress-profit-from-stocks-2023/
Neither of these people, nor the dozens of lawmakers like them, support unions in a real way. They care about money first and appearance of support to their constituents second. Pelosi keeps getting reelected because she’s the biggest money maker for the DNC.
Pelosi keeps getting elected because she’s one of the best Representatives and speakers in the US history. What a fucking muppet
Yeah she’s the best for rich people. The rest of us find her to be a procorporate piece of shit just like Joe Biden.
And minorities, and LGBT and poor people
She has a long and storied record
Pelosi has not been good for poor people or LGBT. We live in a capitalist society and the damage she’s done to the rights of everybody who works for a living far outpaces any good she has done. She’s a corrupt piece of shit.
Bernie is in Biden’s back pocket, he’s incredibly influential to the presidency right now. Bernie has helped Biden come up with nearly every progressive policy he’s rolled out. This statement actually will mean something.
Bernie has helped Biden come up with nearly every progressive policy he’s rolled out.
Which ones?
He played an important part in pressuring rail companies to give workers more sick time and remove the advanced notice clause, the Inflation Reduction Act, Build Back Better, the infrastructure bill, and several executive orders.
Fuck Joe Biden for blocking the rail strike.
Call me stupid, cuz I don’t know. But why isn’t anyone challenging Biden in the media? Or even talking about Marianne Williamson’s (who I thought was a challenger) bid for the Democrat ticket?
How do we not have people lining up to replace Biden on the left?
Because it would be a good way to ensure a Trump victory. I hate that it’s come to this, but unfortunately it’s the reality.
Without the support of the DNC they know all they can do is weaken biden.
Media is a scary thing. Progressive ideas are so popular rn, and yet centrist and corporate donors still control everything. This election cycle has been such a slow boil and everyone seems to be tapped out already
Trump has both parties strangled and nobody is willing to make inroads for third parties or ending FPTP. Voters are abused spouses that aren’t willing to fuck off to the shelter or streets because it will suck.
Biden’s procorporate bullshit is what’s strangling the chances of a Democrat victory. He fucked the BBB, negotiated down on student loan forgiveness, argued with us about how much stimulus money he campaigned on, blocked the rail strike, signed off on Yellen and Powell’s war on the working class, gave a handout to corporate America with the chips act and continues to support Israel against wishes of the voters he depends on.
If Biden loses it’s because Biden is a piece of shit.
Unless the Trump is held accountable, He will most likely win. People’s material needs are important and Dem messaging has basically been hey we showed this graph so you’re not struggling and anything popular you want won’t happen. But everything bad will happen with the other guy. Being not Trump once again is a dangerous way to win the election. Trump’s cultist ass should be getting crushed.
Biden really needs to understand how unpopular he is. Not that he will, but I can dream.
I really don’t want another run of Trump pardoning psychopaths and doing what he wants. But democracy is basically in the hands of Dems and they scrap by when it comes to connecting with people or even giving them a vision post beating Trump.
The only way Trump is “connecting” with people is by telling them grandiose lies and making impossible promises.
Annoyingly, a shitton of people are willing to go along with those lies without thinking about it or questioning anything.
If only the “good guys” would do what the voters they depend on to win are demanding instead of trying to court Republican votes.
Trump’s cultist ass should be getting crushed.
Makes me wonder what might have happened if the DNC hadn’t f**ked Bernie over, twice.
Well progressives are to blame for their incessant whining that any candidate that is not 100% progressive is absolute shit. Progressives are bitching about PEOPLE while corporatists are controlling the narrative about ISSUES.
Progressives are bitching about PEOPLE while corporatists are controlling the narrative about ISSUES.
Progressives have been banging the drum for universal health care (an ISSUE) for years, so far with no luck – (no) thanks to the corporatists.
And as for Israel (also an ISSUE), don’t get me started…
The whole point is that progressives are getting CRUSHED by the corporatists because the whiners can’t stop eating their own.
What on earth are you talking about? Progressives and leftists didn’t lose the 2020 primaries due to infighting. Having multiple candidates running with similar perspectives is a sign of a healthy movement. I wanted Bernie but I would’ve happily supported others.
But Boomers couldn’t resist the chance to vote against progressive and leftist efforts and since Biden was the only viable procorporate trash candidate they rallied around him.
Fuck the Boomers.
progressives are getting CRUSHED by the corporatists
Well yeah, because the corporatists control the purse strings.
Until progressives learn to play and win the messaging game, we’re wasting our time. But it has to start with positive messaging not negative messaging. Trumpists have that market cornered.
It’s not a messaging issue. Boomers are intentionally voting against progressives and leftists in primaries because boomers are selfish pieces of shit who enjoy fucking over anybody younger than 65 years old.
Unfortunately the way I see it is Biden will lose for two reasons:
- Hes old af
- Inflation
Regardless of policies or how terrible the alternative is. I dont think most people are going to think much past “Things are expensive now, and oh great a super old white dude”.
If biden loses, a big part of why will be the single issue “genocide Joe” kids who, like their predecessors, The Bernie Bros, took their vote and went home over something that was much smaller than the potential loss of democracy.
Downvote all wish, the fact remains: had the Bernie bros not thrown a temper tantrum, there’s a good chance 2016 could have turned out differently.
Disagreeing does not make this untrue.
When do we get to blame the shit candidate who lost instead? Bernie didn’t ignore and not campaign in multiple states because he thought they were in the bag, that was Hillary. Bernie didn’t conspire with the dnc to put up the worse polling candidate because it was “their turn”, that was Hillary. Bernie supporters didn’t say “we don’t need your vote” to the progressive voters, those were Hillary supporters.
This shit makes me want to write Bernie in instead of holding my nose and voting for Biden like I did last time.
When the polls reflect the proper amount of democratic voters during the election.
You fail to realize that when people stay home and don’t vote- it shows. So we’re well aware of how many of you “democrats” stayed home in 2016.
If you’re acknowledging you need our votes in the general then made better choices in the primaries. Don’t elect procorporate trash in the primaries like Joe Biden.
His first play will be cannabis being decriminalized.
Man I would love to see this, but its one of those things that I will believe when I see. I hope I have to eat my words on that too. Even if so, I dont think decriminalization would mean much to people in terms of getting out to vote. Most people who are really passionate about this over other issues have had the states handle it for them already. Dems waited too long for Federal Decriminalization to be a big motivator in a national election in my opinion.
Agreed. Dems like to save popular law changes to package with other utterly deplorable actions.
They also divy it up so that it’s not really a victory. “We legalized weed*!”
* For everyone over the age of 65, anybody who was born rich, if you own three patagonia jackets and people who attended an invitation only dinner with a bunch of billionaires.
Then moderates turn around and whine “Why doesn’t anyone give credit to Democrats for all the good they’ve done???”
Too little too late.
If Americans can’t realize for themselves that Biden is the most progressive president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter then we deserve Trumps dictatorship. I’m not saying Biden is adequately progressive (he’s not), but can anyone name a more progressive president in the last 50 years?
bringing up the idea of voting third party is not a good choice here, huh? If i did that, i would get a lot of copypasta ‘but trump’ if i did so I’ll just say this instead:
Since we all know we need a third party eventually, what do we think we could do to make that happen in the future? (After this election i mean, and trump disappears forever, melted by our vote power.)
How long would we need to wait? (Don’t want to steal votes from Democrats mind you) would they’re ever be a time where that wouldn’t happen? If we asked the DNC about timing, do you think they would help us get one started? If we tried and somehow succeeded in getting something off the ground, how might both parties feel about that attempt? Would they be for or against? If they were against, would they try to crush it? If they tried to crush it, what would they do to crush it? They probably wouldn’t use force first, so maybe they’d use words. What might they say about it?
Good questions. As with most things in society, true change has to start small. So you have to start by changing the messaging. With greater organization and messaging you start local and build a foundation. It drives me nuts that we have these conversations every 4 years about the presidency and then everybody goes back to their lives for another 4 years. Meanwhile the corporate machine is continuing their messaging that “government bad, worker’s rights/unions bad, minimum wage bad, welfare bad, education bad, stock market good”. What do you expect?
Yeah. If i use myself as a barometer of what regular people are capable of, i simply don’t have the time n money n energy to start my own campaign or put time and money into a smaller political entity, to try and build them up for the next, out even the next next presidency.
I mean, were talking realism it would be a small party that won at the local level first yeah? Or so I’ve been told.
So we’re talking decades. I have thought idly about how something like that could even happen over that time, and the only realistic starting point i can’t think of is a pipe dream on its own, UBI.
I cannot think of another way the common man could compete with all that corpo monkey
I get it. Maybe we can all just start by changing the conversation and focus on the positive things Biden has done and encourage more of the same. The narrative is only focusing on the negatives and that will affect polling and voting.
The narrative is only focusing on the negatives and that will affect polling and voting.
Good. Biden losing the general election is the only way the fucking pieces of shit who voted for him in the primaries will get the fucking message. Stop voting for procorporate trash in the primaries. We won’t show up for them in the general.
I’m sure Biden and “his team” want to win, but not at any cost. Certainly not at the cost of taxing his donors and using the money to help the working class.
Who knows what’s happening in their heads… but my guess is they think that once the ‘3rd party people’ fall back in line they will regain the lead so they don’t have to worry. And the rest is Biden being as establishment as you can get so obviously he’s not interested in any radical policy changes.
How would that policy be enacted even if they did? Congress certainly will not pass it.
Lemmy is largely populated by children who lack the intellectual maturity to appreciate that democracy is about compromise and that winning elections doesn’t mean that you get to do everything you want.
There’s this myth that somehow Biden can just wave a magic wand and get everything he wants, but he’s not doing it because in spite of being arguably the most powerful man on the planet, he’s secretly in the pocket of corporate America. It’s a very childish view of the world and is entirely disconnected from reality.
This is an extremely common trope from establishment Democrats who like to pretend the left is just naive children. Let me make this perfectly clear to you. Yes, we get politics. Yes, we understand that Biden can’t get everything he wants. Yes, we get that Republican obstruction is a thing.
Now, here are some things for you to try and grasp. Most of the time, Biden and the Democratic establishment is leading the opposition against the left. The establishment also plays dirty to get their unpopular candidates past the primary, then blames the left when they lose in the general.
It’s not generally the politically active left that doesn’t vote blue. Most of us are well practiced at holding our noses at the ballot box. It’s normal non-political Americans who see no point in getting engaged when neither party even speaks to their problems.
Say it louder for those in the back.
Both parties in the US are in the pocket of corporate America to some degree (Citizens United made it legal anyways), it’s just that one party actually cares about having a functioning country with a decent living standard for people and the other will happily burn it to the ground to hurt minorities and gain short-term power. What you see is the frustration in the general US population that sees the Republicans openly ruining things while the Dems have their hands tied by the underhanded tactics Republicans use and talk about “reaching across the aisle” and compromising with the fascists. Stuff gets done, but you often don’t hear about it or openly see the effects of Elizabeth Warren taking corporations to account for their actions compared to the 1.3 anti-trans laws per day that Republicans tried to pass in the first 6 months of last year.
Of course congress wouldn’t pass anything like that. Ultimately they all play for the same team-- Capital. The “bully pulpit” and executive orders are largely reserved for things like supporting genocide, and antagonizing our geopolitical rivals.
Valid criticism. The left has been brilliant at ignoring what used to be their core problem field.
lol democrats are not the left
What exactly is their core problem field right now?
Procorporatism with some entitlements for boomers.
He’s right. Biden is coasting into this election. Reminds me of Hillary in 2016.
So odd how dems always fumble it away.
Eh, Obama went hard on election stuff and so did Bill. This hubris seems recent and tied to a belief that Trump isn’t a serious candidate.
It’s the same with the AFD in Germany. People were so busy insulting those who vote AFD and telling them how stupid they are that now even more people vote AFD. I wonder how anyone thought this was going to make them vote for a different party?
Centerists literally screaming at people they have to vote Democrat because a vote for a third party will destroy democracy.
These are the same people who voted for Biden in the primaries intentionally to block progressive and leftist candidates from getting elected and now they want to act like we’re responsible for propping up their garbage candidate.
Every once in awhile I catch myself thinking about how different the world would have been if Bernie was president and it’s just so fucking sad.
I get that all the other problems would still exist, but there would be a glimmer of hope to cling on to.
Remember when debbie Wasserman shutlz stole the dnc nomination from bernie to give it to Hillary?
That one rug pull gave donnie the win.
Remember when this was challenged and the court ruled the Parties have no obligation to play fair
With an election coming up, the Schrodingers Leftist dilemma is in full force, even on Lemmy -
Where we’re simultaneously both powerful enough to be personally behind every Republican win of the past 20 years, and also so insignificant that we must be ridiculed and bullied at every turn to remind us that we have NO PLACE in their party they blame us for not backing.
The best part is that most of the time people hit both sides of the coin in the same comment.
What
Centerists, or people who voted for Biden in the primaries tell progressives and leftists we’re minority viewpoints within the Democrat party. Implying that we have no business trying to influence the direction of the party. These same centerists also blame us when their garbage candidates don’t win in the general election and tell us things like “Biden was a good compromise” or “You got pretty much everything you wanted” despite neither of those things being true.
Centerists got so comfortable winning elections on their own they forgot how to compromise and accuse anyone else trying to negotiate as “throwing a tantrum”.
Just a quick fyi here:
Kudos to the Guardian for calling Trump a demogogue. At least they say the truth when no North American news source will.
That’s just bullshit. Many North American publications have called him far worse than a demagogue. You’re saying something that “feels” right but that isn’t actually true. It’s part and parcel with how disconnected from reality so many of us have become.
Call for a ceasefire Bernie.
“I strongly support and wish and hope that the United States will support the United Nations resolution that was vetoed, that we vetoed the other day,” Sanders said. “That was a humanitarian pause, humanitarian cease-fire, that would have by the way called for the release of all of the hostages held by Hamas, and would have allowed the U.N. and other agencies to begin to supply the enormous amount of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.”
However, he added, “in terms of a permanent cease-fire, I don’t know how you can have a permanent cease-fire when Hamas, who has said before October 7th and after October 7th that they want to destroy Israel ― they want a permanent war. I don’t know how you have a permanent cease-fire with an attitude like that.”
Weak shit tbh
Better than nothing, but it was a pause regardless of him trying to spin it as a ceasefire.
The rare W for Senator Sanders right there and now he is backpedaling so his base will still buy his books in the future.
Sanders is stuck in the bygone era of Labour Zionism and doesn’t seem to realize that his statement about Hamas applies to modern Israel too - you can’t have a permanent cease-fire with a settler-colonial entity, who has made it very clear that they want to annex the territory.
It is strange that the the American radical left abandoned Labour Zionism after the USSR conducted the trials like the Doctors’ plot & decided selling weapons to Arabs to kill Jews was the way to go. Solidarity is quickly dispensed with when principles are weak. Maybe Sanders error is the same as people supporting Houthis now?
The American radical left grew an anti-colonial character alongside the rise of Black Nationalism and the American Indian Movement, the breakup was inevitable because Labour Zionists were trying to build socialism in an apartheid colorismo ethnostate on stolen land 🤷♀️
Without any international left holding them back, Revisionist Zionism conquered Israel and now they’re just openly fascist genocidal freaks. Sanders still thinks there’s a rational Zionist entity to negotiate with, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
Can we call everything above “working class” …selfish evil cunts?
To be fair, attention span is short. Anything the administration does too early before the election will be completely forgotten by November.
This is the problem, Biden is a historically pro-union president and people don’t seem to recognize it. His appointments to the national labor board are responsible for the resurgence of unions were seeing.
Can’t pass up an opportunity to blame progressives and leftists can you? It’s not that Joe Biden is a procorporate piece of shit. No no, it’s those young 40 year old kids with their tiktoks that are the problem.
Get real Boomer. Biden was a terrible candidate and anyone who voted for him in the 2020 primaries is a selfish piece of shit.
Didn’t single out anyone. Attention spans are low across the spectrum.
I didn’t vote for him in the 2020 primary. I’m all for election reform to move away from FPTP and the lesser-evil voting strategy it necessitates. But as it stands, voting is FPTP in this election, so I’m definitely going to vote for the proto-corporatist over the fascist, and I’m going to encourage actions that make the fascist staying out of power more likely.
Single out the selfish piece of shit boomers who voted for Joe Biden in the primaries.
Whatever you say bud. You can complain, or play the hand you’re dealt. Can’t do much about it not. If you disagree with what happened, get out ahead of primaries next time and promote the candidates you like. If more people vote for another candidate, that’s just democracy.
Buddy, if you didn’t vote for Biden in the primaries who did you vote for? And why aren’t you willing to acknowledge there was no good reason to vote for Biden in the primaries?
I voted for Bernie, but alas he did not win the primary. More people voted for Biden, so he did. That’s the hand we are dealt.
I’m only saying there’s no benefit to complaining about it now. Biden is shitty, but Trump is shittier. So it goes.
So are you willing to call out the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries for the selfish pieces of shit they are?
Because, despite 5 decades of progress in information availability and democratization of knowledge, working class people still have to be spoon fed every bit of news as they are emotionally incapable of learning anything other than what gets fed to them on the TV.
Are you working class?
Depends on your definition. I’m white collar, 40 hours a week, bottom 90% income.
Well in my opinion, it doesn’t really matter what words are used to call other people until whatever those words are are used with the purpose to separate one and qualify the other as superior. Hang on, I’m not about to tell you how to get to Sesame Street.
What you said is akin to tribalism, which isn’t bad or good but is a normal human reaction everyone feels. id like to focus on the way tribalism can be and is currently being used against us to turn off our brains.
I’ll start with the obvious bad actor here, FOX news. How do they paint us on the left? Lets see, we’re all godless, overeducated, wine sippin, holier-than thou, out of touch DINKS. Oh and we’re all gay space commies.
Now besides me who embodies every one of those, most lefties don’t, right? It’s done by FOX intentionally to divide us and create divisions instead of conversations between us folks working 40hrs a week.
We know FOX is doing it, but aren’t the sources we watch doing the same? Isn’t it likely, at least? The guy you had pop in your head when you said “working class”, what did he look like?
Rough, right? Mean, uneducated (a nice stand-in for dumb), emotionally stunted, misogynist, etc.
Now , whether or not that’s exactly what your lil trumpet looks like, why do you have a vision similar to mine?
What i mean is where did that image come from??
The news we watch, right? Where else would we? How else would we have the same basic picture in our heads? Could it be our news sources are painting this picture in our heads for us?
I believe most of the media we see is doing this trick. Most of the media, is owned by people who, if they were allowed to, would try and spread a point of view that benefits them. For us, they want you and me to blame the guys who are watching FOX, not the guys running FOX.
The thing that drives me the craziest about our species is we’re actually pretty smart when we want to be, but we’re also lazy and vain. Both FOX and MSNBC viewers are equals in vanity and laziness. Those failures are in my opinion what makes us so easy to manipulate, and what we must guard against most strongly because of that.
OK THIS WENT LONGER THAN I MEANT TO DO SO TLDR;
when you say
emotionally incapable of learning anything other than what gets fed to them on the TV.
I respond that it’s more like we are all
emotionally manipulated into believing what gets fed to us on the TV.
