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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bern

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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Jan 9, 2003
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Please forgive the thread title; I couldn't resist. ;)



So, if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, "conventional wisdom" among moderate Democrats is that he wouldn't be a "safe" choice because he's an avowed socialist. But if 2016 taught me anything, it's to not put too much faith in the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom going into the 2016 election cycle turned out to be dead wrong. It could be wrong this time too.

Or perhaps not. :con2: But either way, we'll find out the answer to that question if Sanders is the nominee. We may have to pay the price of 4 more years of Trump to find out the answer, but the question will finally be settled one way or the other.

The thing is: I don't see any of the other candidates as an automatic shoo-in either. So it isn't exactly a case of "gambling" vs. "playing it safe." The candidate that appears to be the "safe" choice may not be so safe, in practice.

I actually thought somebody like Steve Bullock would be safer (a Democrat who can win in a very red state like Montana), but Democratic primary voters were never very interested in Steve Bullock, or Hickenlooper. Of those that remain, I perceive possible weaknesses with any of them. None of them are really a sure thing anyway, so maybe it could be Bernie. Also, if you're worried that he's too socialist, well, he isn't really going to be able to get his agenda through congress anyway, most likely. It'll have to be more modest reforms.
 
Puppycow said:
Please forgive the thread title; I couldn't resist. ;)

So, if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, "conventional wisdom" among moderate Democrats is that he wouldn't be a "safe" choice because he's an avowed socialist. But if 2016 taught me anything, it's to not put too much faith in the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom going into the 2016 election cycle turned out to be dead wrong. It could be wrong this time too.

Or perhaps not. :con2: But either way, we'll find out the answer to that question if Sanders is the nominee. We may have to pay the price of 4 more years of Trump to find out the answer, but the question will finally be settled one way or the other.
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Not a chance. To me, Bernie is likely to be another McGovern, who supposedly settled that question 48 years ago. It is at once a significant weakness (and a surprising occasional strength) that the Left declines to learn the lessons of history.

This is innate. We have a name for people who think history has many lessons to teach us: conservatives.
 
Brainster said:
Not a chance. To me, Bernie is likely to be another McGovern, who supposedly settled that question 48 years ago. It is at once a significant weakness (and a surprising occasional strength) that the Left declines to learn the lessons of history.

This is innate. We have a name for people who think history has many lessons to teach us: conservatives.
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Different time, different country (in the metaphorical sense of course), different issues.

If he does lose McGovern style, then it will be a "teachable moment" though. But I'm agnostic about that. 2016 showed that we can't be so certain about things. It doesn't seem as far-fetched to me as the idea of Trump actually winning did in 2016.
 
If Sanders is the nominee and loses to Trump, I will stop posting in the ISF forums for an entire year, 365 or however many days to the date.
 
Every likely Democratic candidate reeks of failure. I wouldn’t trust Biden, Warren or Saunders to run my local tennis club.

Mind you, if Trump was running that club, it would already be closed and the land sold off, and any attractive women members assaulted.

This is the tragedy of the US, the UK, Australia and who knows how many democracies. Not an inspiring leader in sight.
 
lionking said:
This is the tragedy of the US, the UK, Australia and who knows how many democracies. Not an inspiring leader in sight.
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Labour gets a new leader in the UK next month. Depending on who that is, they may end up being credible. 2 out of the 4 have potential, including frontrunner Keir Starmer.

So we'll see - not only who wins, but what they're like once they do.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Labour gets a new leader in the UK next month. Depending on who that is, they may end up being credible. 2 out of the 4 have potential, including frontrunner Keir Starmer.

So we'll see - not only who wins, but what they're like once they do.
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I hope you are right. I think the Labour mindset that thought Corbyn was a good idea is alive and well though.
 
lionking said:
I think the Labour mindset that thought Corbyn was a good idea is alive and well though.
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That would be the other two candidates.

And yes, I too worry that Labour have learnt absolutely nothing from the last 5 years or so. We'll see.
 
Puppycow said:
Different time, different country (in the metaphorical sense of course), different issues.

If he does lose McGovern style, then it will be a "teachable moment" though. But I'm agnostic about that. 2016 showed that we can't be so certain about things. It doesn't seem as far-fetched to me as the idea of Trump actually winning did in 2016.
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Indeed. If past elections were destiny, Trump would have gone down in flames like Goldwater.

The electorate today is vastly different than the electorate of the the 1960's.
 
Venom said:
If Sanders is the nominee and loses to Trump, I will stop posting in the ISF forums for an entire year, 365 or however many days to the date.
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Willing to qualify that? I could easily see centrist dems spiking the election by supporting some third party run or write-in campaign. Bloomberg seems like a likely candidate.

Party unity is only something they believe in when the progressives acquiesce to the centrists, never the other way.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Willing to qualify that? I could easily see centrist dems spiking the election by supporting some third party run or write-in campaign. Bloomberg seems like a likely candidate.

Party unity is only something they believe in when the progressives acquiesce to the centrists, never the other way.
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The centrists are all those black and latinx people the progressives are supposed to be woke about.
 
BobTheCoward said:
The centrists are all those black and latinx people the progressives are supposed to be woke about.
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Bernie is polling second with black voters behind Biden.

I suspect that the technocrats that control the party will take a "Never Bernie" approach and would support a third-party, self-financed Bloomberg run.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Bernie is polling second with black voters behind Biden.

I suspect that the technocrats that control the party will take a "Never Bernie" approach and would support a third-party, self-financed Bloomberg run.
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Thats pretty far-fetched.

Why is it, do you suppose, that the "centrists" would prefer that Sanders not get the nomination?
 
If you like Bernie, have you tried Warren? In a blind taste test 8 out of 10 cats either preferred Warren or couldn't tell the difference. And Warren is 30% more fat free than Bernie by volume mass weight! Ask your grocer if Warren is right for you!
 
The depressing thing is, even if Bernie wins, he won't really have a mandate to make the kinds of radical changes his radicalism promises. For me, I'd be content with such a no-op president. But only if most Americans also see and understand this.

What will probably end up happening is people will expect Bernie to push his brand of progressivism on a sharply divided nation, and then get unreasonably angry when that works about as well as you'd expect.
 
theprestige said:
The depressing thing is, even if Bernie wins, he won't really have a mandate to make the kinds of radical changes his radicalism promises. For me, I'd be content with such a no-op president. But only if most Americans also see and understand this.

What will probably end up happening is people will expect Bernie to push his brand of progressivism on a sharply divided nation, and then get unreasonably angry when that works about as well as you'd expect.
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Yeah, I mentioned in the OP that he won't be able to get his agenda through congress without a lot of compromises that will water it down. But that't only to be expected. Heck, even a watered-down version of his agenda may be hard to actually achieve. But I do think healthcare reform, a raise to the minimum wage and a few other things would be in the realm of possibility. A president, unless he has massive coattails, can't just tell congress what legislation to pass.
 
Puppycow said:
The conventional wisdom going into the 2016 election cycle turned out to be dead wrong.
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Because it turned out Americans in key swing states found a throwback message centering on unapologetic xenophobia, mercantilist trade policy, and White Christian Nationalism to be surprisingly appealing.

Bernie only checks one of those boxes, at best worst.
 
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