Should we fear Bernie?

Hercules56 said:
Bernie's been in government for a few decades now. He seems like a nice guy who's never been able to do much with his ideas.

But happens if he wins? What happens if all of his ideas suddenly are backed by major power?

Millenials don't remember the evils of Socialism but many Gen Xers and Boomers do. We remember the Gulags, the Berlin Wall, the Khmer Rouge, the barbed wire, the purges, the brutally put down revolutions.

Bernie's supporters say "oh no, that wouldn't happen here, this time it will be peaceful, freedom-loving Socialism".

Well I've read the agenda of the DSA, which Bernie is a member of. They want to destroy capitalism, end national borders. They want to put the means of production and industry and wealth into the hands of "The People", which means mass-nationalization of industry, corporations, banks, the engines of commerce.

Every national manifestation of Socialism that the world has ever seen, has been an economic disaster, a human rights disaster, or both. Do we really want to give it another shot????
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There is no even half serious candidate in the US who endorses anything even remotely like all the real socialist stuff you mention. They are, at most, social democrats, the kind that have been running half of western Europe for decades.

Hans
 
theprestige said:
It's funny, but I don't really think of Imperial Rome as "ancient".

And in Christian canon, Jesus was explicitly *not* a social reformer.
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Odd, in the tradition I was raised in (Presbyterian Church of Canada) he was most definitely portrayed as a social justice individual. Especially, since the doctrine revolved around man's relationship with society and with the divine. YMMV depending on your tradition, but many of the stories of Jesus do involve him defying social norms for a greater purpose (whether social or religious).
 
Venom said:
Four more years of Trump then
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IMO the Senate, even if Republican, will find a way to remove him. It's off-topic here, but it's made me less concerned about Bernie. There are a lot of parallels between Trump and Sanders. Some people scoff at the "lost tribe" concept, but I think there really was a lost tribe of voters who turned out for Trump. The same thing could happen with Sanders IMO.

I don't know if my Trump hypothesis is true, though: How many votes did Trump get from people who don't usually vote? Would be grateful for a cite. It's not impossible that Sanders could increase turnout among younger people.

Four more years of any GOP president might be a problem though.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
If Sanders gets the nomination and loses, it will be a major blow to the progressive wing of the party.
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Not certain about that.
A "Social Democrat" getting 63,000,000 votes in the U.S. (while losing) would more likely give the progressive wing encouragement.

If we (the more moderate wing) can preach to them that they must achieve their goals incrementally by winning small battles, it seems only fair that they could force us to wait through the disaster of four more Trump years in order to get closer to those same goals.
 
theprestige said:
It's funny, but I don't really think of Imperial Rome as "ancient".

And in Christian canon, Jesus was explicitly *not* a social reformer.
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I'm curious about that "explicit" part. Where is it made explicit?

It's off-topic, but this thread is pretty much a train wreck anyway.
 
Distracted1 said:
At 95% approval amongst Republicans, is there another wing to their party besides Trumpsters?
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I think that's part of the deligimatizing. The non-Trump part of the party totally collapsed after losing to him. Besides the exiled never-Trump holdouts, the non-Trump wing of the party largely ceases to exist.
 
Minoosh said:
IMO the Senate, even if Republican, will find a way to remove him.
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They will not. They had a chance to do so already. It would only have taken two more GOP Senators to vote to impeach Trump. They did not materialize. They WANT this.
 
rockysmith76 said:
It's a Republic, not a Liberal anything. That's the delusions of folks living in NYC and Southern California. Or so I've been told, but seriously, it's a Constitutional Republic at this point.
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:mgduh:mgduh You have no idea what a Liberal Democracy is do you?

You also seem to be unaware that Republics and Democracy are not mutually exclusive because one is a style of Government, and the other is the way that representatives for that Government are chosen.

Republics can be Democracies, and in the case of the US, it is a Liberal Democracy, unless you are about to argue that the US does not have elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. You would also have to argue that the US does not have a codified constitution which delineates the powers of government and enshrines the social contract of the country.

I mean you could argue all of this, but you'd clearly be wrong, just as you are clearly wrong in your understanding of what a Liberal Democracy is (hint hint, it's a Democracy that has all those things above... It's not a Democracy run by Liberals.)
 
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