Agreed. When push came to shove, the people didn't want Bernie. They wanted Biden. We all had fun mocking "Nothing will fundamentally change" but it turns out that in America that's a winning message
This is not true.
They wrapped up the primary after like 10 states, making it very clear they would blame all the resulting Covid cases on Bernie if he continued. I never got to fucking vote. It was already "over" by the time it came to New Jersey. The way primaries are organized heavily favors conservative candidates. We run through a whole gauntlet of states which Democrats don't even hold office in and let motherfuckers like James Carville use that as evidence that Americans don't want to "rock the boat" night after night on cable news. Then you have the fucking 16+ candidates, all of whom dropped out at the last second to clear the lane for Biden, while deliberately splitting the vote on the "left." Then the bogus fucking shit about "bernie bro" harassment, the bold faced lie from Warren about his misogyny, Chris Matthews screaming about executions in Central Park, Micheal Bloomberg packing the audience at the debates with people instructed to boo public healthcare.
I don't think the "Bernie would have won" discourse is particularly useful, but don't think for a second this shambolic process in any way indicates what the people want. It is a complete fucking manipulation from start to finish.
There is a reason we don't have national policy referendums.
I would call the American primary system a shit show but that implies it’s shitty by accident and not design. South Carolina was where Bernie’s campaign was murdered. It’s a state where the Democrat voters are particularly conservative and it’s a state the Dems will never win. I’m convinced if the primaries were all on one day nationally Bernie would have one; though this naively assumes we don’t live in a dictatorship of capital, which we do, sooo…
the people didn't want Bernie. They wanted Biden
Well... "the people" didn't want Trump. And the panic after Nevada boiled down to media figures selling Bernie as the next Hillary.
I don't even know if they were strictly wrong. If Bernie had taken the nomination in August, would news media have slandered and undermined his campaign for the next three months? Would Bernie have won in Arizona or Georgia once the business goons at MSNBC and CNN were through with him? Would he have held Virginia once Langley went full bore on him? Would Dems have retaken the House or Senate when Conserva-Dems were trashing their own Presidential nominee? Would a third party candidate have utterly sabotaged things?
Biden was the safe pick for a plurality of voters that only cared about Not-Trump. And that's what national news sold to people on the fence. It could have just as easily been Buttigieg or Klobacher or Beto, if they'd demonstrated even the slightest inclination to run well nationally. Just not Bernie.
There's a great (and depressing) documentary about the media's war on Bernie's campaign and how they intentionally sabotaged it. It's well worth the watch, but be warned it's not going to put you in a good mood, to say the least.
Biden 2024 platform: deflate the US dollar until gas is only 6¢/gal, poodle skirts for all (AFAB only), and a malt shop on every corner (whites only)
I will repeat the same old "joke" I will be illegally voting for Bernie from Canada.
Then when the general election comes around switch to "I'm from (battleground state X) and will be writing in Bernie". Best way to get yelled at by resist libs.
This time he's finally going to reveal his true power levelThe best thing Bernie could do at his age is get on the debate stage with Biden and [redacted] him
Bernie is just a testament to the absolute shitshow that is American politics
The average burger brain thinks he’s a communist. Really just makes me have no hope for the future
Despite thinking he's a commie he's still the most popular major politician, which does give some hope.
I know Bernie has a LOT of faults, but the one semi-admirable thing I can credit him with is that he's not running for president. The whole election is just elder abuse at this point.
oh ok, I saw the majority thought he wouldn’t, but wasn’t clear on it. There’s always someone who thinks bernie can get it this time around. Thx for clearing that up.
Just fyi most people here are further to the left than Bernie, have major criticisms of him, and are skeptical about whether he could have achieved significant change if he had gotten into office.
There's a lot of lingering affection, but nobody here seriously thinks he's going to run or could win if he did
Are our politics that subtle? We're pretty straightforward with it.
Sometimes I'm not sure what I've gotten into.
edit: for instance, I have no idea what this person's issue is, if this is a instance of leftists:
https://hexbear.net/comment/3921398
This post is mostly enjoying the absurdity of Trump and Biden polling neck and neck. I'd say it's fair to say that people here don't think fundamental change can happen through elections, or that America is in any meaningful way a democracy at all.
There was a big thread recently by a person asking about Hexbear's genuine opinion on Trump and the consensus was that while he's very funny, he should probably be executed. But also every American president is a war criminal. A few people think that him getting elected might hasten the decline of the American empire, and so be good for the world in the long term
How so?
We're a non-sectarian socialist space, so communists and anarachists (i think mostly Marxisr-Leninists). Theres some variation because of that, but broad strokes we have agreement here.
oh ok, that explains it, I thought lemmy.ml was the center of that.
You might be thinking of lemmygrad.ml, which is a Marxist-Leninist instance, with which we are federated. We're majority ML, but are a non-secretarian leftist space, with much more shitposting and many endearing weirdos.
Until this moment I thought "lemmygrad" was just a nickname for lemmy.ml. See? Just trying to work out what the hell is going on in the fediverse.
The funny part of this whole exchange is that my original reply intended to mean "good luck getting Bernie elected" to whoever did that poll, which seems to be in line with the collective opinion, yet somehow we got here.
We get a lot of people wandering in here looking for an argument and we like to argue, often extremely aggressively. But we're also cool if other people are cool. Lurk around and see what the vibe is
That makes sense, I'll try to make the context of my comments more clear from here on. ty again
oh boy, I just realized this is a group of people who really like to argue. This is in the opposite direction of my 12-step program, but ok then.
Hexbears are generally a lot more hostile and assume good faith a lot less to accounts from other instances (understandable, but not necessarily justified, since federation has shaken things up, to say the least). Ime the two best ways to avoid this are to make an account here, though that's obviously inconvenient, or to add pronouns to your username.
Make sure you take care of yourself first, if you think posting here would have a negative effect on your recovery I’d rather you avoid this space. Good luck and I’m sending you good vibes to stay strong
I appreciate the genuine questions and good-faith interaction :)
no problem
edit: I don’t understand why that effort is even still being made, Bernie has already endorsed Biden and ruled out running in 2024
based on the posted poll results (if I'm reading them correctly), people are still trying to get Bernie to run/be elected
The poll results are just net favorability, nothing to do with running for President. Bernie is more popular than Biden and Trump. Doesn’t mean he would win if he ran because we don’t live in a democracy
ohhhhhh that’s the part I missed, ok, thank you
I read that as favorability for the election, not in general.
If we’re going to federate with chuds and libs can we plz bring back the downvote button tia
Sure, go ahead, I'm on different no-downvote server so it means squat to me
Thank you for your service
