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.
He said that unless the president was more direct in recognising the many crises faced by working-class families his Republican rival would win.
No, The Guardian, you missed the whole fucking point.
The important thing Sanders said is that unless the president was more direct in recognizing the many crises faced by working-class families then our entire democracy would be destroyed.
This is an existential threat, not a goddamned motherfucking horse race, and I am sick and tired of the media supporting fascism by treating it like the latter!
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.
You can look at my post history and see I’m pretty far left, but I’ll be pinching my nose and voting for Joe Brandon, the reason the GOP has built so much power over the years is because their base always pinches their nose and toe the party line. Voting for the lesser evil is still keeping less evil out of the world.
Voting for less evil is still addition of evil. Everyone parrots this “blue no matter who” shit but dems have done nothing to stop fascism or serve the needs of citizens, because they benefit from those systems and citizens going without. Voting mid right instead of far right is still voting for the right, voting Democrat doesn’t stop the march to fascism, it just delays the official kick off date by 4 years as Republicans continue to seize power unchecked from the bottom up.
I’ve always voted third party and will continue to do so cause I’m over this vote between fascism and fascism but with a rainbow pin on its cap. If Democrats wanted the votes to beat Trump, they should have run Bernie who won the primary in 2016 instead of running status quo Hillary then having a court decree that their voters are, legally, not shit to them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep shouting it from the rooftops - if leftists are so fucking important to Democrats maybe they should stop dedicating their lives to insulting and belittling us. 🤷
If you vote third party you have no right to cry when Trump win. You are as much responsible for it as anyone who didnt vote.
If you vote Democrat you have no right to cry when Trump win. You are responsible for voting for a party that explicitly demonizes half of their supposed base as they screech at us for not voting for them.
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.
How would that policy be enacted even if they did? Congress certainly will not pass it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Can we call everything above “working class” …selfish evil cunts?
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”.
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.
Yeah Biden lost me when he outlawed the rail strike (please dont link me to electrical union statement). Frankly its just been downhill from there anyway.
Don’t link you evidence that the unions themselves thanked Biden for his help and they got what they wanted without striking?
he outlawed a rail strike and you want to link me a statement from an electrical union that opposed the strike from the beginning and always had sick days. And then I point out how not everyone got any sick days from this, the ones who did didnt get what they would have gotten from a strike, and outlawing strikes poisons any future union bargaining. Im tired of fuckin democrats coming in here to tell me how it was a good thing that the unions didnt get to collective bargain, they dont need any influence on labor because employers and the government have their best interests in mind.
Most of us rank and file union members think that he did what he had to do because inflation was already out of control and shutting down the railroads risked tipping the country into recession which would’ve guaranteed a “red wave” election in '22 as well as the reelection of Trump, both of which would be far more dire for working people.
Local 10 till I die!
“Leftist”/Dum-Dum left yet again being the most anti-labor aspects of the Democrat party despite waving union issues around, sadly. They are so fickle and searching for some wild thing to justify quitting & trying to hand the GOP a win at a moments notice. They won’t put the work into listening to great workers like yourself & what it takes to get the job done.
You’re the one celebrating a president for blocking a strike.
The are reasons for strikes and goals behind them. The strike isn’t the thing they are after its a tactic for getting the deals labor wants. You have to follow the whole labor negogation and negogations didn’t end because the strike was. The only hiccup was sick days and many of thd unions got that in the end.
You are looking for something superfical to be angry about.
Call it whatever you want. I’m not voting for Biden again.
damn man union members not even believing in collective bargaining. Yeah, it would have had consequences, that’s why it works. And it historically improves the economy, with increased pay for workers able to spend more into the economy.
Centrist Democrats would rather lose and have a hereditary dictatorship run by the Trump family than treat workers with respect.
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?
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)
Biden is the most pro-union president we’ve had in years and he’s responsible for the resurgence of unions. Bernie and all the commenters here seem totally detached from reality.
You’re getting downvoted by Lemmy’s far left extremists, but most of us rank and file union members know that Biden did what he had to do in a bad situation with no good options. Had he not stepped in and ended the strike, inflation would have continued to rise, the predicted “red wave” election would have happened, the country would have tipped into recession and Trump would be guaranteed a win in '24, all of which would be far more dire for working people.
Furthermore, it’s simply an objective fact that Biden is by far the most pro-union president in modern times. Again, the consensus in organized labor leadership is that he did what he had to do.
These purists are acting like children who don’t understand that democracy is about compromise, not getting everything you want.
Local 10 till I die!
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.
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”.
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???”
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.
