Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
Bernie Sanders is really making me have to check myself continuously. Even though I don't believe in much of what he's preaching, I find myself mimicking Trumpists and taking pleasure in the frothy-mouthed reactions this old, 60s hippy senator is garnering from conservatives. Even on this board.
Not a good look, and I don't enjoy the pettiness it exposes in me.
That said, anytime anyone wants to equate the relative moral standing of Sanders and Trump, I hope they're among the first to be coronavirused.
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Sanders policies are insane (to me) but he's genuine and that's everything in politics. This is something that Bloomberg's billions can't buy and he's finding that out very quickly. The Democratic party needs to more of that, it needs to take risks.
For as long as I can remember, the majority of Democratic politicians have been deeply, deeply afraid of taking strong stands on anything. McGovern’s loss still gets brought up constantly even though, for as bad as that loss was, the Dems were back in the White House four years later. You just don’t see that type of loss dwelling and fearful paralysis from the GOP.
So Pete’s robotic nature and carefully created (to the extreme) image is exactly what he was taught to do as a Democratic “rising star.” Kamala Harris, who was actually supposed to the “rising star” in 2020, killed her own campaign with a similar brand of contrived cautiousness, as her inability to take a stand on any issue reached absurd levels. The problems with this approach are that (a) it leads to watered down policy; and (b) a lot of voters see right through it.
Bernie is still the most popular candidate in the field, despite being a 78 year old heart attack survivor, because he projects the authenticity and genuine passion that is badly lacking in the Democratic Party. (And by virtue of him being NOT A DEMOCRAT, his staffers do too. AOC went from a bartender to one of the most visible politicians in America within a matter of weeks for the same reason. Maybe Bernie and AOC’s goals will prove to be too ambitious, but they at least have a vision for a better society, which has been sorely lacking from the Democratic Party as a whole.