Sanders is one of the most popular politicians in the US, and his political analysis and messaging remain as relevant and compelling as ever. But while his Tour to Fight Oligarchy is inspiring and important, the broad left badly needs a political vision that goes beyond Sanders.
Almost like some sort of grassroots 3rd party that is literally too radical of an idea for you fools in this community who argued Biden (and Harris) was somehow more leftist than Obama.
Yes, let’s lose worse.
Without ranked choice voting, the only option is to fix it from within.
RCV is not something the two party system would willingly allow to occur in enough states to matter, and it’s not a base requirement for a 3rd party to succeed.
Pakistan doesn’t have RCV, it took them 20 years which included a 10 year military dictatorship and 10 years of faked paper ballots and miscounts. No way the US would need more than that considering we don’t have massive issues involving voter fraud.
I’m sick of people disregarding 3rd party with what is essentially a flawed argument of the two party system used to convince people 3rd parties are impossible.
You would be surprised at the amount of increased turnout from the nonvoters group that would gain wins in an FPTP system despite the disadvantage.
Bernie is the only leftist in the Senate. So until that changes it will be impossible to move beyond him.
We need a progressive takeover of the democratic party. The MAGAs tranformed the republican party in what 10 years?
If we have midterms it has to start then.
*The Koch Brothers et al. used their vast wealth to transform the Republican Party in 10 years.
The biggest problem the left faces is that money is required for any political action in the U.S., and there is no money for the left. No billionaire will fund 50501, or Our Revolution, and in fact they’ll gladly spend several million dollars defeating leftist primary challengers and suppressing news of protests.
Our political system is hopelessly rigged. There is no longer any way to use it to save ourselves.
Probably won’t happen. The DNC are conservatives and the majority of the US is too. Most ppl are too dumb/uninformed to see left leaning politics is what they actually want
Which means there’s no hope for this framework and the best thing that can happen is collapse and rebuild for even any long term hope for our descendants after a lot of pain.
I agree the people have been systematically made hostile to policies that would defend them the laborers from the capitalists by capitalist for profit media propaganda and capitalist captured government propaganda.
If the people are only willing to vote as “left” as the good cop fascist dems and it’s a coin flip between them and the can’t go any further right fascist Repubs, there is no solution short of letting entropy tear it all down.
You can’t repair a sinking ship when the only solutions available are make more little holes(D) or make more big holes®in the hull. The people would need to at minimum have a stop making new holes (funneling all resources to the top 0.1%) party. But that’s evil communist leninist Marxist socialism Herp derp! Better starve to death under a freeway 🇺🇸
We have to organize at the community level and do it without all the shadowfunding the fascists have.
I think the language is funky. They’re saying beyond, like take his ideas and go even further, not move away from Bernie. They want more and better of him.
Luigi, because Bernie was our compromise.
Centrists need to stop telling leftists what to do and what is good for them or they’re going to keep on losing elections.
It’s not coming from a centrist in this case: the article is written by someone who argues Bernie is insufficiently left.
Bernie is the left’s most effective advocate in the US and we need more of him.
We need more like him
Exactly, I love Bernie, but he’s old. Of a new generation of young progressives don’t establish a foothold in the senate change will not happen.
Ot at least not through peaceful means.
Yeah, but also I think a Godzilla sized Bernie Sanders could do a lot of good.
Would you rather fight 1 Godzilla-sized Bernie? Or 100 Bernie-sized Godzillas?
Well I’m probably dead either way unless Bernie can be reasoned with so at least the godzilla sized Bernie could go on to do good things for the world and not be a radioactive nightmare for everyone to deal with.
A new party is needed. Be done with the garbage that we currently have
So, you think the same people who couldn’t get past the DNC in 2016, 2020, and 2024 are suddenly going to be able to create a party in less than 24 months?
I’m not going to hold my breath
Gotta start somewhere.
Reinventing the wheel is a waste of time.
We need a massive voter registration drive. 90 million people didn’t vote in 2014. Even 10% would be a game changer.
Primary every sitting Dem and force them Left. Make every GOP fight for every vote.
No, the left needs to study Bernie and take notes. Then elect politicians exactly like him.
This article is not what we need right now.
The sit out centrists need to vote
this is basically saying, we are currently at -10, Sanders is at +3 and we need to jump to +10 right away. Not gonna happen unless through civil war.
More of a revolution than a civil war.
Despite all the maga bots online. There are very few die hard maga in real life.
And I realize that most of the military is Republican.
However. Trump has been fucking over the Vets pretty hard.
He also has removed a lot of the military’s top leaders. People who the military personnel respected.
Surely this is going to start eroding the military personnel’s loyalty.
But then I also remember how Republicans have consistently voted against their own interests.
And how many people in Russia are against the Ukraine war because they have friends and family in Ukraine. And their soldiers keep dying.
Yet…they are still following orders to attack.
Things are so uncertain.
But if the American people have to literally battle anyone in our own country it’s going to be us vs our military personnel.
And they have weapons and training.
Our only real chance is using our intelligence over force. and our decentralized leadership is a strength. So one specific leader can’t be targeted and disrupt the movement.
Basically guerilla warfare. Targeting propaganda, military resources, factories that manufacture weapons, and imports. And a priority is Trumps secret police force. ICE.
Because they are removing people who would stand with us. Taking away our resources.
We need to target their communication systems.
There is a few ways that can be done.
Physical disruption or by overloading their systems with inaccurate information.
Of course many of these targets potentially negatively affect the civilian combatants too.
We have to really plan this well. Be strategic.
We need to start preparing for this possibility though. Now. Right now.
I hope we can do this the legal way and get him arrested.
But if not, then we will have to consider plan B.
Every day we move closer to B. Already we are seeing more effects by vandalism of Tesla’s. Vs judge orders.
I personally hold not only the 10 Dems who sold us out. But every single Republican who voted yes on the CR too.as well as voting in unqualified department heads.
The representative dems and Republicans who have not stood up to him.
They also are just as responsible.
The judges who have allowed him to continue his obviously unconstitutional activities.
Every single person in Trump’s cabinet.
They will all be held accountable for their actions when this is said and done.
We won’t forget. They are traitors.
Republicans were at -3 pre 2016 and they’ve ratcheting up to -10 pretty quickly. If you have a good charismatic leader that the base falls for you can drag the rest of the party along to the edges of the Overton window pretty quickly.
If you have a good charismatic leader that the base falls for
…the party’s geriatric republican-lite leadership will ratfuck them out of the primaries.
No.
The Left needs to get rid of fucking Schumer.
Let Bernie retire, because the man was there for the signing of the declaration (pretty sure his signature is just below Adams’s.)
Let the man retire. Get rido f the Quaislings that seem content to be ineffectual opposition.
Do stuff other than beg the base for money and give people somethign they can be involved in. Start looking at community efforts. Build ties at the base’s own level so the base SEES the Democratic party Doing stuff locally that HELPS them.
I mean, that’s basically what the article is saying, too. Just a lot more detailed, with a lot more research and evidence to support their assertion.
Always good to have facts backing up what was already a ‘known.’
Schumer has turned the democratic party into a top down mess that is ineffectual and will continue to be ineffectual because nobody expects the Democratic party to be able to do anything, and for that to change there needs to be a bottom up restructuring.
there wont be anyone like sanders or aoc, and all other imitation dems turn out to be shills for the gop.
i.e. Fetterman.
When the party supported him instead of pulling funding, it should have been clear that he was lying about being a progressive.
I believe the left needs to start listening to Sanders. This man is a genuine champion. He, for decades, has been shunned by his colleagues, and yet he has never wavered in continuing to fight for all of us. I wish I had a fraction of the courage this man has.
Bernie is like the only leftist rep. You mean the center-right needs to start listening to Sanders.
Bernie has many good ideas, but listening more to him won’t get you anywhere. I’ll just copy paste another comment I wrote about this:
Just voting for progressive candidates won’t fix things. I don’t know if there was any point where that was enough to fix things, but if there was it definitely isn’t now. Therefore, Bernie—who did not, does not and will not recommend any method of resistance beyond simply voting—is incapable of leading a progressive movement. Bernie and politicians like him need an independent progressive movement behind them to win elections; if you put them in charge of the movement they’ll sit around doing nothing for most of the year.
The US progressive movement needs real leadership willing to take action (and occasionally get their hands dirty) and it needs it fast.
Yeah what does Bernie know about getting his hands dirty?
Who would be best suited then? I genuinely would like to know, because I feel like there isn’t anybody right now.
Okay full discloser I am not American and very much not familiar with prominent figures in progressive American politics other than the Squad, so I have no idea. However, it’d likely have to be the leadership of a coalition of progressive groups and third parties uniting for a more equitable and just society and against fascism, in which case they can just elect whoever. I also think the best/only path forward is a broad progressive coalition founding a third party and both competing for elections and resisting in the streets at the same time, so the leadership would naturally emerge from that third party. The leftist activist base whose only direct interaction with politics until now has been to endorse candidates and vote needs to contest and win elections. Unite the left on that basis and you’ve won half the battle.
I agree with a lot of this article, but it doesn’t really acknowledge the reality of the Democratic leadership’s obstruction. The party is, generously, a slightly left-of-center organization that prioritizes stifling their own left wing over defeating their far-right opponents. They’ve successfully held off two of Bernie’s presidential runs, redistricted Bowman out of his seat, and Pelosi has spent so much time and effort undermining the squad (and AOC personally) that it borders on pathological.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Bernie in this article, and beyond that, he’s just too old to be in the Senate, much less the standard bearer for the entire left, but the Democrats have spent decades making sure there’s no viable alternative. We need to move past Bernie, but we need to build an actual progressive movement that can get past Democratic obstruction to do that, and for now, Bernie is still the de facto leader of that movement.
They’re center right at best, they dont advocate for workers solidarity and actively distract workers from unity. They demand compromise with capitalists yet give the workers nothing. They are only left wing in social policy, on economics and governance they are fascism lite.
Well, there’s a reason I said, “generously,” slightly left-of-center. It also depends on the Democrat. There’s enough of them that care about labor to get the PRO Act through the house, but not the Senate. I don’t think it would be unfair to call someone like Gary Peters center-left, given his strong pro-union track record, but someone like Schumer or Pelosi, who are squarely on the side of Wall Street and big tech respectively, are just conservatives masquerading as left-leaning centrists.
Imo being left wing should at the absolute bare minimum require supporting the abolition of private property and ownership. Unions are fundamentally a compromise between labor and capital, therefore supporting unions is more centrist. An example of a left wing position would be supporting revolutionary workers syndicates.
I mean, fair enough, but there’s no point in America history where abolishing private ownership wouldn’t be considered far-left. I understand that compared to international standards or across the broader spectrum of political theory, the American left has never been particularly left-wing. When I say the Democrats are slightly center-left or center-right, I’m comparing them to themselves 30 to 40 years ago. Since 1980, they’ve slowly compromised their principles to the point where they can’t be considered, “left,” by any modern political metric.
If you asked a Appalachian coal miner in 1921 they would say that the abolition of private property is the absolute basic nessesity for any leftist movement
…OK, that still would have a far-left opinion in American politics. It’s not like the country was divided between socialists and communists back then. Hell, it took the Great Depression just to get the moderate socialist reforms of the New Deal passed, and even then, its opponents thought it was communism.
Like, I don’t know what to tell you. I understand your point; you think anything that doesn’t involve the abolition of private property isn’t left-wing. But even pre-Cold War, even pre-McCarthyism, even during the Coal Wars, that position would be the far-left of American politics. I’m not trying to be a dick here, but when I, or the author of the article, or most Americans, are talking about, “the left,” we’re definitely not working from your definition.
Trash article.
Their foreign policy criticism of Bernie is that he told people to vote for Kamala, and she didn’t do enough to stop the genocide in Gaza.
Like Jesus Christ, people like this are why the Democrats cant win.
She indicated that she would continue biden’s unquestioning and unconditional support for netanyahu’s genocide.
You can make your point without downplaying genocide support.
Oh please do go ahead and tell me how much Trump is doing to stop that.
Oh what’s that? Nothing?
Are you saying that it was fucking obvious everyone should vote for and endorse Kamala?
Jesus fucking Christ, anyone who didn’t support Kamala was dumb as fuck. Full stop. If your criticism of Bernie was that he supported the obvious lesser of two evils then maybe you deserve the president you got.
If your criticism of Bernie was that he supported the obvious lesser of two evils then maybe you deserve the president you got.
Where did I criticize Bernie?
And anyone who supports genocide is human garbage and will always deserve worse than they’re currently getting. Regardless of how shitty what they’re getting is, they deserve worse.
This literal entire comment chain is about how the article’s foreign policy criticism of Bernie is that he endorsed Kamala, and she didn’t do enough to stop the Palestinian genocide.
and she didn’t do enough to stop the Palestinian genocide.
The basically vowed to continue it. Sanders can see the lesser evil, but that’s no reason to downplay the evil.
Sanders is the american Jeremy corbyn and if it looks as though he might get near to power, the establishment will take him out, smear him and try to remove him from politics and the democratic party, just as they did corbyn.
They used the excuse of antisemitism in the labour party, which was total lies, he’s the most stalwart anti-racist in UK politics and has been for decades. His record speaks for itself. He’s still barred from the labour party now.
Couldn’t insult Corbyn any harder
I’m not sure what you mean, but I seem to remember corbyn and sanders were friendly and spoke at the same demonstrations etc. For a while there it seemed we would have decent politicians running things on both sides of the pond.
I mean they are not the same. Corbyn is the real deal, Bernie is a sellout at best, now a sheepdog for the establishment keeping the voters runnung away to 3rd parties.
No surprise one of them got framed and the other one is still around.
Bernie can have his platform to do his show to give their corporate party a progressive face, not the 3rd party candidates who get sabotaged by the Dems and which they try to get of the ballots by lawsuits or any way possible.
They will fight them harder than republicans.
If you want to compare him to UK politics he would be a labour politician.
All talk about being for the people yet doing the opposite.Well okay, which mainstream US politician is better than Sanders?
Why TF do you need mainstream politicians?
3rd party is the only option, or stay in the endless loop like you’ve been doing for a few centuries nowBecause the system is rigged against 3rd Parties, the Dems and the GOP have worked hard over the decades to make it all but impossible for 3rd Parties to get on ballots. For example, it can vary from state to state the amount, but 3rd party candidates need to get thousands of signatures in each of the counties they want to have their name on the ballot in. Meanwhile the Dems and GOP have gotten state laws passed that automatically put Dem and GOP candidates on the ballots like an reward for voter involvement in the previous election.
Getting on the ballots at all for 3rd parties costs a lot of money and time to do. It’s generally why you only really see 3rd parties pop up for the presidential election, which just sort of becomes a joke because it’s usually a nutter like Jill Stein.
a nutter like Jill Stein
While there are better ones and I don’t really follow her, there’s no doubt she’s far better than any of the imperialist genociding psychopaths both sides of your uniparty regime endorse.
What makes her a nutter eactly?
I’m part of a 3rd party but the problem is, they don’t win. Eg right now the Democrats could be in power rather than trump. That would avoid absolute catastrophe and keep the west at mid level shit.
Now trump won things will get bad. I hope that the people will overcome and in 100 years people will say it was a good thing that trump got in, because it galvanised real change. People were put into a position where they had to demand change. Or it could go the other way - there might not even be any people in 100 years to assess. Chaos is dangerous, even well planned, contained chaos, which this isn’t.
They don’t win bcs of this dumb defeatist ‘lesser evil/wasted vote’ mentality.
In EU there are plenty of parties that started from 2% and have grown until they become a force and get a place in government.
I really hope you get your true change now.
There would be no Trump without the dems creating that climate making it possible.
And their horrible tone-deaf politicians making clear you would get more of the same as under Genocide Joe.
So I’m glad Trump won, a US president fucking up his own country for once instead of others is a win for the world.
It makes no difference for Palestinians, Yemeni, Syrians or plenty others who rules the country that bombs them or aids the terrorist proxies to do it for them.
I feel sorry for the few that aren’t part of the massive dem/rep population but that is collateral dammage.
It needed to happen.
How you deal with it is up to you.
