- cross-posted to:
- politics@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- politics@hexbear.net
Leftwing senator advises ‘unification of progressive people in general’ because threat from Republican ex-president is too great
Progressive US voters must unite behind Joe Biden rather than consider any of his Democratic primary challengers because the threat of another Donald Trump presidency is too great, Bernie Sanders has said.
“We’re taking on the … former president, who, in fact, does not believe in democracy – he is an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person,” the senator and Vermont independent, who caucuses with Democrats, said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think at this moment there has to be unification of progressive people in general in all of this country.”
Sanders’ remarks came as Trump continued grappling with more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments filed against him for his efforts to forcibly nullify his defeat to Biden in the 2020 presidential race, his illicit retention of classified documents, and hush-money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels.
Despite the unprecedented legal peril confronting him, Trump enjoys a commanding lead over his competitors in the Republican presidential primary, polls show.
And though polling for now shows Biden generally is ahead of Trump, that has not stopped Robert F Kennedy Jr and Marianne Williamson from mounting long-shot Democratic primary challenges – or third-party progressive candidate Cornel West from running.
Sanders himself was the runner-up for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 White House race won by Trump and in 2020, with West among his supporters. But Sanders this time quickly endorsed Biden’s re-election campaign, a decision which prompted West to accuse him of only backing Biden because he is “fearful of the neo-fascism of Trump”.
The senator responded to that criticism on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, saying, “Where I disagree with my good friend Cornel West is – I think, in these really very difficult times, there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States of America.
“You know, Donald Trump is not somebody who believes in democracy, whether women are going to be able to continue to control their own bodies, whether we have social justice in America, [whether] we end bigotry.”
Sanders didn’t elaborate, but his remarks seemed to be an allusion to the Trump White House’s creation of the US supreme court supermajority, which last year struck down the federal abortion rights that the Roe v Wade decision had established decades earlier.
That court also struck down race-conscious admissions in higher education as well as a Colorado law that required entities to afford same-sex couples equal treatment, among other decisions lamented by progressives.
“Around that, I think we have got to bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump – or whoever the Republican nominee will be – [and] support Biden,” Sanders added on State of the Union.
Sanders nonetheless said he planned to push Biden to tackle “corporate greed and the massive levels of income and wealth inequality” across the US. On Meet the Press, he suggested he would urge Biden to “take on the billionaire class”.
Those comments came about four months after Sanders called on the US government to confiscate 100% of any money that Americans make above $999m, saying people with that much wealth “can survive just fine” without becoming billionaires.
Democracy is, at its core, a popularity contest.
It’s a lot easier and more effective to be popular with deception and favors than by responsibility and moral fiber.
Therefore the only politicians who are able to succeed to the point that they get to the national level are those who have learned how the game works and play it with a combination of deceit and favors.
I’m not saying democracy is bad…in fact, of the various systems it competes with, it’s one of the best…but that doesn’t mean it’s flawless, and this is one of its many flaws.
Why are democratic countries that aren’t the USA manage to generate a wide set of qualified candidates which aren’t close to death (both Trump, Biden, Clinton, Sanders, Reagan, Bush)?
First, my comment made no mention of age, only compromised morals.
To answer your question, though, I feel it’s a combination of population size, demographics, scale of representation, and the nature of the way the respective systems have evolved (both naturally and intentionally)
Population: The US has lots and lots of people spread out over a wide area. Lots of people mean that there’s lots of qualified people, and it follows that the older you get, the more time you’ve spent in this arena, therefore the more experience and connections you have.
Demographics: Simply put, Baby Boomers. There’s more of them than there are of anyone else, and they tend to elect their own.
Scale of Representation: US elected officials at the national level represent a huge number of constituents. This means that getting elected is more about appealing to a broad spectrum of voters, to the point that it’s often more about just being objectionable to the fewest voters. This is Joe Biden’s greatest strength: nobody really really likes the guy, but he’s someone that (among his base) not too many people actually dislike, or at least not enough to withhold their vote. It’s boring but effective within the situation, like trap hockey. Representation of such a wide and diverse group of people means that politicians won’t champion any agenda that might put off voters. A vote is a vote regardless of whether it’s lukewarm or zealous, and a thousand “meh” votes are drastically more valuable than a hundred fanatical votes.
The Nature of the Beast: like it or not, America has a two party, first past the post, winner take all system. This means that the game is very closed-ended, full of binary/Boolean strategy: A or B, vote or don’t vote, win the state completely or don’t win it at all. This ties in with the previous point and makes a campaign and election even more about being as inoffensive as possible.
So for a winner take all, nationwide race like president, the way the Xs and Os work out is that your party’s best odds come with someone who’s got lots of connections, is widely recognized, and whom the fewest people in your base will dislike enough to not vote for them. In the vast majority of cases, that means an old candidate who’s had decades of experience and network building, who has no controversial positions, odd personality quirks, etc., and who is just a hair more likeable to moderates than whomever the other party puts out there.
The only time in recent history this hasn’t been the case was 2016, in which Trump pulled more votes out of his base and the far right than anyone gave him credit for…and maybe 2000, although a decent argument could be made there that Clinton’s stigma hobbled Gore’s campaign just enough. With SCOTUS help.
Thus, you get usually old (experienced, well known), usually male, usually white, usually straight, usually at least vaguely religious, usually rather boring candidates.