cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22940159
Bernie Sanders caused a stir last week, when the independent senator from Vermont and two-time contender for the Democratic presidential nomination sent a post-election email to his progressive supporters across the country. In it, he argued that the Democrats suffered politically in 2024 at least in part because they ran a campaign that focused on “protecting the status quo and tinkering around the edges.”
In contrast, said Sanders, “Trump and the Republicans campaigned on change and on smashing the existing order.” Yes, he explained, “the ‘change’ that Republicans will bring about will make a bad situation worse, and a society of gross inequality even more unequal, more unjust and more bigoted.”
Despite that the reality of the threat they posed, Trump and the Republicans still won a narrow popular-vote victory for the presidency, along with control of the US House. That result has inspired an intense debate over the future direction not just of the Democratic Party but of the country. And the senator from Vermont is in the thick of it.
In his email, Sanders, a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus who campaigned in states across the country this fall for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket, asked a blunt question: “Will the Democratic leadership learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life?”
His answer: “Highly unlikely. They are much too wedded to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their campaigns.”
I hate how this is the one man talking sense, and the DNC reviles him for it.
The problem is that it makes sense to us, the average Americans who would benefit from such things. But not to the elites who will be required to cede some amount of wealth, power and influence in the interest of such things.
I think that’s part of his point
I said this here before: https://lemmy.ca/post/32815441/12768827 and stand by it. I think it would be beneficial to you guys
The problem with getting working class candidates is they are too busy working.
And lack the funds to run
We need to pay politicians MORE money. Everyone is like, no they should be paid $3.50/year cause they don’t do shit, but if you have to support yourself, own a second house in the capital city, and pay a bunch of people to do the initial campaigning (signature gathering to get on the ballot, set up the first rounds of fundraising); WHO can do that? Only rich people. Working-Class people cannot afford to become candidates.
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Christmas is canceled.
I feel like we should absolutely be providing congressional dormitories, at a minimum.
I literally know someone who’s not running for a state office because even with the compensation he can’t afford the expenses of actually being in office.
is is the same shit that’s always happened thou
The system is designed to keep the poor, middle and even lower upper class out. When one of them gets rich enough to run, and can’t be bought out by one side or another cough cough stein cough the electoral system keeps them safely out of power. The system is rigged.
Also, the house and senate should be way bigger that are now.
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The problem will be money. Corporations can basically bankroll whatever candidates they want. It will be an extremely uphill battle given the state of campaign finance laws.
From the article:
“Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties?”
[Sanders’s question] was also influenced by the campaign of former union leader Dan Osborn, who ran this fall as a working-class independent in the deep-red state of Nebraska.
Against an entrenched Republican incumbent, and without big money backing or party support, Osborn shocked pundits by winning 47 percent of the vote.
Bernie Sanders: I think that what Dan Osborn did should be looked at as a model for the future. He took on both political parties. He took on the corporate world. He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent, he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska.
It sounds like you can still get pretty far by just addressing the actual concerns of the working class and offering real solutions to problems. Still an uphill battle, definitely, but maybe not an insurmountable climb.
Change that to take over the Democratic party and you got a good idea.
Then people need to abandon the DNC and form another option. Reform from within is fantasy, the current power structure will never allow anything that’s a threat to their existence
“you can’t blame the voter! The DNC is at fault for not changing”
– literally any 3rd party lemming after the election
“Then people need to abandon the DNC and form another option.”
– literally any 3rd party lemming after the election
so which is it? can we blame the voters or can’t we?
If the voters are too apathetic to what the DNC is offering, the thought of abandoning them for something that is much more popular isn’t a contradictory prospect. Having an enthusiasm problem so big that trump was able to be elected twice kinda points to the fact that people want something else.
How do you plan to avoid the problem of abandoning the DNC causing Republicans, who are worse than Democrats, from gaining unmitigated power while said other party is gaining momentum?
Republicans are only worse in their rhetoric. They will openly declare their intent, then do it. Democrats omit the declaring part.
Protecting the status quo prolongs everyone’s suffering
Only one of the two major parties helped ensure that a good friend of mine had legal access to lifesaving healthcare recently, and it wasn’t Republicans. Pretending one party isn’t worse isn’t productive. How are you going to approach the spoiler effect, or do you simply not care about all the death and suffering that will result from strategy that doesn’t tackle the spoiler effect?
The spoiler is running right wing candidates posing as liberal. Both times the DNC has done that we got trump.
Words have meanings. If you don’t want to answer the question because you’re embarrassed of the fact that you care for political purity over the lives of others, that’s on you.
The only thing that is embarrassing is liberals thinking their candidates are progressive
They’re just here to cosplay as revolutionaries. They don’t give a fuck about the people who actually suffer under these regimes.
Republicans are demonstrably worse than Democrats. Neither care about the poor, but one of them actively tries to kill queer folk, many of whom are good friends of mine, so fuck those Republican assholes.
The Democrat assholes at least aren’t directly targeting the people I care about, it’s just collateral.
Democrats kill them via social murder, which is a direct act of violence against all marginalized communities. Liberals claim they support trans using the restroom of choice, but don’t care if they live on the streets to make that decision.
Republicans kill them directly
There’s an option for no murder
Yeah, me getting to use the bathroom is just a rhetorical distraction in the end.
Go back to your hole, .ml troll
They care nothing about you
Dan Osborne ran competitively in a neglected Nebraska Senate race. It’s very common for Dems to entirely neglect seats, even whole states, and let winnable races languish.
Sanders candidates can (and did) win races like this in 2018 and 2020. The problem is that once a seat is “winnable”, lobbyists state money bombing primaries. Then you get shitty corporate Dems pushing leftists out and promptly losing those seats again.
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I’m all for it but the problem is that working class people are too busy working. Maybe they can set up a PAC that gives scholarships to would-be politicians so they can challenge these douchebags and still pay their bills.
I think that is a great idea - I would donate to a PAC that promoted the election of progressive candidates. I’m sure many on Lemmy would do the same.
Yeah and not ones that pretend to do that by claiming they support regular progressives but then immediately ask you for your income level.
To many are just pretending to be that and then hoover up money for themselves from the liberal idea that money is helpful alone.deleted by creator
That’s great! do you have any names of these PACs ?
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Do you know how to conversation?
Not gonna happen as long as money is the key to political power.
Good. The Democrats screwed Sanders over twice, and both times, he took it graciously and stood with them against Trump. Now that they have proved completely and utterly incapable of fighting the rise of fascism, there’s no need to pull punches or play nice. There’s no point in supporting the lesser of two evils if it is completely incapable of opposing the greater evil.
The Democratic Party is the political equivalent of a bloated whale carcass festering in the hot sun. Maybe if we stripped away all its old, rotting fat, we might find some use for its bones, but otherwise, it serves no purpose. Anyone telling you how it’s going to swim again is either delusional or lying.
We need working class candidates working outside of the right wing oligarchy. As a party Republicans and Democrats need to die off.
Unfortunately the only way to get enough signatures to get your name on a ballot can only be achieved via rich donors and mass advertising.
We would literally have an easier time killing the big pary canidates than working within the system.
This is just plain false, and also, like, aggressively defeatist. It feels to me, whenever someone says something like this, the intention is to kill off any hope in the people who aren’t terminally fatalistic about the prospect of any working class representation within the American politcal system, which makes you less optimistic than a Russian Serf in 1860, and the Wobblies and other trade unionists who were literally murdered and jailed.
Like, not to pick on you, because there are a lot of other people in this thread expressing the same opinion, but to whatever degree what you’re saying is true, it is only as true as the sentiment you are expressing is prevalent.
In my city there are hundreds of canidates that run for every position every election.
There are 2 names on the ballots when people go to vote
Call it what you want, but unless you get the R or D support or manage to get your own rich donor you will never get the signatures you need for your name to appear on the ballot next to their canidates, and the names on the ballot are who people actually vote for.
Acknowledging reality is not defeatist
And now we sit back and watch everyone in this thread who shat on 3rd party for “wasting votes” throwing around stupid takes like:
- Erm RCV will prevent this from being viable, we should just try to fix the Democrat party instead
- Working class people don’t have the time and money to make a grassroots movement. Clearly we need PAC money to win because that worked so well for Kamala and Clinton
- PAC money is superior to actual constituents and voters
- 4 years isn’t enough for a new party to work, we need to vote Democrat first to kick the Republicans out before we do anything else
- 3rd party would only affect the Democrats and split them up
Also the most common one lately
- There’s not going to be a 2028 election so why bother doing anything
We can’t do that since the rich have bought how democracy works. This is the same shit that’s always happened though. They’ll keep us just happy enough to keep their heads.
Sounds a bit too much like “both sides”.
Well, when you want people who identify as Republican and people who identify as Democrat to raise hell together, you call them both out.
The senator says in this exclusive interview that challengers to status quo politics can run in Democratic primaries or as independents.
Terminally online leftists: “BERNIE IS SAYING NEVER VOTE FOR OR COOPERATE WITH THE DEMS LIKE WE’VE BEEN SAYING, VINDICATION”
Bernie’s right, naturally. Change comes from the bottom up, from people volunteering to make a difference.
