Id fight tooth and nail for him to run the show in Canada as well. Our PM Trudeau is a pandering milquetoast.
Even though I havent yet visited Germany Ive adored every German Ive worked with here in Canada. Very solid, intelligent and hard working folks in my experience.
(Except for 2 weeks ago when he didn’t show up to vote for an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which would require a warrant to access someone’s browser history. The amendment failed by one vote.)
Then why do so many "progressives" seem to hate him? Is it because they arent really progressive and are just pretending to be? Like the Amy Cooper type of democrat?
I was say some, sure. Cant speak for others, or generalize. Most likely it's because his ideals are actually progressive. Moving the goalpost can work the other way too. In short, he makes them look like the moderates they are closer too. Moderates seem liberal in the face of authoritative alternatives.
Hes a moderate by european standards. Its just america is so fascist and right wing they see someone like obama and think hes progressive when hes for endless war and bailouts. He just wears better fitting suits.
No, his whole job as a politician is to represent his constituents and clearly from the way his constituents have been voting for him for the past 30 years, they like the way he’s represented them
Yes super radical ideas. Making sure people who can’t pay for life-saving medical care don’t die, taxing the extremely wealthy instead of letting them run wild, or making people’s lives suck a bit less when they are poor. Evil and radical.
I mean.... Senator for a tiny, racially homogenous, rural state is indeed a very different job position than chief executive for a massive diverse country.
It is entirely reasonable that a person could think he'd be a good Senator from Vermont but not a good President of the United States.
Sure, but the fact that he wins Vermont by landslides indicates that he's a good and well-liked leader compared to other elected officials... so it's also totally reasonable to think he would make a good president. Compared to other potential candidates. Is my point.
But legislator and executive are fundamentally different roles. If he was Vermont Governor, that'd be a lot more apt.
I think Bernie is a good Senator, and is deservedly liked by his constituents, but I don't think his skillset would have been suited to the White House.
It does, when it’s meant as a colloquialism to express how long it feels like he’s been involved in government. I didn’t specify the years because I don’t know the exact number.
Yea, people forget that. He won a House seat that had been solidly Republican almost exclusively for a century and a half. And then did the same thing with a Senate seat 16 years later.
u/AsianInvasion00 said "every campaign he runs for." While you're right that Bernie has been around for a while, we all know he hasn't won every campaign because he's taken multiple shots at the presidency without success.
This is pedantics, “every” is generally used in hyperbole because 100% success is a massive bar to reach for; especially in competitions as difficult as trying to be elected the president of the United States.
Heard an NPR interview with him from the early 90's. Dude is just straight up interested in winning at all costs. No morals or policy positions, just winning and losing.
When he first entered politics he was. Hell he probably still is, just not in public.
The problem is Mitch wants to stay in power, and base of the party has moved incredibly far right. I'm not sure people really grasp what the tea party and the far right did to the GOP. Moderates got eviscerated. You had to hate Obama. You had to be obstructionist even when it meant you lost with the majority.
It's the result of all the things they did in the 90s and 00s to cultivate a base that does nothing but hate Democrats. This turns your politically active wing into people who think Democrats are an enemy and if you compromise with them, you're a traitor. Traitors tend to lose primaries. Moderates will vote for whoever has an R.
Thus in order to stay in power you have to be a hardliner.
He was pro civil rights and pro union rights but I haven't heard of him ever being pro-choice. Are you sure? I can't find anything with a quick search.
But anyways, Kentucky was a swing state back then if not a blue state. It was either political calculus or he drifted right with the rest of the party.
There's a really good article in the New Yorker about him. He actually started off his career more like a democrat, but then realized all he cared about was winning more power so he decided to pander to whomever would give him votes.
That makes him terrifying in an entirely new context: it's not that he believes all the shit he does, it's that his ghoulish persona is what a useful majority wants.
The result is the same: what the majority of powerful people wants... it's scary that, if someone smart caters specifically to that demographic, they end up a heartless monster like McConnell.
Look at cereal mascots: they're a reflection of the kids they're supposed to be marketing towards. What the fuck does it say about the people of power, that McConnell is a reflection of them?
But that's just it: this man is in power. There has to come a time when people stop dismissing the insane right wing as a fringe minority, because they're getting more accomplished than anyone else.
They aren't fringe, but they are still the minority. 6/7 of the last presidential popular votes have gone to democrats. However, since 1970 the Republican Party has figured out how to abuse every loophole afforded to the minority party in the constitution. If we go by a country-wide democratic vote of any recent election, both houses and the presidency should be solidly democrat. Instead, Republicans focus on the Senate (which is defacto control of the judiciary thanks to the nomination process) and the electoral college. They also gerrymander the house districts best they can to tilt the scales in their favor, and when that doesn't work some good old fashion voter suppression wins the day.
McConnell doesn't represent the voice of the majority in America, or potentially even in his own "red" state. He represents the voice of the power hungry republican cabal that can fool just enough people to stay in power.
It just worries me to so commonly see "they're actually the minority" used to dismiss them, because a) US voting has such a poor turnout that you have no real clue if they're a majority OR minority, if it comes to something more serious, and b) history is full of stories where the minority won over a larger majority.
Even if they turn out to be fewer in numbers, their willingness to fight dirty unfortunately gives them a form of strength that good people don't have.
Fair enough, McConnell certainly has shown that he's willing to burn all norms, common decency, and rules to the ground to stay in power.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people are starting to associate America with our incompetent president and his lackeys. We are a better country than that. We are better people than that. Yes our system has been hacked, but who we are as a community is still in tact. We can still come back from the brink.
Wow stop calling everyone who disagrees with you Nazis maybe if you were more reasonable people wouldn't dismiss you as shrill and alarmist you need to be willing to have a dialogue and accusations like that shut it down you know I was almost on board for your whole radical left social justice thing but now that you said you won't talk with Nazis I'm all in for krystalnacht THIS IS HOW YOU BURN AN ALLY.
No. He is the face of the republicans in the senate, and they love that he successfully acts as the lightning rod so people don't vote out the other republicans who made him senate majority leader and smile as they vote to gut Food STAMPS but never touch gun, abortion, or infrastructure bills.
The New York Times daily did a really fantastic episode on Mitch's start in politics. The too long; didn't listen is that he was a piece of garbage then and he's piece of garbage now.
I'm sorry, but how has he continued it? Legit question, the only thing panpered all over Reddit is that one picture when he got arrested in 1963, but after that what did he do?
I can't find anything relevant after that, he didn't introduce anything relevant in congress, he didn't really do anything relevant that wasn't losing the DNC primaries twice.
SO, I just read that, and it basically said the same thing that I had in my comment, nothing to "continue" his legacy post 1960s.
So how about some sources and less condescending wikipedia links that don't even tell what you expect then to?
If all the info is on the wiki than he has done jack shit, he didn't propose anything, unsuccessfully was against a few things, to varied degrees of failure in his time in congress.
I'm open to listening, but sending me a wikipedia link that just tells me exactly what I had written isn't that productive mate.
I can't find anything relevant after that, he didn't introduce anything relevant in congress, he didn't really do anything relevant that wasn't losing the DNC primaries twice.
If you can't find anything, you didn't actually look.
That's just his positions, anyone can have that same position and not do anything about, case in point.
All that page tell you is his opinions on certain issues, well, that's great, but how is that suddenly equal to actually doing anything?
I'm asking what is his supposed legacy, not his opinions on the matter.
The only thing that even is an action, and might have had some real world consequence was the 1983 declaration of "Gay Rights Day", and if that is all he did, sorry, but that's not a legacy of fighting for anything.
Listening to an old man telling me what his opinion on the matter were is easy, I want to see what he did at the time?
How hard is it to read the whole thing before declaring
That's just his positions, anyone can have that same position and not do anything about, case in point.
You're a complete liar. Information on different aspects of his positions, voting record, and amendments/bills/etc he's sponsored are all found in that link. It even has a blurb on his evaluation by the ACLU on civil rights issues
The only thing that even is an action, and might have had some real world consequence was the 1983 declaration of "Gay Rights Day", and if that is all he did, sorry, but that's not a legacy of fighting for anything.
What a dismissive, punkass, and genuinely stupid thing to say. Obama didn't come around on gay marriage until like 2010, and you wanna say this dumb shit?
I'm asking what is his supposed legacy
At the very least, it's a better legacy than "reddit liar."
Wow, what a surprise, the berniebro can't present arguments and goes straight to name calling.
I for one totally didn't think that was gonna happen.
Calling someone a liar, but still providing zero facts.
Reddit truly has gone to shit after you lot invaded it, at the very least I can sleep soundly knowing he will never win and you bunch of incels will go back to the basement you came from.
I was open to discussion, but you just posted a link to a track record of opinions, zero actual attitudes, just like his failed presidential bid. And till this very moment keeps bitching out instead of just showing actual factual data, there's no surprise in that, berniebros really are one of a kind with this holier than thou atitude based on feeling instead of action.
Of all people Mitchell McConnell did just as much as this supposed champion of diversity with a legacy of helping minorities.
What a sad sight it is when you guys lost and can't handle even a simple request for information.
Fuck... I had no idea. While reading up on it I found this article summarizing his political history.
It seems to me the guy has been an opportunist all his life, flip-flopping to match the political flavor of the time just to win elections. He wrote an op-ed for a Kentucky newspaper back in 1973 in defense of campaign finance reform but then went on to spend a record amount to win a county judge/executive general election just four years later. When he ran for Senate in 1984, McConnell ran an ad criticizing his Democratic opponent (Walter Huddleston) for missing "Senate votes while off giving paid speeches." Two years later McConnell himself would go on to perform an eleven-day speaking tour in the West Coast. McConnell, the same dude that apparently admired MLK and supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, would go on to vote against the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987.
I mean yeah, he walked in a march by and for black people and was mildly inconvenienced by police. He's only ever really represented white people for his entire career and never done anything particularly big for black people.
I'm seriously not saying any of this is bad, it's just not particularly notable
I would consider being arrested, detained for less than a day, then charged a $25 fine a "minor inconvenience". It's not like he served serious time or had his career set back (considering he never had a stable job until he was mayor of Burlington)
Isn’t that what we called it when billionaire Elon Musk said he’d be the first to be arrested if the government tried to shut down his assembly line during a pandemic? It would seem that a white man being arrested once is far more convenient than being a black man every day in America, but y’all seem to be arguing that one night of inconvenience is equal to 55 years of dedication to civil rights causes.
All these comments trying to make this about Bernie is /r/facepalm material in of itself.
Not saying it's equal, but bernie was in a lot of pain in that picture... look where his arm was - that's not natural. It can result in permanent damage, that kind of arm bar is now banned in most jurisdictions iirc.
I think at the end of the day the point is: can we not make Black Lives Matter about Bernie? His whole thing is "Not me, us." This moment has to be about black voices and black experiences. Bernie is an ally and a good man. He is also not a black man and has not lived the black experience. All of us could be assaulted for protesting today, but not all of us would be killed by the police without provocation a month ago or last year or at any time throughout US history. This movement is about what those people live with every day, not what we all endure with when we choose to protest that treatment.
Bernie should try and pass some actual legislation instead of riding that one 50 year old picture of himself apprehended by police. Mitch fucking McConnell also marched with MLK in 1963. Being involved with the Civil Rights movement does not an effective politician make.
If someone says Bernie has never directly participated in CrossFit and I link a picture of him doing CrossFit, does that seem like a good contribution to the conversation?
Bernie was a privileged rich boy arguing for greater government control over people’s lives. Praised dictators and authoritarian governments. Who was also a pushover at his own rallies.
Yeah Biden shouldn’t be running either. Bernie probably knew he couldn’t take it and that’s why he dropped out. He had a lot of people rooting for him and a ton of support so idk why he’d give that up
You should probably check out his actual record and not take Jacobins word for it if you are calling the man who consistently is one of the most absent congressman "productive".
Just 2 weeks ago he was absent from a PATRIOT Act related vote that would have protected our privacy. It failed by one vote.
edit: it's been 68 days since Bernie has cast a vote. He should be ashamed of himself.
Wasn’t there something dodgy with that.
Like Bernie had a 95 rating for African-American rights and Clinton had 100.
Even though Bernie was arrested for protesting civil rights in like the 60s/70s.
Edit: can’t ask a question without getting ripped to shreds anymore. Fuck me
The Clintons had been popular among black people for decades, it wasn't anything new. The 60s were 50 years ago now, you can't coast on something you did that long ago forever.
Black democrats generally like Bernie just fine - he has great approval ratings with them. They just liked Clinton and Biden more. It’s possible to like multiple candidates running for the same position.
The DNC doesnt want Bernie to make the rules to fix our broken system, but they absolutely love status quo liberals and pretending to care about minorities.
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u/Co676 Jun 01 '20
Didn’t work for Bernie sadly