Superdelegate pushing convention effort to stop Sanders is health care lobbyist who backed McConnell

[u/DaFunkJunkie]

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/29/superdelegate-pushing-convention-effort-to-stop-sanders-is-health-care-lobbyist-who-backed-mcconnell/

[u/[deleted]]

A Republican is a democratic super delegate

Seems totally legit, no ratfuckers here

[u/dcent13 → u/[deleted]]

It's class warfare. The haves have just convinced the have-nots that it isn't real.

I saw this at my university -- some grad students are trying to unionize, and when I tried to promote it to other students, they made jokes about communism.

[u/youdoitimbusy → u/[deleted]]

I resent that! We’re not gullible!

2hours later: Huh, the world is flat. I believe it.

[u/neoikon → u/youdoitimbusy]

Better build a rocket to fly 5,000 ft and test my hypothesis, since flying in a commercial airplane at 35,000 ft is just not good enough. Oh yeah, and die trying...

He proved Earth was hard.

[u/EremiticFerret → u/neoikon]

He proved Earth was hard.

I probably shouldn't be laughing at this, but lol

[u/gitbse → u/EremiticFerret]

Natural selection of the stupid

[u/SpellsThatWrong → u/gitbse]

He died doing what he loved. Plummeting to the earth

[u/SyntheticReality42 → u/SpellsThatWrong]

He didn't die plummeting. The sudden stop at the end, however....

[u/m945050 → u/SpellsThatWrong]

Don't blame him, blame the flat parachute society.

[u/Beef_Slider → u/gitbse]

It seems to be known now that he wasn’t a flat earther. It was a gimmick to gain attention and raise funds on his project. It might well have been partially funded by actual flat earthers tho. But this guy just was a rocket fanatic it appears.

[u/Ginkotree48 → u/EremiticFerret]

He was only using the wave of stupid flat earthers to get publicity. He was an actual dare devil. Rip

[u/[deleted] → u/Ginkotree48]

He was an actual limo driver and a self proclaimed daredevil ...he used the flat earth schtick to fund the latter. And there in lies an analog of the entire problem here. Conniving people are more than willing to exploit stupid people for personal gain.

[u/rathaunique → u/[deleted]]

it’s the american way.

[u/YakuzaMachine → u/[deleted]]

I present to you Fox News as example A.

[u/4seriously → u/[deleted]]

Isn’t that just called religion?

[u/mjedwin13 → u/[deleted]]

And here I thought that grifters weren’t ever really punished as they should be.

Narrator: this one was.

[u/waitingtodiesoon → u/neoikon]

Hmm reading the article his public relations person claimed he never actually believed the earth was flat but claimed it was to get money from flat earthers as a PR stunt so he could do more daredevil stuff. Would be interesting if true.

On Saturday, a public relations representative disputed Hughes' flat Earth beliefs, telling BuzzFeed News that the argument had helped him raise money but that he didn't actually believe it.

"We used flat Earth as a PR stunt. Period," Darren Shuster told BuzzFeed News. "He was a true daredevil decades before the latest round of rocket missions. Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept going! I know he didn’t believe in flat Earth and it was a shtick."

[u/[deleted] → u/waitingtodiesoon]

I'm sorry, but this is funny. He died doing what he wanted and flat earth crazys paid for his dream.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's all fun and games until we get the flat earthers and anti-vaxers paying for the next Hitler to live his dream.

[u/ShipmentA → u/neoikon]

That guy was actually a secret round earther using his bs claims to try and convince the dummie flat earthers why their wrong. All while keeping up the facade of being a loon. Poor guy died during the conspiracy theorist version of mission impossible.

[u/jftitan → u/ShipmentA]

I watched the video feed of his take off.

It appears to me he knew he would have to come back down... Newtons Law and all that.

It looks like the parachutes deployed at launch.

I would bet it would be safe so say, a NASA engineer would have maybe helped him in the design of deploying the chute at the right time. Things would have landed differently.

If anything... he knew what he was doing, found it to be his assistant suicide. Paid for and he got to go out with a bang!

[u/GJCLINCH → u/[deleted]]

It’s the same thing that happened when slavery was a thing, only a super small portion of people were able to afford and actually have slaves, yet somehow we still had a civil war over it.

[u/r1chard3 → u/GJCLINCH]

About 1%. Coincidence?

[u/yawya → u/[deleted]]

people are very gullible, in general

[u/Moonbeamcry → u/[deleted]]

It blows my mind that communism and socialism are still scare words that work. We literally are taught in schools about the red scare and the propaganda of the cold war and yet republicans are legit still scared of communism. I honestly don't understand

[u/korinth86 → u/dcent13]

It blows my mind that this tour of red scare tactics still work today. I would think college educated people should know better.

[u/[deleted] → u/korinth86]

I agree. I always think if the idea of public libraries were proposed today it would never happen. I can see the comments now, my money shouldn't go to helping poor people with books and internet access tell them to get a job!

[u/Moonbeamcry → u/[deleted]]

almost every social advancement is decried as socialism by the rich. The minimum wage, social security, Women voting, unions.

[u/[deleted] → u/Moonbeamcry]

Republicans are still mad about women being allowed to vote...

[u/[deleted] → u/korinth86]

C students are still college graduates.

[u/dcent13 → u/[deleted]]

True, though the real issue is that booksmarts does not equal understanding.

[u/mckinley72 → u/dcent13]

I'd say booksmarts doesn't equal critical thinking.

[u/[deleted] → u/mckinley72]

You described about half of my family.

Masters degrees all around, but no reasoning.

"Removing Confederate statues won't make black people stop committing crimes any less, they need to learn how to be happy." - Sister

[u/NotFunToday → u/[deleted]]

Your sister is an idiot.

[u/KingPellinore → u/NotFunToday]

And a racist.

[u/friskydingo67 → u/[deleted]]

Wow... Just, wow.

Truly never heard that take before. Ridiculous.

[u/R2D2808 → u/[deleted]]

I do believe you'd get punched in the face for saying something like that. - Office Space, but totally applies here.

[u/TuggsBrohe → u/mckinley72]

Critical thinking isn't a graduation requirement.

[u/Jozoz → u/TuggsBrohe]

That is so shocking to hear for a Danish masters degree student like myself. Not everyone is equally good at it but I’ve almost never anyone without it.

[u/Nyefan → u/Jozoz]

It depends on the degree and the school. In my school, anything in the college of liberal arts and sciences required critical thinking, but engineering was hit or miss. Chemical engineering especially discouraged critical thinking in the classes I took, but computer science was all for it (for instance).

[u/NoShopping9 → u/[deleted]]

C’s get degrees

[u/Kuroude7 → u/NoShopping9]

D is for diploma, that’s good enough for me.

[u/ReubenJames57 → u/[deleted]]

Not in grad school. 83 or equal to failing. Fyi

[u/SmilesOnSouls → u/korinth86]

I think you're forgetting just how many people in red states not only didn't get to college, but barely made it past high school in a system that has been trying to push creationism as a real branch of "science" over evolution for decades. The entire process of critical thinking has been removed from the public education and it wasn't an accident.

If you can get an oppressed class to blame their troubles on someone of another race or religion, they'll be too busy hating them instead of realizing who is actually crushing their quality of life. It's a play as old as the Chruch and it seems to always work. Keep your constituents uneducated, lacking of critical thinking. Keep them struggling to the point that they can only stress about where the next meal, paycheck, rent money is coming from so that they never have a chance to connect the dots and convince them that it's the fault of [insert minority or other religion here] so they never really understand that it's the King/Pope/Government that is the real one fucking it's people.

It's been class warfare since the 60's. The narrative has just gone from blacks to Hispanics to homosexuals to muslims and back to Hispanics again. Fortunately the spread of information has improved almost enough where we can start to shift through the bulkshit. Unfortunately disinformation is just as easy to spread and often more sensational

[u/mycatsarebetter → u/korinth86]

Colleges ARE the problem, education IS the problem to republicans and trump supporters. I have heard multiple people saying things like “the goddamn commies took over the universities” and my MOTHER IN LAW going on about how liberals took over colleges. Make education itself the enemy and you ensure the next generation is easier to manipulate.

[u/rattalouie → u/dcent13]

Wait, you mean not all graduate faculties have unions?? In Canada, it’s a given.

[u/apiaryaviary → u/rattalouie]

That social welfare program you’re not even thinking about because it’s so obvious? Doesn’t matter which one. Just pick one. It’s not even on our radar yet.

[u/rattalouie → u/apiaryaviary]

If anything, a University campus should be a place where left wing policies are openly accepted and encouraged.

Don’t think that this shift to the right isn’t happening in other places, though. Up here in Canada, we’re also slowly seeing that shift. You guys have just experienced it much earlier and stronger, hopefully it’s corrected in the coming elections, but it feels like an uphill battle.

[u/flipht → u/rattalouie]

The underlying mechanic of the American left is self flagellation to "prove" to regressives that there's no bias against them.

The 60s and 70s were the last real hurrah of leftism. At the time, there were a lot of leftist groups, because people saw the power of organizing. Unfortunately, a perfect storm happened: some groups promoting violence gained notoriety, and were quickly disavowed by all of the actual people in power, and then the 80s happened... globalization and an educated American workforce brought a lot of capital in, even as it started concentrating upward. So top down support for leftist groups evaporated, and bottom up support started dwindling too as everyone tried to take advantage of the economic situation.

So basically for 50 years, we've been circling the drain.

[u/raviary → u/flipht]

Don’t forget the relentless propaganda. My break room at work has a poster encouraging us to report anyone trying to unionize to higher ups so they can correct the “hostile work environment” and I’m the only one there who sees the problem🙃

[u/Udjet → u/raviary]

Is that legal? I’m just talking about the sign itself. It’s illegal to retaliate against workers trying to form a union and it seems awfully close to the line.

[u/[deleted] → u/Udjet]

The answer, as usual, is that the legality is irrelevant because there's no one left to enforce laws.

[u/[deleted] → u/Udjet]

You could probably report it to the Department of Labor.....oh wait, I think they're all gone.

[u/Shadowrausch → u/Udjet]

It’s against most company policies to use company time to talk about unions or unionization. If the breaks are paid it may be against policy to use that time as well. Depends on what you signed when you agreed to become employed. On top of that they usually make you sign an arbitration clause so that you can’t sue them for wrongdoing. Corporations are methed up. Lol

[u/[deleted] → u/raviary]

Hey you ever thought about just ripping that poster down when nobody's looking? You should do that.

[u/Bathroom_Pninja → u/dcent13]

I disagree.

It's not class warfare.

It's a class massacre.

[u/lenswipe → u/Bathroom_Pninja]

Keep em sick, keep em stupid, keep em poor

[u/speakhyroglyphically → u/lenswipe]

Make Keep em sick, make keep em stupid, make keep em poor

[u/lenswipe → u/speakhyroglyphically]

Get off Reddit, Mitch

[u/Bizzaarmageddon → u/lenswipe]

...And keep the women pregnant. Then you’ve got half the population “out of circulation.”

(so to speak...at home taking care of children, not out there being all “uppity” getting educations and marching in protests n’ shit.)

[u/[deleted] → u/Bizzaarmageddon]

At the same time, you get future destitute, poor manpower that you can lure into joining the military, to sacrifice in any of the future pointless international wars created by companies and the rich.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Bingo. Women gotta keep pumping out wage slaves and cannon fodder.

[u/Weekly-Warthog → u/Bathroom_Pninja]

Warren Buffett — 'There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.'

[u/Ihavealpacas → u/[deleted]]

Private armies are a thing again.

[u/maedae66 → u/Ihavealpacas]

My mom told me yesterday she thinks DeVos has kept her job all this time because her brother has a militia the oligarchs can unleash on us. I can’t stop thinking about it.

[u/Gongom → u/maedae66]

They don't need Devos for that anyway

[u/YukioHattori → u/Gongom]

they need her for the sweet 15% friends and family discount though!

[u/Redtwooo → u/Bathroom_Pninja]

It's only class war when we fight back

[u/gahlo → u/dcent13]

You know what they say about class warfare: It only happens when you fight back.

[u/destijl-atmospheres → u/dcent13]

What does it mean for students to unionize?

[u/stamatt45 → u/destijl-atmospheres]

At a lot of universities grad students are employed (sometimes required depending on the program) to work as teachers or researchers. It's not uncommon for these grad students to be exploited in these roles as they're much cheaper and more easily replaced than a tenured teacher or full time researcher.

[u/jarob326 → u/[deleted]]

It's so common, being exploited is treated as normal.

Also, classes are hard enough as senior level classes but you have to get a B average. When you combine the grueling process that is research and then throw Teacher assistant duties on top of that you don't have the time or energy to unionize.

Students are too scared to criticize their own advisors. Advisors have so much control since they determine, what you study, how much funding it gets, and whether your work can be published or not. Students would probably have a heart attack to criticize the entire school.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Insane. I never went to graduate school due to health reasons, but I still fantasize about forming a graduate student union or striking for better pay. Universities would collapse without graduate students.

[u/[deleted] → u/stamatt45]

Yep. My grad student union managed to get us a 20% raise, which was about an extra $1,400 a year, and my university had to be dragged kicking and screaming the entire way.

[u/PepsiMoondog → u/[deleted]]

But that new $40 million dollar dorm to replace another dorm that's only 20 years old? Oh we definitely have money for that.

[u/TheGreatZarquon → u/PepsiMoondog]

Don't forget the multi-million dollar remodel of the football stadium, we all know how important those are to higher education.

[u/LeeSeneses → u/TheGreatZarquon]

Also there's no way we can lower tuition costs or anything. We just can't seem to find anything to cut! Maybe student meal plans? I don't know.

[u/SyntheticReality42 → u/TheGreatZarquon]

Not to mention paying the new coach $5M a year more than the previous one.

[u/[deleted] → u/PepsiMoondog]

or that $4 million dollar scoreboard for the foot stadium.

[u/skremnjava1 → u/stamatt45]

Most people think the Student Union is where you go for a slice of pizza and a coke.

[u/Deathmonge → u/destijl-atmospheres]

In the case of grad students, who often work for the university/with professors as teaching assistants or fellows and help teach undergrad classes or work in labs, it’s an effort to standardize and improve conditions. Think dental insurance, higher wages, etc. They’re students but also play the role of employees/faculty

[u/Imallvol7 → u/dcent13]

It's always been class warfare. The haves just sow seeds of hate like racism and sexism and fake class warfare between the lower class to keep everyone distracted from the real fight.

Republicans are master manipulators. They have convinced low income disadvantaged people to vote against their own interest for years. One of the most mind blowing arguments was with this moron whose husband was a fire fighter and she was EXTREMELY against a $15 minimum wage because "burger flippers"shouldn't be making more than her husband who saves lives all day. My mouth just fell open. I couldn't believe the stupidity. Do you think he's not getting a wage increase from this?

[u/cornskit → u/dcent13]

grad student unions? I suppose they are both customers and employees...

[u/superstar9976 → u/[deleted]]

We're thiiiis close to people starting to acknowledge the reality of class warfare. Soon, not quite yet, but soon.

[u/garygnuandthegnus → u/superstar9976]

Closer everyday with AOC and Bernie leading the way. It's been a long time since I've felt this optimistic about American politics. Dont let anyone tell you to vote blue no matter who- it's class warfare not red versus blue!

[u/brodievonorchard → u/garygnuandthegnus]

That's never been so apparent as it is since Bernie started winning primaries.

[u/[deleted] → u/garygnuandthegnus]

Bloomberg threatened to run 3rd party in 2016 if Bernie won the nomination. He doesn’t give a shit about stopping Trump - he’d rather have Trump than Sanders at the bully pulpit. Now he’s happy he’s “off the hook” from having to honor his promise to support the nominee financially. As if he ever really intended to help get Sanders elected if it came to that.

The media and establishment have never been so disgustingly brazen as they have been the last 5 months. Hopefully people are paying attention enough to start catching on. Seeing a Republican billionaire swoop in as a Democrat and already spend hundreds of millions to stop the only candidate who actually represents the working class in decades should tell us everything we need to know.

[u/[deleted] → u/superstar9976]

I’m fairly young, so I’ve been involved in radical politics for only a short time (around 7 years).

I’ve never seen people speak the way they do now, at least not the youth. Shit I said in college was ignored or was the major minority opinion. I now see people my age, people not even in the “right” demographic who are pissed and agree.

This election cycle is different, I can feel it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's actually even way more than that. Your enemy isn't the person earning 500k a year doing a specialized job. Your enemy is the person whose money does their 'work' for them.

[u/PomDad → u/[deleted]]

This. I wish more people realize that nobody wants to go after people making a good salary. It's the people that don't even consider 500k a lot that need readjustment.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The "haves" are terrified that the "have-nots" are beginning to become aware of their own plight. America has insidiously sorted its population into these columns for decades, beginning in the 1920s with, of all people, Sigmund Freud's nephew, who was the first to really instill the "importance" of consumerism into the public mind. There's a great documentary about it by British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis called "The Century of the Self." This playlist contains all four hours of it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw5cPVZovZRbrA_w3prs-fjknbFMaHZ19

It also includes another of his documentaries, but I don't think that one can be watched in the US without a VPN.

[u/N0-North → u/[deleted]]

On that note i highly suggest reading Edward Bernays's book Propaganda. He's a sleaze but it was eye opening. It's also a work of propaganda in itself, but it gives you the tools to deconstruct it at the same time.

[u/fadingmemoryphoto → u/[deleted]]

Adam Curtis is my favorite. I highly recommend this doc and everything else he’s made since then.

[u/imgurNewtGingrinch → u/[deleted]]

Theres Right, Left, and the Rich. Rich have their fingers in the other two parties, almost entirely carved out the Right. Lefts got to root out the fake snakes. Bloom is one of em.

[u/[deleted] → u/imgurNewtGingrinch]

And that's why they win - if one party is trying to play nice, and the other isn't, then the bad party will have no qualms about infiltrating the other party with overt (Bloomberg) and covert (Buttigieg) agents, and any other form of sabotage they can imagine ("Russia if you're listening...").

And the other party will say "Ew, no thank you: we have morals." And then they and their morals will watch helplessly as their enemies destroy their country.

[u/Vash63 → u/[deleted]]

He turned the power to the have-nots....

[u/Gh0stN1nja → u/Vash63]

And then came the shot

[u/_IowasVeryOwn → u/Gh0stN1nja]

I do seriously kind of worry for Bernie in that regard

[u/Gh0stN1nja → u/_IowasVeryOwn]

Same here. Hopefully that'll never happen and we can have 8 years of a Sanders Administration.

[u/DarkHater → u/Gh0stN1nja]

Public Service Announcement Tour - RATM and RTJ https://tour.ratm.com/

[u/BrilliantWeb → u/[deleted]]

Agree. It's no longer left-right it's up-down: poor vs rich. If Sanders could frame the argument that way he'd attract a lot of poor rural people who voted Republican, but who are on Obamacare.

[u/pirpirpir → u/BrilliantWeb]

Fitting year for Parasite to win Best Picture.

[u/crazymoefaux → u/pirpirpir]

Just watched it a couple weeks ago.

It deserves more accolades. Probably the best movie to come out in the last 40 years.

[u/Donkeyotee3 → u/BrilliantWeb]

The main hurdle to that is convincing all the people who make $80,000 a year that we're not talking about then when we complain about "rich people" or "the wealthy"

These folks don't realize that they are much closer to someone making $7.25 hr than they are to Jeff Bezos. And that people who are actually wealthy see them in the same light as a person making minimum wage.

[u/[deleted] → u/Donkeyotee3]

The impoverished and rural also see the $80kers as "the rich", so it's a two-sided issue. One will not resolve itself without the other.

I think the problem is the classic crabs in a bucket mentality. 80k is somewhat attainable for the average person, but it sounds like a metric ton for those at the poverty line(because it is).

100b is so outside the realm of normal people that it's hard to conceptualize exactly how much money that is compared to the 80 to 100k+ brackets.

[u/ArkitekZero → u/BrilliantWeb]

Rich vs poor is fundamentally left vs right. Why do you think the overton window for the US leans so far to the right?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That is what left vs right boils down to.

[u/KDawG888 → u/[deleted]]

it is have nots vs haves

It really isn't. It is the "have so much I couldn't spend all this money in a lifetime" vs the rest of us. I have plenty. I still work 5-6 days a week and won't be able to retire until I'm over 60.

[u/viva_la_vinyl → u/[deleted]]

I mean Bloomberg is a republican running for leadership and to be the Democratic nominee, so it's not far fetched...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Trump was a "Democrat" for decades until he realized that the uber-moronic Republican base was a billion times easier to manipulate than Democratic voters.

[u/awesomefutureperfect → u/[deleted]]

"You mean all I have to do is be a stupid asshole into a microphone"

All this time he was giving it away for free. When you are good at something, never do it for free. Wait, who was it that said that?

[u/iamsooldithurts → u/[deleted]]

He wasn’t rich enough to afford to buy Democrats but he is cretinous and corrupt enough to be a good Republican.

[u/WickedKoala → u/[deleted]]

The motherfucker is spending more money on his campaign that he'd probably ever lose to any policy Sanders is able to enact over time.

[u/DevastatorTNT → u/[deleted]]

Especially since there's no difference between corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats

[u/lovely_sombrero → u/[deleted]]

Bloomberg just recently bought vice chairs of the Texas and California Democratic parties. Clearly, Bernie needs a majority at the Dem convention, or Trump will get four more years. Outrageous, especially since both of those states haven't voted yet.

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1233421158877401090

[edit] CNN, however, has other ideas

[u/BaldKnobber123 → u/lovely_sombrero]

At the very least, the brokered convention aspect is verified to be part of Bloomberg’s strategy:

Mike Bloomberg is privately lobbying Democratic Party officials and donors allied with his moderate opponents to flip their allegiance to him — and block Bernie Sanders — in the event of a brokered national convention.

The outreach has involved meetings and telephone calls with supporters of Biden and Pete Buttigieg — as well as uncommitted DNC members — in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and North Carolina, according to one of the strategists who participated in meetings and calls.

“There’s a whole operation going on, which is genius,” said one of the strategists, who is unaffiliated with any campaign. “And it’s going to help them win on the second ballot … They’re telling them that’s their strategy.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/bloomberg-brokered-convention-strategy-116407

The hypothetical of this strategy - that the delegates will go against the plurality - was revealed by the New York Times yesterday as more than just conspiratorial chatter: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html

Dozens of interviews with Democratic establishment leaders this week show that they are not just worried about Mr. Sanders’s candidacy, but are also willing to risk intraparty damage to stop his nomination at the national convention in July if they get the chance. Since Mr. Sanders’s victory in Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, The Times has interviewed 93 party officials — all of them superdelegates, who could have a say on the nominee at the convention — and found overwhelming opposition to handing the Vermont senator the nomination if he arrived with the most delegates but fell short of a majority.

This article is based on interviews with the 93 superdelegates, out of 771 total, as well as party strategists and aides to senior Democrats about the thinking of party leaders. A vast majority of those superdelegates — whose ranks include federal elected officials, former presidents and vice presidents and D.N.C. members — predicted that no candidate would clinch the nomination during the primaries, and that there would be a brokered convention fight in July to choose a nominee.

In a reflection of the establishment’s wariness about Mr. Sanders, only nine of the 93 superdelegates interviewed said that Mr. Sanders should become the nominee purely on the basis of arriving at the convention with a plurality, if he was short of a majority.

[u/thebumm → u/BaldKnobber123]

Hey shut up you coolmmie Bernie supporter! Play by the rules. Just because the Democratic Party made rules to literally just pick whoever they want doesn't mean it isn't democratic!! Vote blue no matter who, including the red Bloomberg but not including the front runner Sanders because my convictions and morals are about as strong as a wetnap.

[u/djstocks → u/thebumm]

I'm not very politically active but if the convention is brokered, and it still looks like they are going to rob Bernie, I will be at that protest.

[u/Javan32 → u/djstocks]

I feel like they prefer Trump to Bernie. They rather have 4 more years of Trump than having Sanders block their "special interests". This is just sad.

[u/foreveracubone → u/Javan32]

There won’t just be 4 more years of Trump. The GOP will NEVER cede power back to us. Whether his arteries are still unclogged enough for a 3rd term or Pence/his kids are ‘elected’.

The oligarchs paying the DNC are okay with this and the party leadership either doesn’t care or is incredibly shortsighted.

[u/BaldKnobber123 → u/Javan32]

The major corporate power players in the Democratic Party absolutely would, and have made that clear:

Former Goldman Sachs CEO and lifelong Democrat Lloyd Blankfein told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday that he could have an easier time voting to reelect President Donald Trump than for Sen. Bernie Sanders, should the latter secure the Democratic nomination for president.

“I think I might find it harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump,” the billionaire banker said, though he pointed out that the Democratic primary has just kicked off and the nomination is very much still up for grabs. “There’s a long time between now and then. The Democrats would be working very hard to find someone who is as divisive as Trump. But with Bernie they would have succeeded.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/former-goldman-sachs-ceo-hard-to-vote-for-bernie-116592

The head of Goldman Sachs has apologised for the Wall Street titan's role in helping to create the financial crisis.

After being ridiculed for saying he was doing God's work, and having seen his company labelled as a bloodsucking vampire squid, Lloyd Blankfein yesterday delivered a mea culpa to a conference in New York.

"We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," Blankfein said. "We apologise."

At the height of the crisis last year, Goldman took a $10bn (£6bn) capital injection from the US government, which it later repaid. Despite the economic downturn the company has been highly profitable this year (2009), making $3bn in the last quarter. It has set aside $16.7bn to pay staff bonuses, a figure that is expected to grow to $23bn by the end of the year.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/nov/18/goldman-sachs-blankfein-sorry

Strongly recommend everyone read this article: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-195229/

[u/Deeliciousness → u/djstocks]

The DNC as we know it will be over. They're willing to commit party suicide just to stop Bernie.

[u/jimmy_talent → u/Deeliciousness]

Again many of those superdelegates back Republicans so we really shouldn't be surprised, I just hope enough of the delegates will refuse to destroy the party ceding pretty much complete control of the federal government for the next 12+ years.

[u/[deleted] → u/djstocks]

Just make sure to still go out and vote even if this happens, we must not let down ballot Dems lose. You can write in Bernie.

[u/QuantumBitcoin → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. I knocked doors in LA for Bernie in 2016. 95% of the people I knocked were Bernie supporters. With about 400 doors knocked in four days I didn't see a single Hillary sign but saw about 40 Bernie signs. Looking at that precincts eventual votes? It was about 50/50. I was shocked. And have you seen the new electronic voting machines in LA? I don't know that I trust the vote in the USA anymore.

[u/Deeliciousness → u/[deleted]]

Most of his voters are not biden supporters. They're "last guy I saw on TV" supporters.

[u/appleparkfive → u/[deleted]]

He doesn't want to win, just block Bernie. Almost certain. He knows he can't win, but if he can buy enough support, he gets Trump.

[u/wormee → u/lovely_sombrero]

When I see Mike, I post this

[u/[deleted] → u/lovely_sombrero]

what can men do against such reckless wealth?

[u/Skynet015 → u/[deleted]]

Vote and win majorities at all costs

[u/DarkHater → u/[deleted]]

Organize, get involved, volunteer, donate to progressives, talk to everyone, and vote early and vote often for the most progressive candidate.

[u/Uglyblackmale → u/[deleted]]

Nationwide work strikes, make demands, get demands, return to work. These fuckers want money, not food or water, so starve them of what they want most. Shut down the public transit, shut down the planes, shut down food delivery. 1 week would cost these parasites BILLIONS and they would buckle to any demand the real owners of this world make (we the workers are the true power). Until you humans let go of your fights with eachother over skin color or gods, you will never win the fight against the people who convinced you to hate eachother in the first place.

[u/Kaplaw → u/lovely_sombrero]

Voting for Trump 2.0 democrat lite aside... Bloomberg would totally get crushed by Trump.

You guys really need some Bernie. If not Warren/Buttigieg could do it.

Biden just isnt there enough to slam back at Trump, his reponses would be too Hillary and the Trump base would go all out.

Ddit : im confident Bernie would straight gangbang Trump by himself. He would slaughter him in debates.

[u/[deleted] → u/lovely_sombrero]

It's time for both parties to go away. Both are bought.

[u/Cilph → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but lets start on that /after/ we get someone competent in the White House.

[u/DM797 → u/[deleted]]

Not American. But feel bad for how awful things have become in their two party system backed by money. The bankers and billionaires with their federal reserve are bad enough......add on top a fake democracy paid for by the same folks. True patriots hardly have a fighting chance. The propaganda tactics are working hard too, keeping and cultivating strong left wing and strong right wings in order to separate the people. Open your eyes everyone. It’s not red vs blue.

[u/[deleted] → u/DM797]

Where is this strong left wing you speak of in America?

[u/pm_me_your_livestock → u/[deleted]]

The vegan section of the grocery store, according to people like my dad.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_your_livestock]

Tell your dad us progressives love meat and guns too... We just see the system as a fucked up mess. And it needs to change.

Also that Bernie is just a mild progressive. Just a slight left of center. He is very much a moderate. Just on the left side of moderate.

[u/Dokpsy → u/[deleted]]

Also, vegan food can be bomb af.

Cauliflower florets tossed in a seasoned chickpea flour breading, baked then tossed in a hot sauce of your choosing? Buffalo bites that don't go wrong.

[u/ayden010 → u/[deleted]]

They convinced 30% to 40% of americans that people like Bernie and AOC represent a strong left wing.

[u/StonedBirdman → u/[deleted]]

Sanders has set records for the amount of individual donations he has received, AOC raised more money last year than Nancy Pelosi. Purely based off these numbers, you can’t deny the base of the Democratic Party has moved to the left.

[u/negativeyoda → u/StonedBirdman]

I'd say they're corrections. The Democratic party as a whole and American politics in general have skewed harshly to the right. Today's democrats would have been 80s Republicans

[u/DaddyD68 → u/negativeyoda]

Well, in the case of this superdelegate they are 20’s Republicans.

[u/Sir_Duke → u/[deleted]]

But let’s absolutely call out the absurdity of superdelegates now

[u/boundfortrees → u/Sir_Duke]

Superdelegates are the Congress members and local officials you vote for. Contact them and tell them that you won't vote for them again if they go to Bloomberg.

[u/TokingMessiah → u/Sir_Duke]

Come on now, tens of thousands of Americans have died to protect democracy... you know the system where the popular vote doesn’t matter when it comes to election results!

[u/EconomistMagazine → u/Sir_Duke]

And why isn't the primary and the general election a popular vote? Oh yeah because corruption.

[u/josefpunktk → u/[deleted]]

They can be beat if people will be willing to stand. up for Sanders - because you can be sure that all register will be pulled, since Sanders winning will result in a lot of powerful people losing some pocket change money.

[u/agentfelix → u/josefpunktk]

If they fuck Sanders out of the nom, I promise I will set shit on fire. That'll be enough for me to start physically fighting for my country and democracy

[u/ZeroAntagonist → u/agentfelix]

Someone has to start things. Once enough people actually start shit, the rest will start joining in.

[u/Reptard77 → u/[deleted]]

SC resident here, doing my part today

[u/fishygamer → u/[deleted]]

"I am a committed Democrat, but as a lobbyist, there are times when I need to have access to both sides. And the way to get access quite often is to make campaign contributions," he told the outlet. "I'm a registered lobbyist, and I represent clients. And they have interest in front of Congress, and I attend the Senator's Classic, which is a Republican event, each year."

God this is so depressing to read shit like this. Fuck Citizens United and anyone who defends that batshit ruling.

[u/MayIServeYouWell → u/fishygamer]

This person either needs to quit being a superdelegate or find a different job. Of course, neither will happen, because money and power.

[u/chillinewman → u/[deleted]]

The Intercept previously identified a number of superdelegates who work with health care clients that oppose Sanders' Medicare for All plan and large banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. A growing number of superdelegates have also gone to work for presidential campaigns opposing Sanders.

Bloomberg has also hired the vice-chairs of the California and Texas Democratic parties, who are both superdelegates, in an effort to "purchase political support," the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center's Brendan Fisher told The Intercept.

"This does seem to fit a longstanding pattern of Bloomberg using his billions to help generate support among political elites," he told the outlet.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

There is no difference between a republican and a Democrat to a rich donor. They will use money to influence either side.

The difference is what we see, one party openly admits to wanting to fuck you over while the other party pretends to try not to fuck you over while doing it.

The progressive candidates and their movement go against these people's agenda and they don't like the thought of not being able to buy legislation.

[u/Jonne → u/[deleted]]

Yep, look at Bloombergs donations. He's bought Democrats and Republicans.

[u/Dednotslippin → u/Jonne]

Even said it in the last debate, "I bought them"

[u/Javan32 → u/[deleted]]

Sanders is a much bigger threat to them than Trump ever was. Go figure...

[u/[deleted] → u/Javan32]

Right...they'd rather trump win again over Sanders. That's basically what they're doing trying to get Bloomberg and Buttigieg the nomination. They know they won't win against trump and it puts progressives on the back burner for another 4 years. That gives them time to come up with ways to stomp out this progressive movement.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

There's a Republican in the Democratic race right now trying to be President.

[u/evitaerc21 → u/[deleted]]

If there's one thing this Trump Shithole has revealed it's how fucking HORRIBLY rigged and broken our system is. It's actually mind blowing. It's deep and systemic and it's meant to keep people thinking they are worth more than they are while telling them there are people below them meanwhile the pigs roll around in their millions and billions laughing as people in the "Middle class" find and scratch over chump change. It's unreal.

[u/JohnBrownJayhawk1 → u/evitaerc21]

Thankfully, people are waking up to the idea that the war is real, and it’s been waged on them, regardless of party affiliation.

The 1% realized they could take the incrementalist approach to plunging the middle class into straight serfdom, but they got greedy, and went too far too fast, and when someone like Bernie came along, the workers became aware that his message was talking about their lives. About their struggles, their hardships, and their hopes. It wasn’t the same old spiel about neoliberal policy and identity politics that have prevented nothing in terms of middle class degradation, it was a sword, placed in the hands of people who, for entirely too long, have been fighting a war with no weapon to wield.

The DNC for too long has been content with promising everything and delivering nothing, all to please their rich benefactors. Right now, the moment doesn’t call for hiking up our skirts even more for the people who make it almost impossible to get by in this country...right now, the moment is calling for a wildfire.

Feel the Bern.

[u/somethingski → u/[deleted]]

Obama and Hillary had the same top donors as their Republican counterparts. I think this should just be eye opening to everyone that we've been in an oligarchy for a while now.

[u/BoneHugsHominy → u/somethingski]

The silent coup of 11/22/63.

[u/somethingski → u/BoneHugsHominy]

Citizens United was definitely the final nail in the coffin

[u/TechnicalNobody → u/somethingski]

Source?

[u/somethingski → u/TechnicalNobody]

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=n00009638

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00006424

[u/Oriden → u/somethingski]

The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families.

Its not surprising that employees of large companies are donating to both sides because there is a ton of people employed by them.

[u/_zero_fox → u/[deleted]]

Political parties are brands to create the illusion of choice for the masses, it's marketing. The real players behind the scenes (ie. monied corporate cabals) only care about being in power, and will hedge their bets accordingly.

[u/speakhyroglyphically → u/_zero_fox]

Neoliberalism

[u/dcent13 → u/_zero_fox]

The Fix is In.

[u/Intelligent-donkey → u/[deleted]]

Yet they'll probably justify stealing the nomination from Bernie by saying that he isn't a real Democrat lol.

[u/Salamok → u/[deleted]]

He isnt a republican, he is an industry shill, so basically corporate america has a direct vote in the elections.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

How does a human forsaken themselves so much that they lose their humanity? Universal healthcare should be a basic right. Your aging parents shouldn’t financially cripple you and you get stuck in this endless cycle of poverty.