Why is it okay for Bernie Sanders, who is not even a member of the Democratic Party, to have his entire brand be focused around bashing it, as he sits in a Safe Democratic seat, but for Jared Golden it is not?
Very strange double standards by some members here that will make moral pretzels in order to make something fit their own worldview.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander boys.
Why is it okay for Bernie Sanders, who is not even a member of the Democratic Party, to have his entire brand be focused around bashing it, as he sits in a Safe Democratic seat, but for Jared Golden it is not?
Very strange double standards by some members here that will make moral pretzels in order to make something fit their own worldview.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander boys.
I am not criticizing Jared Golden nor have I made it an agenda of doing so.
However, Bernie Sanders has a massive influence on the left and is, I believe, under pressure to try to keep his base active so as to fire them up. After all, Sanders drove many of the Green Party members in states like CA to the Democratic Party because of his presidential primary campaign back in 2016.
That said, Sanders isnтАЩt the only one who is criticizing the Democratic Party. Labor leaders as well as Senator Chris Murphy have been echoing what Sanders has said although differing views former House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn and Nancy Pelosi are evident.
HarrisтАЩ margin of win in VT was only .6% points higher than Sanders. Hardly much improvement over what Sanders got in his Senate re-election.
I donтАЩt know if Sanders has a working class problem. However, it appears Harris does, at least if the Teamsters PresidentтАЩs statement of his meeting with Harris during the campaign suggests anything.
You mentioned two bits of information in your previous comment that need to be addressed:
1) A better comparison should be the 2022 Senate Race where Senator Peter Welch by roughly 68% points in the open race. This means Sanders got at least 5%+ points less than Welch did, even while 2024 is the presidential election year. Welch actually did 2% points higher than Biden did in 2020.
However, Sanders likely got the drop in margin of victory vs his previous Senate elections because of the national environment, not as much any underlying issues he had as an incumbent Senator. A tiny margin of difference between Sanders and Harris doesnтАЩt particularly suggest anything other than the national environment impacted SandersтАЩ margin of victory a bit.
2) Harris was perceived to be arrogant by the TeamsterтАЩs President, which pretty much is in the same boat of being elitist. There is no data I have seen as of yet (unless anyone wants to share) that Sanders had issues with working class voters, at least in VT. VT is not a rust belt state although I am not too familiar with its blue collar sector.
It is possible Sanders by association with Harris and the Democratic Party did see a drop in enthusiasm in his Senate race. However, this is a 5+% point swing away from Democrats, which isnтАЩt in my view something to be too concerned about.
If Sanders won re-election by 20% or less, then IтАЩd be concerned.
No, I agree with the original comment and the best comparison is comparing Harris and Sanders in 2024. She did better than he did in his own state so why should we listen to his critiques?
0.6% better is not that much better. Harris also did worse than Senator Welch did in 2022. This means enthusiasm for Democrats was higher in 2022 than 2024 in VT.
However, I did read multiple articles prior to the 2024 election that shows Sanders had a drop in favorability rating. This could explain the drop in his % of votes in winning the Senate election.
That said, Sanders is wasting his energy and not being productive with it. IтАЩd rather he huddle with Robert Reich and others who are aiming to be more productive as they are in line with most of what Sanders stands for.
Sanders and Warren, in particular, were the only incumbents to underperform Harris. Warren did so by around 5 points, off the top of my head. I think that is significant. Why were the two most visibly left wing members of the Senate the worst performers?
Warren is weak by mass dem standards. Coming in third in your home state presidential primary was not pretty. Right wing populism is a bigger sale these days than left wing populism
Because populism at its heart is about exclusion. Going against a central tenet of the Democratic Party. For populism to be successful regardless of ideology, it requires тАЬpunching down.тАЭ People donтАЩt want to be at the bottom, they want someone below them.
The New Deal did almost nothing for nonwhites and FDR ordered Japanese people to be locked up. Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Japan and the GI Bill did almost nothing for nonwhites. Humphrey was anti LGBTQ and anti choice. They all тАЬpunched down.тАЭ
No he didnтАЩt. Roe v Wade became law in 1973 and he was a candidate for President in 1976 (he died in 1978). It had absolutely become a major issue by then. Also while in the Senate he proposed a law making it a felony to be a member of the Communist Party. So yes, he absolutely DID тАЬpunch down.тАЭ
I'm not sold on your argument. The way I've assessed things, Warren suffered in the presidential primary race because Sanders entered the race and took away all the energy from her campaign.
Also, Warren had similar appeal as Sanders did towards Trump supporters during early stages of the primaries. Even Tucker Carlson of all people at one point was considering voting for Warren because of her economic agenda and even referenced her Two-Income Trap book.
Far more interesting to watch would have been a Warren presidency. With backing from a Democratically-controlled Congress, or even just with the inherent powers of the Executive, President Elizabeth Warren would have done wonderful things for our country!
Warren underperformed Harris by 1.4% points, which is slightly worse than how Sanders did his Senate Race. However, Warren's percentage of victory in 2024 is actually .6% points lower than her re-election victory back in 2018.
In other words, not really much difference for Warren.
I think someone in a previous thread pointed out that Warren did worse in upscale communities vs. Harris and better in "working class" areas but I don't think Warren is all that problematic in terms of throwing unnecessary rock throwing and i'm glad she is in the Senate.
Warren didn't have a real race..this is such a simplistic thread that has no real way of examination.. Massachusetts wasn't competitive at all in basically every race
I don't disagree. I do think for all the talk of understanding the working class though the people making the claim they understand it better should have an explanation for why they did worse against third tier opponents in their super blue states. She has been much more of a team player though Google each of them and Democratic party and it's different to say the least.
"Many political experts and D.C. insiders are already blaming President Joe BidenтАЩs economic agenda for Vice President Kamala HarrisтАЩ loss. This does not stand up to scrutiny. Even though the Biden economy produced strong economic growth while reining in inflation, incumbent parties across the globe have been tossed out by voters after the pandemic. American voters also showed support for Democratic economic policies, for example, approving ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in Alaska and to guarantee paid sick leave in Missouri.
But good economic policies do not erase painful underlying truths about our country. For my entire career, IтАЩve studied how the system is rigged against working-class families. On paper, the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world. But working families are struggling with big expenses like the cost of housing, health care, and childcare. Giant corporations get tax breaks and favorable rules while workers are gouged by higher prices. Billionaires pay paltry taxes on their wealth while families canтАЩt afford to buy their first homes.
Americans do not want a country where political parties each field their own team of billionaires who then squabble over how to divvy up the spoils of government. Vice President Harris deserves credit for running an inspiring campaign under unprecedented circumstances. But if Democrats want to earn back the trust of working people and govern again, we need to convince voters we canтАФand willтАФunrig the economy."
Entire brand? LOL. ItтАЩs a very small portion. His тАЬbrandтАЭ has always been fighting powerful economic interests and fighting for economic and social Justice.
I think it's bad from both of them. It's part of why I've never been as fond of Sanders as would otherwise be assumed based on how far on the left I am ideologically.
It's poor behavior from both of them and makes it harder for the party in net. It's not a surprise that so many people have a poor opinion of the dem party when so many of our elected officials seem borderline ashamed to be a party member.
HeтАЩs never been pro Democratic Party if you look at his life. The only reason he caucuses with Democrats is so he can go back to Vermont and say he did things. You have to keep in mind that his political hero is not FDR, but Eugene Debs. If he were the old school New Deal Democrat that his apologists claim him to be, he would have been best buddies with Tip OтАЩNeill in the 1970s and 1980s. Not trashing JFK for trashing Castro back in the day.
I have no problem whatsoever with a fellow socialist identifying with Eugene V. Debs. I do have a problem with his current unjustified and highly untimely trashing of the Democratic Party. But no, he doesn't caucus with Democrats to "say he did things"; he does it to actually have an effect on Democratic legislation and Executive action - which he did have.
Two reasons why. #1. We now have two generations of American voters who didn't grow up in the Cold War, thus the word "socialist" is no longer poison in some mainstream political circles now, though it still remain very much a minority political sentiment in the USA. #2. The 2008 Wall Street crash did open the door to some left populism in this country, albeit not nearly as much as in 1929. Those two factors don't happen and he has no national audience, and today he'd struggle to have a Vermont audience.
They don't let him get away with it. They largely support him because of it. The cruelty is the point and is why it's ok that he's a convicted felon and good that he's a rapist, as far as they're concerned.
You're talking about political effectiveness. I have no problem with socialists advocating their positions, regardless of whether they are widely accepted or not. That's not my issue with Bernie and never has been.
I do because the Democratic Party simply does not get away with perceived extremism the way the Republican Party does. That's not changing anytime soon.
Socialists aren't going to shut up. If that means the country turns into a fascist dictatorship, that's the fault of the American people, not the socialists.
Bernie Sanders is NOT a socialist тАУ despite the fact that he professes to be one. Not once have I heard Senator Sanders loudly propose that the state should take over the means of production and distribution.
Sanders is a social democrat. And I wish he would be intellectually honest enough to use that term, instead of "socialist" which is inaccurate as well as toxic in American public discourse.
Social democrats are a type of socialist, but aside from that, my main objection to how Bernie campaigned for president is that he tried to argue that all governmental organizations including the military were socialism but never laid out his vision of the ideal society that's his end goal. It's entirely unclear to me whether a classless society in which the people collectively own the means of production through a democratic government is or is not his ideal and the end goal he'd like to strive towards, and if it is, I'd like to see him explain why he considers that vital.
Back in the day, I favored Bernie over Hillary. Four years later, I was extremely disappointed to realize that Bernie had done nothing to build bridges and enlarge his campaign coalition. Bernie had four years to prepare but did squat!
So glad we elected Joe Biden, who certainly exceeded my expectations. While Bernie has a heart of gold and many worthwhile ideas, I believe he would have been a catastrophe as president. Why? I see little if any evidence that Bernie Sanders knows how to build bridges, nor how to compromise and win legislative support. We would have had four years of his rhetoric from the Oval Office bully pulpit тАУ but few if any accomplishments.
PS. In 2020, I strongly supported Elizabeth Warren for President. That said, imho Warren has been far more impactful than Bernie on BidenтАЩs policies and personnel choices. Kudos to her!
Bernie has collaborated with people far to his right on legislation, so he's definitely capable of compromise, but Biden's ability to get legislation through Congress was unmatched for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson and there's no way any other Democrat would have been as successful, and certainly not Bernie.
Why is it okay for Bernie Sanders, who is not even a member of the Democratic Party, to have his entire brand be focused around bashing it, as he sits in a Safe Democratic seat, but for Jared Golden it is not?
Very strange double standards by some members here that will make moral pretzels in order to make something fit their own worldview.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander boys.
It's not good for either one of them to do it, and generally self-defeating int he long term. "We suck, vote for us" is not the most amazing message.
I am not criticizing Jared Golden nor have I made it an agenda of doing so.
However, Bernie Sanders has a massive influence on the left and is, I believe, under pressure to try to keep his base active so as to fire them up. After all, Sanders drove many of the Green Party members in states like CA to the Democratic Party because of his presidential primary campaign back in 2016.
That said, Sanders isnтАЩt the only one who is criticizing the Democratic Party. Labor leaders as well as Senator Chris Murphy have been echoing what Sanders has said although differing views former House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn and Nancy Pelosi are evident.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-democrats-working-class/tnamp/
Kamala got more votes in Vermont than Bernie. Maybe Sanders has a working class voter problem
HarrisтАЩ margin of win in VT was only .6% points higher than Sanders. Hardly much improvement over what Sanders got in his Senate re-election.
I donтАЩt know if Sanders has a working class problem. However, it appears Harris does, at least if the Teamsters PresidentтАЩs statement of his meeting with Harris during the campaign suggests anything.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/vermont-president-results
https://ballotpedia.org/Bernie_Sanders
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/arrogant-kamala-harris-told-teamsters-president-i-will-win-without-you/amp_articleshow/116636032.cms
I just think it's interesting that the guy throwing rocks after the election didn't get more votes in his home state than the "elitist" candidate.
You mentioned two bits of information in your previous comment that need to be addressed:
1) A better comparison should be the 2022 Senate Race where Senator Peter Welch by roughly 68% points in the open race. This means Sanders got at least 5%+ points less than Welch did, even while 2024 is the presidential election year. Welch actually did 2% points higher than Biden did in 2020.
However, Sanders likely got the drop in margin of victory vs his previous Senate elections because of the national environment, not as much any underlying issues he had as an incumbent Senator. A tiny margin of difference between Sanders and Harris doesnтАЩt particularly suggest anything other than the national environment impacted SandersтАЩ margin of victory a bit.
2) Harris was perceived to be arrogant by the TeamsterтАЩs President, which pretty much is in the same boat of being elitist. There is no data I have seen as of yet (unless anyone wants to share) that Sanders had issues with working class voters, at least in VT. VT is not a rust belt state although I am not too familiar with its blue collar sector.
It is possible Sanders by association with Harris and the Democratic Party did see a drop in enthusiasm in his Senate race. However, this is a 5+% point swing away from Democrats, which isnтАЩt in my view something to be too concerned about.
If Sanders won re-election by 20% or less, then IтАЩd be concerned.
No, I agree with the original comment and the best comparison is comparing Harris and Sanders in 2024. She did better than he did in his own state so why should we listen to his critiques?
0.6% better is not that much better. Harris also did worse than Senator Welch did in 2022. This means enthusiasm for Democrats was higher in 2022 than 2024 in VT.
However, I did read multiple articles prior to the 2024 election that shows Sanders had a drop in favorability rating. This could explain the drop in his % of votes in winning the Senate election.
That said, Sanders is wasting his energy and not being productive with it. IтАЩd rather he huddle with Robert Reich and others who are aiming to be more productive as they are in line with most of what Sanders stands for.
Sanders and Warren, in particular, were the only incumbents to underperform Harris. Warren did so by around 5 points, off the top of my head. I think that is significant. Why were the two most visibly left wing members of the Senate the worst performers?
Warren is weak by mass dem standards. Coming in third in your home state presidential primary was not pretty. Right wing populism is a bigger sale these days than left wing populism
Because populism at its heart is about exclusion. Going against a central tenet of the Democratic Party. For populism to be successful regardless of ideology, it requires тАЬpunching down.тАЭ People donтАЩt want to be at the bottom, they want someone below them.
Yeah, the likes of FDR, Truman, Hubert Humphrey sure did a lot of punching down.
One of the central tenets of the Democratic Party stretching back to Jackson and Jefferson was economic populism.
The New Deal did almost nothing for nonwhites and FDR ordered Japanese people to be locked up. Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Japan and the GI Bill did almost nothing for nonwhites. Humphrey was anti LGBTQ and anti choice. They all тАЬpunched down.тАЭ
Oh FFS. Talk about changing the subject. And Humphrey died before gay rights and abortion became big issues.
No he didnтАЩt. Roe v Wade became law in 1973 and he was a candidate for President in 1976 (he died in 1978). It had absolutely become a major issue by then. Also while in the Senate he proposed a law making it a felony to be a member of the Communist Party. So yes, he absolutely DID тАЬpunch down.тАЭ
Simply wrong.. The New Deal helped all races
Not equally. I'm not going to pretend it did. Deal with it.
I'm not sold on your argument. The way I've assessed things, Warren suffered in the presidential primary race because Sanders entered the race and took away all the energy from her campaign.
Also, Warren had similar appeal as Sanders did towards Trump supporters during early stages of the primaries. Even Tucker Carlson of all people at one point was considering voting for Warren because of her economic agenda and even referenced her Two-Income Trap book.
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/26/salon-interview-tucker-carlson-bashes-capitalism-says-he-might-vote-for-elizabeth-warren/
Sanders did steal a lot of her thunder.
Yeah. And a Biden vs. Warren race would have been interesting to watch if Sanders didn't jump in as a candidate.
Far more interesting to watch would have been a Warren presidency. With backing from a Democratically-controlled Congress, or even just with the inherent powers of the Executive, President Elizabeth Warren would have done wonderful things for our country!
I don't think there's much chance she could have gotten the highly substantive types of bipartisan legislation through that Biden did, though.
Warren underperformed Harris by 1.4% points, which is slightly worse than how Sanders did his Senate Race. However, Warren's percentage of victory in 2024 is actually .6% points lower than her re-election victory back in 2018.
In other words, not really much difference for Warren.
2024 US Presidency in Massachusetts
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/massachusetts-senate-results
2024 U.S. Senate Race in Massachusetts
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Massachusetts,_2024
2018 U.S. Senate Race in Massachusetts
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2018-election/midterms/ma/
I think someone in a previous thread pointed out that Warren did worse in upscale communities vs. Harris and better in "working class" areas but I don't think Warren is all that problematic in terms of throwing unnecessary rock throwing and i'm glad she is in the Senate.
Warren didn't have a real race..this is such a simplistic thread that has no real way of examination.. Massachusetts wasn't competitive at all in basically every race
I don't disagree. I do think for all the talk of understanding the working class though the people making the claim they understand it better should have an explanation for why they did worse against third tier opponents in their super blue states. She has been much more of a team player though Google each of them and Democratic party and it's different to say the least.
"Many political experts and D.C. insiders are already blaming President Joe BidenтАЩs economic agenda for Vice President Kamala HarrisтАЩ loss. This does not stand up to scrutiny. Even though the Biden economy produced strong economic growth while reining in inflation, incumbent parties across the globe have been tossed out by voters after the pandemic. American voters also showed support for Democratic economic policies, for example, approving ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in Alaska and to guarantee paid sick leave in Missouri.
But good economic policies do not erase painful underlying truths about our country. For my entire career, IтАЩve studied how the system is rigged against working-class families. On paper, the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world. But working families are struggling with big expenses like the cost of housing, health care, and childcare. Giant corporations get tax breaks and favorable rules while workers are gouged by higher prices. Billionaires pay paltry taxes on their wealth while families canтАЩt afford to buy their first homes.
Americans do not want a country where political parties each field their own team of billionaires who then squabble over how to divvy up the spoils of government. Vice President Harris deserves credit for running an inspiring campaign under unprecedented circumstances. But if Democrats want to earn back the trust of working people and govern again, we need to convince voters we canтАФand willтАФunrig the economy."
https://time.com/collection/time100-voices/7173801/elizabeth-warren-democrats-plan-after-2024-election/
I'd like to think her prescription is right, but I'm very skeptical.
I love Warren, but election results are what they are.
Entire brand? LOL. ItтАЩs a very small portion. His тАЬbrandтАЭ has always been fighting powerful economic interests and fighting for economic and social Justice.
Yes. But now, he's posturing in what strikes me as an insincere and somewhat demogagic way.
I think it's bad from both of them. It's part of why I've never been as fond of Sanders as would otherwise be assumed based on how far on the left I am ideologically.
It's poor behavior from both of them and makes it harder for the party in net. It's not a surprise that so many people have a poor opinion of the dem party when so many of our elected officials seem borderline ashamed to be a party member.
What he's done since the election certainly is not good, and as a fellow socialist, I'm very angry at him.
HeтАЩs never been pro Democratic Party if you look at his life. The only reason he caucuses with Democrats is so he can go back to Vermont and say he did things. You have to keep in mind that his political hero is not FDR, but Eugene Debs. If he were the old school New Deal Democrat that his apologists claim him to be, he would have been best buddies with Tip OтАЩNeill in the 1970s and 1980s. Not trashing JFK for trashing Castro back in the day.
I have no problem whatsoever with a fellow socialist identifying with Eugene V. Debs. I do have a problem with his current unjustified and highly untimely trashing of the Democratic Party. But no, he doesn't caucus with Democrats to "say he did things"; he does it to actually have an effect on Democratic legislation and Executive action - which he did have.
Two reasons why. #1. We now have two generations of American voters who didn't grow up in the Cold War, thus the word "socialist" is no longer poison in some mainstream political circles now, though it still remain very much a minority political sentiment in the USA. #2. The 2008 Wall Street crash did open the door to some left populism in this country, albeit not nearly as much as in 1929. Those two factors don't happen and he has no national audience, and today he'd struggle to have a Vermont audience.
Trump is better at populism.. we should acknowledge that
Never said he wasn't. It's easy to be good at populism when your voters let you get away with "punching down."
They don't let him get away with it. They largely support him because of it. The cruelty is the point and is why it's ok that he's a convicted felon and good that he's a rapist, as far as they're concerned.
You're talking about political effectiveness. I have no problem with socialists advocating their positions, regardless of whether they are widely accepted or not. That's not my issue with Bernie and never has been.
I do because the Democratic Party simply does not get away with perceived extremism the way the Republican Party does. That's not changing anytime soon.
As you said, he's not a Democrat.
It doesn't matter. He caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate. Thus the Democratic Party is expected to own his actions.
Socialists aren't going to shut up. If that means the country turns into a fascist dictatorship, that's the fault of the American people, not the socialists.
Bernie Sanders is NOT a socialist тАУ despite the fact that he professes to be one. Not once have I heard Senator Sanders loudly propose that the state should take over the means of production and distribution.
Sanders is a social democrat. And I wish he would be intellectually honest enough to use that term, instead of "socialist" which is inaccurate as well as toxic in American public discourse.
Social democrats are a type of socialist, but aside from that, my main objection to how Bernie campaigned for president is that he tried to argue that all governmental organizations including the military were socialism but never laid out his vision of the ideal society that's his end goal. It's entirely unclear to me whether a classless society in which the people collectively own the means of production through a democratic government is or is not his ideal and the end goal he'd like to strive towards, and if it is, I'd like to see him explain why he considers that vital.
Back in the day, I favored Bernie over Hillary. Four years later, I was extremely disappointed to realize that Bernie had done nothing to build bridges and enlarge his campaign coalition. Bernie had four years to prepare but did squat!
So glad we elected Joe Biden, who certainly exceeded my expectations. While Bernie has a heart of gold and many worthwhile ideas, I believe he would have been a catastrophe as president. Why? I see little if any evidence that Bernie Sanders knows how to build bridges, nor how to compromise and win legislative support. We would have had four years of his rhetoric from the Oval Office bully pulpit тАУ but few if any accomplishments.
PS. In 2020, I strongly supported Elizabeth Warren for President. That said, imho Warren has been far more impactful than Bernie on BidenтАЩs policies and personnel choices. Kudos to her!
Bernie has collaborated with people far to his right on legislation, so he's definitely capable of compromise, but Biden's ability to get legislation through Congress was unmatched for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson and there's no way any other Democrat would have been as successful, and certainly not Bernie.
Also, in the 2020 primaries, I favored Inslee, then Warren and then Bernie.