You couldn’t invent a more cartoonishly evil guy than ‘than world’s richest man, who actively took food out of the mouths of starving people so he could save a little bit on taxes’

I’m well aware of how Bernie turned individual donations into a funding juggernaut. But if you think a third party candidate would win in a first past the post system, then you’re the one who’s not paying attention

The sad thing is that no Democrat will say fuck the norms to undo corporate fuckery, or to fix serious problems of inequality, or to slash the military budget, or to save the precious planet we live on from climate doom. They’ll insist on doing things the right way but get 1% of their agenda done before the other team takes over and rolls all progress back 50 years

I feel like I’m on something. Was there a deleted comment because I’m struggling to follow what happened here?

There was 0% chance a third party candidate was winning in 2016, Bernie or not. There was about a 50% chance of Hillary winning.

Also, viewing this as ‘bending the knee’ is so juvenile. Bernie knows who he is and has advocated for progressive values for longer than most of us have been alive. He made a calculated decision to do what had the highest chance of defeating Trump. It’s not his fault that Hillary and the Democratic machine are completely inept

You mean him running as a third party candidate? That’s a guaranteed loss under the current electoral system. He would’ve siphoned votes from both sides, but more from Hillary and delivered Trump an electoral college and popular vote victory. The left would’ve been demonised even more than they already were and AOC/The Squad would never have been elected to congress in 2018. Under First Past the Post, the only option for a populist progressive candidate is to do what Trump did. Take the party over from inside out. Going third party is just a fantasy.

Bernie was ratfucked out of the nomination, no doubt. What happened in West Virginia, for example, where he won all counties and they lied about it, was insane.

But… you cannot blame him or call him a coward for doing the right thing. At some point he saw the writing was on the wall. They were coronating Hillary no matter what. The next president would either be Hillary or Trump. Bernie put country before himself and stood aside. He didn’t make Trump’s path to victory any easier, and actively did his best to prevent a dangerous man from rising to power. None of that makes him a coward, it makes him a leader. A mensch.

Trump’s first term was like this for me. Every day was like watching a car crash and waiting, praying for someone to do something.

I told myself I wasn’t going to do it this time, but we’ve gone from the slow-moving car crash of the first term to a full-on NASCAR accident happening every day. Not paying attention feels like they’re winning, but there’s only so much I can take

Trump lies like regular people breathe. Anyone who believed him was a fool. But I’m not looking forward to all of the sanctimonious dipshits making mean comments about Palestinians/Arabs who voted for him in the hope that he would be better than Biden.

People were desperate and the Democrats made damned sure they felt voiceless, so they threw their lot in with the devil in the hopes that some babies in Gaza would live to see their next birthday. Again, they were fools. But seeing people gleefully throw the impending (and continued) genocide in their faces makes me feel sick