Memes

I still remember the full-on panic mode people were in when it looked like Bernie might clinch the nomination in 2020. So absurd, but that's what happens when the ruling class is afraid that they might have to pay higher taxes.

It's always been conservative neoliberals vs far right nationalism. No one is willing to change much of anything.

I mean, I was super curious what Sanders could’ve done if he had the chance.

There is a lot of speculation that Sanders would have faced enormous opposition both from the "centrist" media and conservatives within his own party, such that he was hobbled for his full four years. But the expectation is predicated on Sanders playing by Clinton/Obama rules, where you float a progressive idea and Congress says "NO!" and then throw up your hands and spend the back half of your term glad-handing dictators to sell F-35s.

I don't think Sanders would have the Trump/DOGE enthusiasm for shredding the norms and imposing radical reform at the executive level. But if this Presidency is any indication, all you really need is a ketamine fueled cartel of techbros, a stack of EO stationary, and a fresh sharpie. And you can fully remake the federal bureaucracy from root to branch.

If democrats in the US vote for stuff like Biden, then they’re not voting for any radical change.

Biden made a very conscious decision to run to the left of Bernie in 2020. He avoided Clinton's fumbles through the Midwest in large part by echoing all the Obama '08 and Sanders '16 pledges, while the national media amplified his electoral platform in the middle of a COVID-induced campaign freeze.

American Dems are just as vulnerable to a coordinated propaganda campaign as their conservative and libertarian peers. So its no surprise people who'd fallen for the corporate sponsored faux-populist schtick in elections prior would fall for it this time around. But there was also a very deep and not unjustified fear among moderate Dems that running anyone but Biden would guarantee the kind of news cycle smear campaigns against Sanders that brought down Hillary.

The failure of the American liberal movement is largely rooted in their lack of faith in their own base and their own message. Liberals have convinced themselves that every year is 1972 and every progressive is going to lose like McGovern did. They've bought fully into the Republican propaganda machine and only ever know how to fight on the Republicans' terms. And, as a result, guys like Reagan and Bush and Trump can stake out turf to the left of Democrats, win on narrow margins, and then govern uncontested as fascists.

What would it take to pass a constitutional amendment for ranked choice voting, or any other voting system without a spoiler effect?

Spoiler: not by voting

Americans voted for Biden because the primary system heavily favored Biden and Americans were told Biden was "more electable" than Bernie, even though every one of Bernie's policies and his messaging polled better.

If the DNC didn't put their thumbs on the scale, Bernie would have won in 2016 (or 2020), and guaranteed a democratic victory in the next election because nobody receiving free healthcare is going to vote to go back to the current system.

Bernie isn't radical, he's a social democrat, he just looks radical because the democrats are right of George W Bush right now.

If democrats in the US vote for stuff like Biden, then they’re not voting for any radical change

I don't exactly know the details, but weren't there accusations of meddling from the DNC that stoppered Sanders' chance of securing the nomination, and a belief among some that he might have won the nomination if it had been a free and fair primary process?

In other words, it's possible (though by no means certain) that your sentence above works if "democrats" means "the DNC and the establishment of the Democratic Party", but not if it means "people who by-and-large support the Democratic Party".

Oddly enough people say that they voted for these policies for change. It’s a mess.

Still nothing

Courts wouldn’t even let Biden offer student loan relief