Bernie Sanders

eridani

(51,907 posts) Tue Mar 22, 2016, 04:36 AM Mar 2016

The Revolution May Not Be Televised, But Bernie Sanders Is Going All The Way

But the revolution will be tweeted, texted, liked and shared.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/21/revolution-may-not-be-televised-bernie-sanders-going-all-way

This is precisely why the Sanders campaign doesn’t have a super PAC, and why Bernie has made getting dirty money out of politics the core of his agenda. He knows that unless we accomplish this, we will forever be tinkering around the edges of social change. As critical as it is that Citizens United be overturned, achieving this only gets us back to the corrupt state of political affairs that already existed in 2010. Sanders wants to upend the Washington establishment by moving to public funding of elections. It’s time to clean house.

Instead of pinning their hopes on a Clinton campaign they know could implode at any time, Democratic Party leaders should really be asking themselves why Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is far and away the most popular United States Senator in America. His constituents in Vermont give him a soaring approval rating of 83%. Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike love him.

Have you noticed how not just Hillary, but also prominent Republicans are starting to sound a lot like Bernie Sanders? At a recent MSNBC Town Hall, Donald Trump actually mistook a description of Bernie for himself, before acknowledging: "There’s one thing we’re very similar in: He knows our country is being ripped off big league — big league — on trade." It was more revealing still to watch Republican Senator John McCain tell The Hill:

"I don’t think that many of us understood the depth of anger and frustration that’s out there… so many Americans have not seen any improvement in their lives and their income and they see the wealthiest – I’m beginning to sound like Bernie Sanders now – but they see the wealthiest Americans growing much more wealthy while they are mired down in what seems to them a lack of opportunity to improve their lives."

My point is even Republicans are attracted to Bernie’s populist message. Unlike Hillary, who polarizes, Bernie can appeal to Republican voters in a general election, not to mention the 43% of Americans who consider themselves Independents. This is why Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party’s best hope to win the White House in November. Bernie’s honest integrity is America’s strongest antidote to the dangerous demagoguery of Mr. 1%, Donald Trump.

1 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

The Revolution May Not Be Televised, But Bernie Sanders Is Going All The Way (Original Post) eridani Mar 2016 OP

"Bernie can appeal to Republican voters in a general election" Snarkoleptic Mar 2016 #1

Snarkoleptic

(5,996 posts)

1. "Bernie can appeal to Republican voters in a general election"

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Tue Mar 22, 2016, 07:52 AM

Mar 2016

Indeed, but Clinton can appeal to Republican donors in a primary election. But we should set that aside.
I'm certain she'll offer the middle class a hand-up rather than serving those shoveling her piles of cash.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-22/hillary-clinton-backed-major-republican-donors

An analysis of Federal Election Commission records, by TIME, which was published on 23 October 2015, showed that the 2012 donors to Romney’s campaign were already donating more to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign than they had been donating to any one of the 2016 campaigns of (listed here in declining order below Clinton) Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, or Jim Gilmore. Those major Romney donors also gave a little to two Democrats (other than to Hillary — who, as mentioned, received a lot of donations from these Republican donors): Martin O’Malley, Jim Web, and Lawrence Lessig. (Romney’s donors gave nothing to Bernie Sanders, and nothing to Elizabeth Warren. They don’t want either of those people to become President.)

--snip--

To judge from Clinton’s actual record of policy-decisions, and excluding any consideration of her current campaign-rhetoric (which is directed only at Democratic voters), all three of those candidates who were in Clinton’s Republican-donor league — Graham, Clinton, and Kasich — would, indeed, be quite similar, from the perceived self-interest standpoint of the major Republican donors.

--snip--

Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric is liberal, but her actual actions in politics have been conservative, except for her nominal support for liberal initiatives that attracted even some Republican support, or else that the Senate vote-counts (at the time when she was in the Senate) indicated in-advance had no real chance of becoming passed into law. In other words: her record was one of rhetoric and pretense on a great many issues, and of meaningful action on only issues that wouldn’t embarrass her in a Democratic primary campaign, to attract Democratic voters.

Reply to this discussion