Summary
Bernie Sanders criticizes the Democratic Party for neglecting the working class, leading to their recent election losses.
He highlights issues like economic inequality, job displacement, healthcare costs, and foreign policy as key concerns for the American people.
Sanders questions whether the Democratic leadership will address these issues or remain beholden to big money interests.
I wonder why Bernie and other progressives don’t band together and announce their own party. With enough big names (especially Bernie) they could gather enough attention to be a viable third party that actually represents progressive and more left leaning ideas than the democrats. They have two years until the next local elections to get their foot on the race, I think they could get done traction if they actually go for that
Bernie is not nearly as popular as most on the internet echo chambers would have you believe.
The fact is this is now a money game. Grass roots campaings and parties are more disadvantaged than ever at being able to get their voice out to people, especially ones that arent perptually over connected to the internet and forums.
In terms of grassroots support, he’s been very effective. This map is from 2020 when there was an actual primary but it does paint the picture pretty well:
Source of graph (it’s paywalled but I found the image directly in the search results and copied it lol)
Bernie purposefully did not do that because he did not want to be seen as another Ralph Nader. He believed working inside the system would do more good than doing a dirty break. I also wish he went in the direction of a break from the democratic party, but that’s just not who he is.
Sigh I was the same way but now I see that people just won’t get out out to keep evil men at bay. I had hoped we can stick with the dems until the GOP is not a threat and then make our break.
If we made a progressive party now I wonder how many dire hard dems will join?
Unfortunately I would think very few would care. For example, the Green party is very progressive, and comes with a TON of advantages electorally. They’re on the ballot in almost every state, run in local and national elections, and have a system all set up for nominating people, etc. When you look at the Green party’s platform, it’s very close to what the progressives claim to actually want. Yet most democrats just shit on them at every opportunity instead of voting for the platform they ostensibly believe in.
To be fair, most people only know Jill Stein. And a suspected Russian agent who thinks Wi-Fi causes cancer is not the best foot to put forward
While I personally do like Stein, I agree that others would be better. Stein didn’t even want to run, but the Green Party loses all the electoral benefits I mentioned if they DON’T run. Stein basically recruited Cornell West to run for the Green Party nomination, and there was a time when it looked like he would be the nominee. However, he dropped out because he didn’t want to do the campaigning work within the party to become the nominee. If he had actually been serious about running, he could have clinched it and I think would have gotten a ton more traction. From what I’ve heard, it seemed like he was scared to gain too much traction and potentially be a real spoiler. When he left the Green Party, someone had to run to preserve their electoral benefits, so Stein stepped in.
I’ve voted for the Green Party in past elections and will agree with this.
Because they understand the spoiler effect.
We already lost. The time is now to work on something new. Tuesday and the 60 days before it were shut up and vote. Today and the next 3.5 years are shout and organize.
The Democrats have been spoiling elections plenty on their own
there is the democratic socialists of america that have a handful of elected officials, oddly not including bernie. it seems like they’re more of a sub party or organization within the dems though, not their own party
There is a lot of “invisible” work that party orgs do. If you want to see why big names and attention alone don’t work, look at the Green Party. They have name recognition, ballot access and even get a bit of the vote each presidential election. What they’re missing is the “ground game” that gives the presence in nearly every race in every precinct, and the local engagement to actually win an appreciable chunk of elections every year (not just the presidential years).