END TO END BERNERS: The Official Bernie Sanders 2020 Crew thread

√√✓✓

When did people start using the phrase “give a platform to”?

i'm not sure how to say this at all because it feels like one of those things that, there's no way to say it that doesn't make us poorer to some degree, but ... i do think it's true that bernie has a gender "problem" in the sense that a lot of people vote based on feeling... actually, scratch that, the news media of this country presents narrative based on feeling, lowest common denominator stuff like battles of the sexes etc. and that ends up spilling over into how these things play out. and i think there are a lot of "mushbrains," to use harbl's term, out there who will totally let something very stupid like gender guide their vote ... and these people are going to cross lines and rub people who are either more enlightened about gender or who have to deal with patriarchy and fundamentalist gender bullshit day to day the wrong way. i feel like the real trouble that bernie could run into is threading the needle where he both does not deny the appeal of who he is as a person... there are a lot of people out there who vote that way even though they would deny it! ... while at the same time being very very careful to change the subject / talk about an issue of substance or whatever when someone who is not bernie, who supports bernie, starts being a misogynist or a transphobe or whatever. he is already doing a much better job of that this go-around, which is why he is where he is imo, but he's going to need to keep doing better at it if he's going to make his way through this maze imo.

and just to respond to djp's post above about other candidates not getting the benefit of the doubt... bernie not taking corporate money is such a huge deal imo! and not doing it for decades. it's also why warren is getting a lot of benefit of the doubt. (though not so much!) the other candidates though.. for sure they aren't getting as much benefit of the doubt, at least not mine, because they (klobuchar, pete, harris, booker) are so obviously that post-reagan model of the democratic politician... they pass the 'electability' test in the sense that, like, you could see your boss voting for them, their neoliberal credentials are spot on, and people are (i am) tired as hell of the neoliberal model in this country. the one other candidate that i personally was enthusiastic about and who i was sad to see go was julian castro.

...who, i don't know as much about his money or whatever, but it seemed his prison reform credentials and focus on poverty was coming from a genuine place.

yes, and i am thinking, and i am aware of the fallacies that these thoughts can present, that these are issues of power. there will never be a candidate that can both attract only supporters with perfect ideas on every issue, and a perfect way of expressing support--i.e., not being a bernie bro or not being one of those slay queen sady doyle hillary people (there are 0 candidates with this quality, this is a platonic ideal candidate) AND attract enough voters to win, and a candidate that does not win has less power than the power that is needed to change things. things such as having medicare for all. which would be a medicare for all that includes things that transpeople require. it is never "good" to have a segment of voters that thinks louis farrakhan is cool, or a segment of voters that would think it is ok to shout "you're a man" at a transwoman. but the power of those tiny segments is less than the power of all of them together supporting things that would improve the material conditions of the lives of everyone.

very otm

OTFM

Sanders is not perfect and I have considerable doubts about him being able to achieve what he wants to do, but of all the candidates he is the only one who has demonstrated anything resembling a consistency of vision and moral clarity. Perceived integrity counts for something!

definitely.. i also think the candidate with the strongest moral position is going to fare the best against donald trump

if the dems nominate biden i will vote the hell out of biden but my gut feeling is that conservatives will have a six-month free buffet with him and he will lose

which is related to the reason why the "bernie has a sexism problem" story has no weight to me. i am in no way comparing sexism to transphobia here, it is just the one -ism i experience. i am affected by sexism in my life, but i also have enough money and i'm white and i'm educated and i have health insurance and a house, etc. coincidentally most of the people who tell this story have a lot more money than i do. because whatever "sexist" things bernie did, and i honestly have no idea what these things are they must have been so serious, i'm way more interested in, like, why does your candidate think we can continue doing the same shitty things minus 1% of the shittiness and expect not to have the same shitty country where most people's lives are bad, that also kills too many people in foreign wars, which we have mostly forgotten are going on, etc. if bernie said some sexist thing sometime, yes i am more ready to give him the benefit of the doubt than i am of someone who brags about being a capitalist to her core or whatever else we are supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt for? people's actual ideas mean something. sorry for ramble.

the candidate with the strongest moral position is going to fare the best against donald trump

For voters who only equate "strong moral position" with "appoints anti-choice justices and judges", Sanders would not make any more headway than any Democratic candidate. But, as in 1976, among voters who have seen enough of Trump's bullying, narcissism and whim-based governance may well be be drawn to a candidate whose moral underpinning they feel they can understand, endorse, and count on to remain steady.

I have considerable doubts about him being able to achieve what he wants to do

i do, too, FWIW. but preferable to the other ones who don't seem to want to do anything.

Warren certainly wants to do things, too, many of them very similar to what Bernie wants to do.

i'm not gonna get in that argument but she is a perfect example of a candidate trying to say all the right things about identities and failing at strong moral positions

Exactly. Warren also been so waffly on much of the stuff that she supposedly has in common with Sanders, like health care.

TBH it’s incredible that anyone took her seriously after the DNA debacle.

which is annoying because she was way more confident and on point when she was taking strong moral positions before her campaigning

Yeah, running for prez breaks some people I think

she is a perfect example of a candidate trying to say all the right things about identities and failing at strong moral positions

I've also come to believe Senator Sanders is a stronger and more reliable candidate than Senator Warren and hope that in May, when I can vote my preference, he is showing strongly enough to make casting that vote for him simple and obvious. Warren's life in politics has been relatively short by comparison and her experience has not prepared her adequately for a national campaign, which is both an exhausting marathon and a daily obstacle course.

Warren's wavering is the strongest argument for the evils of campaign consultants.

I have been appalled by the campaign Warren is running. She’s a populist from Oklahoma who many of us saw fight elite bankers for years. Somehow Joe Rospars decided that ‘Warren is Hillary 2.0’ was the right branding choice.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 15, 2019

Rospars also runs Blue State Digital that's providing services to Klobuchar and Biden, which I don't understand from a conflict of interests perspective.

Didn't she just pivot too early? Maybe a result of the unexpectedly short Kamala and Beto campaigns, wonder if that jumbled up their timeline and forced the recent mis-steps

Making calculations and pivoting are exactly what make her look less attractive than Bernie. She was told by 'experts' that this is what she must do to win the presidency. I'm sure there were ample charts, graphs, electoral maps, and quotes from focus groups to reinforce the lesson. Bernie's from a small state where retail politics are more effective, so he's learned a whole different set of skills.

Maybe don’t perform the autopsy, yet? She’s still polling decently, and has fewer skeletons
than the other frontrunners.

Plus, the narrative has shifted against her in the last few days in a way that is so consistent in language that it makes me think that somebody or somebodies are willfully coordinating attacks or influence against her.

Warren's life in politics has been relatively short by comparison and her experience has not prepared her adequately for a national campaign, which is both an exhausting marathon and a daily obstacle course.

This is a slightly condescending position considering what she endured in 2010-2013 from the Obama White House and congressional Dems and GOP-ers. She knows what that heat's like plenty

Missing out on the Rogan appearance can't have helped either, would have been a good way to get her across to a large audience that might not get to see her at length otherwise

She was told by 'experts' that this is what she must do to win the presidency. I'm sure there were ample charts, graphs, electoral maps, and quotes from focus groups to reinforce the lesson. Bernie's from a small state where retail politics are more effective, so he's learned a whole different set of skills

You're projecting. What makes you think Sanders is any less indebted to advisers -- and so what if he were? Also, your last sentence undercuts the larger point about his, ah, 'electability.'

Kinda been thinking about the ways that real or imagined Sanders/Warren feud is in essence a debate about authenticity and bona fides, always resolving per sexist prerogative in favor of curmudgeonly known quantity over woman or any quality.

* over woman of any quality

Guys whose careers date to the seventies can afford to be purer and "authentic."

I miss more women commenting on these threads.

I get the entire idea of having to broaden your appeal and become quote-unquote presidential when running a campaign, but... run on who you are! your stances! what you've done!

Warren has a good resume based on her national career, just emphasize that above all else. I think she could flip any criticism on lack of experience compared to Sanders with the pitch that she's the candidate who looked to him as a mentor. Should pitch with that, expand on it, and then criticize based on where she's done something different

I feel like she panicked in 2016 and decided a stronger extant democratic party was a better goal than representing the things she was credible on

I mean, just tell the story about how you got fucked on the CFPD because the system doesn't want real consumer protection!

she can absolutely be pure and authentic, counting her arrival on the national scene as day one

There has to be something to the team stuff definitelyl, Gray and Turner certainly message disciplined and I'm not sure Warren's team has that. The idea Bernie somehow magically doesn't have a team is obviously wrong! He has a good team

Dudes tend to forget that the rockist argument about authenticity is available to them because the terrain on which their picks fought was a whiter, male-r terrain. I like Sanders because of what he says NOW, not because He Was Always Right, a slightly obtuse argument based on the homogeneity of his state. Yet I recognize Warren's base of support is thinner than his.

i'm a woman and i didn't doubt warren's authenticity until about the past few months, when she started waffling. i wasn't a supporter but had more respect for her. i have no doubt she'd be doing better had she stayed consistent, not a question of being able to afford it. that is the basis of the statement about the quality of her team/advisors. not just having one, but having one that gives her bad advice, apparently.

there is certainly something to the idea that had sanders been a woman saying these things for the past 40 years, he would not be where he is. but what do we do about that

Has there been a change in her team at some point in the last few months?

again, I find "authenticity" in a candidate, as I would in a pop star, dubious at best.

i am not sure. i must also confess i am not the best judge of time because i've been very busy and this primary has dragged on forever, so when i say a few months it may have been a year. xpost

interesting parallel with Corbyn where he lost his perception not of "authenticity" exactly but 'believability', as he allowed himself to get manoeuvred into the proceduralist/managerialist position and the perception that Labour had any kind of resolve evaporated

What makes you think Sanders is any less indebted to advisers -- and so what if he were?

I can only watch how Bernie acts and listen to what he says and if there is evidence of calculation in that, then the calculations have changed very little in the past five years and apparently those advisors are advising against his pivoting or muddling the core message. They aren't trying to remake him from a shouty old man into something else, or scripting quips for him to artfully (or not) drop into debates or interviews.

All the beloved 'image management' apparatus that I associate with political consultants seem to be missing from Bernie's campaign. I doubt he is paying any consulting firm large amounts of money to tell him to be himself, do and say what feels right, and stick to what has gotten him this far. Because why would he need that advice?

If he has advisors to tell him where to concentrate his GOTV organizing efforts to get the most results, or researching who he should be contacting locally who know the lay of the land and can run a good volunteer effort, then that ain't the kind of consulting I object to; it's just good solid political horse sense to pursue that information and act on it.

If he is triangulating on issues, it's so damn subtle I can't tell he's doing it. In which case, I don't care .

Let me answer this question, I think, once and all.

I'm a gay Latino in his forties. To have been an Elizabeth Warren in the 1970s and 1980s required a series of compromises and comeuppances: remaining a Republican twenty years after Nixon, marrying poorly, believing in middle class shibboleths. It's harder to be a woman and think your way out of corners. How fortunate to have been a moderately radical man coming of age in Vermont -- he didn't deal with the institutional sexism of Ivy League institutions; then, years later, surrounded by the men whom you think are your peers, the condescension and outright hostility of Treasury secretaries in the administration of the president who signed the Lily Ledbetter Act.

I don't agree with the Chuck Todd-blessed conventional wisdom. She hasn't "stumbled" explaining M4A or whatever. From the late summer to November she rose to frontrunner because the specificity of her policies were recognizable and detailed enough to scare the shit out of Wall Street like Sanders' broad gestures didn't, and, to be fair, because American media can't take a Democratic Socialist seriously. Elizabeth Warren is a Capitalist to Her Bones because like FDR that's what she knows; as a woman, that's the system under which she, to quote Hart Crane, made her meek adjustments. She's a traitor to her class, like FDR, hence the incomprehension of the Larry Summers-Tim Geithner class struck dumb by their inability to buy her off.

Anyway. That's my own meek defense in a Bernie thread.

It comes down to a simple axiom: it's so easy for straight white men to be pure. So fucking easy.

Yet Sanders is my #2 without hesitation.

God knows anti-Semitism was unknown in Sanders's youth and adulthood.

Why aren't more of them?? xp

I have to note one of your otherwise sapient remarks on the comparative travails of Sanders and Warren:

he didn't deal with the institutional sexism of Ivy League institutions

First, he went to the University of Chicago, but secondly, the Ivy League in 1960, when he entered college, was just as notoriously and stubbornly committed to limiting the admission of jewish students as they were to limiting women. This does not even touch on the even more profound racism of the Ivy League schools at that time.

But however much it helps to understand the genesis of a person's methods of coping with the world, it does not change those methods. If one may commend Warren for rising this far against a stiffer headwind perhaps than Bernie had to march against, our understanding does not alter their respective strengths or weaknesses as they stand before us today. I trust both of them in terms of the policy direction they wish to take the nation, and in terms of their strong commitment if they enter office. atm, I trust Bernie more to hew to a campaign path that will have more success with voters, not because he's a better person, but because he is running a better campaign.

This is why, to some extent at least, we also have to look at the campaign teams as much as the candidates, many of who have the same discipline as Bernie but perhaps not the same background

Also to clarify, I don't have any issue with the fact Warren used to be a Republican. We should celebrate that people moved left, not chastise them for it

it’s one of my favorite things about her

Its actually the same reason I think its right for Bernie to go on Rogan, right for Bernie to go on Fox, the more people that move from right to left the better and there are some great vehicles for doing that out there