this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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We could have had Bernie in 2016
You would have had Trump in 2016, but then again, it'd be over now. Unless he would've actually destroyed democracy.
Bernie was never going to happen ever. Even the democrats didn't want him.
The Democrats, as in the democratic voters, did want him. The DNC was willing to let trump win to avoid a Democratic Socialist from becoming president.
Absolutely.
That became painfully apparent in 2019 when Bernie won the first three primaries and the party rallied around the fifth least-popular candidate: Joe Biden, only slightly more popular than Mike Bloomberg.
And they handed out favors to the others in order to drop out and endorse this shitty man who did nothing meaningful to stop fascism, thereby making Trump's fascist candidacy inevitable.
I have at least one friend who won't vote anymore because of that. He'd rather the US get Trump and despair than give the DNC the satisfaction of another vote. I've tried to convince him.
I fully understand the hopelessness. I don't think anyone but billionaires have meaningful power to make change in this country anymore.
TBH, I voted Biden four years ago with zero belief that he'd do anything meaningful to make the lives of the working class and poor any easier, and for the most part, that's how it turned out. The major departure from that, as far as I've seen, is the hundred of thousands who've had their student loans forgiven, and I know someone personally who had $200,000 in debt wiped out. That's huge. Absolutely huge.
The problem is, apart from that, it's hard to see where Biden didn't capitulate or cut himself off at the knees to satisfy the same Republicans who painted him as their enemy. We got a Build Back Better bill that was a shell of what it should have been. We got a "gun control" bill that only allocated money to the states without any requirements to regulate guns. We got an Inflation Reduction Act that doesn't do anything to control inflation. We got US-backed genocide in Israel and a blank check for war in Ukraine.
Therefore, even with the modest achievements (if you can call them that) the vast majority of the votes Democrats need are coming from people whose lives are much harder now than they were four years ago.
I voted Biden solely because I thought a cultural win against fascism would turn the tide.
It didn't. No one we elected had the balls to confront or punish Donald Trump, and now, we have a fascist state in all but name. I'm not uncertain that we won't have a full fascist state in the coming year.
I did vote, though, for what it's worth. My state, Missouri, has lots of state initiatives that are very progressive, like voting down the abortion ban and voting in a $15 minimum wage, among other things.