LovingHippieCat

I mean the thing that signaled Biden had any chance in 2020 was him winning South Carolina pretty big and that showed the establishment moderates that there was someone to back who could win against Bernie. Since Bernie had a plurality not a majority it was a tough race to win outright. Super Tuesday solidified his lead but then Covid happened less than 2 weeks later and made it so Bernie couldn't have made up for his losses on Super Tuesday. Basically guaranteeing that Biden would win. The people that dropped out before ST were Buttigieg, Klobochar, and O'Rourke had kinda already crashed and burned. But Pete was the more left leaning out of those people so even with him dropping out it would make sense for much of those voters to go to Bernie. So realistically a Bidens bump started with South Carolina and the moderates then realized he was their only chance. Again, Bernie could have, and likely would have over come this without COVID. But he didn't. If voters in South Carolina had picked Bernie Biden wouldn't have gotten any bump and Bernie would have continued his way to a plurality of votes. Biden also eventually got a majority of voters to his side while Bernie has never had a majority of voters. Mind you, neither did Obama. But Obama was...Obama. Being a young charasmatic person who can inspire in your speeches helps a whole lot.

Bernie was doing well but couldn't overcome that Biden was viewed as a strong candidate by moderates overall, that covid happened, and also that he just wasn't a Democrat. People had the same thought process for Bloomberg because he was a Republican. They wanted a democrat at the head.

This is also why it will be easier for someone who has always been a Democrat to win the presidential primary as a progressive. Bernie also has the trouble with being a guy with great ideas but still being an old dude and going on tangents that aren't necessary to make his point. He is also not the best at inspiring in his speeches, not that they can't be inspiring. Just that he's not as Charismatic as Obama was. Someone like AOC though has the charisma down, has the ideas down, has the ability to talk like a normal person down, is young, and is able to use things like social media and be just as normal as anyone else.

Which is fair to say. I just think he should be talking about primarying the establishment Dems as opposed to just not running as Democrats.

Okay I see what you're saying now. Yeah I think we are on the same page. It's really all about persistence and progressives voting consistently. I was thinking more about how the movement he started didn't continue on its pace, not necessarily that nothing he did mattered.

I also think the 2020 primaries is complicated in just that the moderates that dropped out weren't polling super well anyway so them dropping out didn't give Biden as much of a boost as much as just him being Biden. That said, Bernie should have been the candidate but not enough people voted for him in the primary to get that to happen. He also still faced the "He's not a democrat" accusation which was a problem for him in both primaries he ran in. Again, if more progressives had come out to vote for Bernie, he would have won.

It's all about voting in the primaries.

So then he's saying "Split your votes and make sure no one you support ever gets into power anywhere above the local level because the democrats suck and the system is broken"?

Started a Tea Party like movement? Or started saying we need one? Because he did not start one at all. If he had we would have Democrat voters coming out in primaries more, and kicking out establishment Dems more if they don't adhere to the parties core beliefs. He may have wanted to start one back then, but it was a false start because people lost a lot of steam when he wasn't the candidate. Sure there were a lot of progressives elected in the next midterm, but that should have been a continuing trend, instead of something that plateaus. The Left has lost steam with their movement because they don't keep their eye on the ball, we get distracted with infighting and splitting our votes with third parties instead of relentlessly pursuing our goal of remaking the party, something the Tea Party movement did extremely well at.

Dunno if running in the Republican primary would be worth anything because Republican primaries are very MAGA and if you aren't that then you won't get the nom at all.

Dude should be saying we need our own tea party movement where we take over the Democrat party. Not that we need to fracture ourselves even more.

That said, I think there is an argument for independent runs in purely local politics in areas that only have Republicans run for things and have a hatred for Democrats they can't seem to move past.

Regardless. Bernie should know how our system works by now, he should know that fracturing has and will always be a stupid idea that only removes power from the leftists and progressives in the country and then gives it to the Republicans. Which then makes the Democrats move right because the progressives have left the building. This is just fucking stupid on a non local politics scale and Bernie should know better.

Bernie should be running "here's how to run for office in your area" drives on his oligarchy tour. The only way progressives will kick out corporate democrats is by the common person running more. Bernie should be pushing more people to run instead of just getting up on a stage in front of people and being a politician. He's not a good organizer. Great talker. Horrible at getting people out to vote. Dude couldn't even get enough people out to vote in the Democrat primary in 2016 to defeat Clinton. She beat him by a larger voting margin than Trump won by last year.

I would be so crushed if James was a bigot.