We need bold, sweeping change, an FDR type change. Elizabeth or Bernie are the only ones capable.

[brutus smith]

We don't need someone who thinks they need repub approval for things. Let's do this!

[sellitman]

1. Love them both however

I think Yang would give tRump fits. I love his youth, enthusiasm and his ideas.

[Sherman A1]

21. +1000

and more!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

126. Love 'em both too!! Glad the Bernie/Elizabeth team is reunited... they need each othe!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[Demsrule86]

2. You need to win a general...and I don't know that either can do this.

[Johnyawl]

5. To come even close to what FDR did we also need to win the Senate...

...and I think the only candidate who would have any coattails in the states we need is Biden.

[Demsrule86]

14. I agree...it looks like we may have a play in Iowa which is shocking Joni the bull castrater

isn't that popular...Biden would improve our chances.

[LonePirate]

28. The problem with that is that Biden does not offer the change American society needs.

Biden's agenda is pretty much the opposite of the massive change this country needs. Biden's agenda would have been great had he been running in 2016 but this is 2020 and we're dealing with an entirely different set of needs for the country - needs not solved by Biden's centrism.

[redstateblues]

31. Entirely different set of needs? It's still the same

We need to build on the ACA, restore our standing with our allies, deal with income inequality and deal with climate change. Bernie’s MFA raises taxes for everyone and would give at least 45 states to Trump

[LonePirate]

34. Except for possibly restoring our standing with our allies, Biden offers nothing for the other items

Last edited Mon Jan 20, 2020, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

The ACA does not need another addition. It needs to be replaced entirely with a single payer system, with current employer paid premiums and their current employee paid paycheck deductions - funding the lion's share. Many of Biden's supporters conveniently fail to mention because they are too busy promoting the Republican boogeyman of higher taxes. Biden has nothing to deal with income equality or climate change in the way that both serious items need to be addressed. Centrism is never the solution to domestic problems. Centrism is merely a continuation of what some consider idealism but in reality falls far short of the progress America needs.

[brutus smith]

44. Absolutely!

[Demsrule86]

98. Replacing the ACA is madness...we won't be able to do it...would take years...working with what we

have is smart...insisting on M4A will cause us to lose health care completely. A public option and other 'fixes' we have a shot at ...but we will not get M4A through Congress. By repairing the ACA we can get to universal coverage...so that works for me.

[Demsrule86]

99. And I think Biden has plenty to offer...things that might really happen.

[emmaverybo]

105. His climate change program is very strong, signed off on by the Sierra club. His education

program which stresses pre K through 12, the most crucial developmental stages for learning, is excellent. The public is much more attuned to his healthcare policy than to M4All and the suite of
plans, so terribly cost intensive, financially and politically, that Warren and Sanders propose, do nothing to fund, shore up, and protect the numerous entitlement and social programs at-risk throughout the nation. They also have little to zero chance of coming to fruition.

What does the world need? Surely not,at this perilous stage, a president without foreign policy and relations cred., deep knowledge, or experience. The possibility of a first nuclear war is an existential threat. The rise of anti-democratic, extreme right wing movements internationally is also a threat.

What America needs is stability, security, and doable policy. But America is not the planet. Domestic
economic policy is but one area in the full range of responsibilities a president will assume and her influence within it limited. Warren and Sanders could continue to lobby for change without assuming the presidency. Their efforts from the outside would likely effect as much change as either one could as a leader of the free world, commander-in-chief of a superpower among superpowers, a position for which by almost every measure Biden is far more prepared.

[Dem4Life1102]

3. FDR type?

Do you mean turning a blind eye to segregation & racism, interning American citizens, abandoning healthcare reform because its too difficult to get through Congress, setting the minimum age for Social Security above the average life expectancy and creating the military industrial complex?

[OKNancy]

8. refused to integrate the military

Truman finally did

[DURHAM D]

10. and turning certain immigrants away at the border? nt

[squirecam]

33. If we have war

It’s better to have LBJ then FDR.

At least he got civil rights passed.

[ehrnst]

39. Indeed. Also, FDR was far more an establishment government 1% insider than either one.

FDR's programs worked for that time, that particular societal mindset, and that economic situation.

We need contemporary solutions that fit a time where you can't legally exclude women and POC from well paying federal work programs for the trades and decent paying jobs, or round up huge numbers of people in specific races in concentration camps, which had the effect keeping them out of the workforce, and out of competition with white business owners.

FDR accepted the anti-semitic fears of "Hitlers spies among the jews from Germany," and refused entry of thousands of Jewish refugees, sending many of them back to horrible deaths at the hands of the Third Reich.

POC kept quiet about these issues, because they wanted to be supportive of the war effort, and knew it would be pointless and dangerous to come across as unpatriotic.

If the federal FDR programs were benefitting them and if progressive economic policies ended bigotry and racism, there would not have been the garbage workers strike, continued segregation, and the civil rights movement shortly thereafter...

[brutus smith]

45. The country was a disaster when FDR took office.

For so called Dems on here to nitpick what he didn't accomplish is ludicrous.

[Dem4Life1102]

68. Not the point

[ehrnst]

90. "So called Dems on here"

[appalachiablue]

97. Truman and JFK-LBJ had their strengths but they didn't tackle

the Great Depression, save capitalism or fight the Second World War with Europe to defeat fascism. FDR remains one of the top US presidents for good reason.

[brutus smith]

118. Agree

[tirebiter]

152. But Obama can't be president again however much you wish

How about we choose the one he chose to be his second in command.

[tirebiter]

151. I'll agree with that

We don’t need so called Dems to lead us either. Sunshine patriots can be remf’s.

[rwsanders]

80. This is a major misunderstanding of the man and what he did.

If he had been given the time to reflect in hindsight, he may have said that he would have done many of those things differently, but the book I read about him illustrated how he was narrowly focused on the economy before the war, and on winning the war while we were in it.
He was pragmatic, maybe to a fault, but did didn't want anything to hinder or detract from his primary focus. He was the one who presented the "4 Freedoms" and wanted a second bill of rights that went far beyond what any of his successors has been willing to promote.
https://www.amazon.com/Together-We-Cannot-Fail-Presidency/dp/B006J3XY4Q/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=FDR+with+CD&qid=1579558423&s=books&sr=1-5
Considering the challenges he faced, I'd say he was one of the top 3 presidents we've had. To me the only others that compare would be Washington and Lincoln.

[Dem4Life1102]

94. Exactly

He was pragmatic and not ideological.

[Kurt V.]

104. fdr was the worst democratic president ever. do i have this right?

[appalachiablue]

106. It looks like some would have preferred another 4 years of Hoover,

or other Republicans or Democrats rather than FDR. Elected for 4 terms, President Roosevelt saved capitalism, turned around the Great Depression and fought with European allies to defeat the Nazis in World War II.

Without FDR there would be no modern Democratic Party, no Truman, no LBJ, an avid 'New Dealer' since his early legislative days, no JFK or Carter and beyond if the ultra conservative Republicans had gained control of all three branches of government in the 1930s. Or, if fascist forces had overtaken the government as many had planned in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Hence, no labor laws with minimum wage, overtime, 8- hour workday and weekends to protect workers, no Social Security, no strong banking reforms like the Glass-Stegall Act, no FHA to support home loans, no GI Bill for veterans, no national support for the arts and humanities, no civil rights movement and legislation, no women's movement, no environmental movement, no space program, no Medicare or Great Society programs to help poor and disadvantaged Americans, and more.

[Dem4Life1102]

107. No

But he wasn’t perfect nor was he far left as some are trying to portray.

[brutus smith]

119. So taking bold moves is a "far left" thing? I call it patriotic.

[Dem4Life1102]

132. I'm not the one incorrectly trying to paint FDR as far left.

[DownriverDem]

4. Center/Left Country

We have to have a ticket that will appeal to the country next November. That means more than Democrats and left leaners. Biden can win enough states to beat trump. We can win with Biden and a strong progressive Democratic woman as VP. Harris or Abrams would be great picks. We can't blow this. Win first then push for the change we all so want.

[Prosper]

123. Said DownriverDem: "Win first then push for the change we all so want"

What change had Biden pushed for?”

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

131. ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!! If we want REAL change, we should vote for the REAL progressive visionaries...

That's President Sanders and Vice-President Warren!! The only candidates that guarantee victory over PEE-resident tRump.


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[OhZone]

6. Wasn't FDR considered conservative to moderate -

before he decided he had to experiment with some major things to fix the Great Depression?

[The Valley Below]

13. The socialists of his day called FDR a plutocratic corporatist and a war-monger.

Meanwhile they (in league with far-right isolationists) opposed the US entry into the war against fascism.

Today we are being gaslighted as some try to claim FDR's mantle. People who are not like him in the slightest.

[Thekaspervote]

22. Indeed!

[dflprincess]

27. And the conservatives called him

a traitor to his class.

[The Valley Below]

30. Yep. FDR has enemies on both flanks to deal with who were isolationists

and largely populists.

Thank goodness for a great liberal like Franklin Roosevelt who steered a course between unpleasant extremes!

[brutus smith]

46. FDR did what he had to do to get this country going again.

[The Valley Below]

60. Which DID NOT include turning the USA into a socialist state.

[brutus smith]

76. Social Security, Public works programs, etc. Sounds "socialistic" to me.

[The Valley Below]

91. In no way shape or form are social programs examples of socialism.

Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Calling Social Security "socialism" or "socialistic" is a right-wing talking point.

[redstateblues]

108. Thank you!

[Prosper]

110. And Bernie is not proposing the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Bernie is proposing capitalism. That is a system that made America great until the right wing financed an oligarchist transformation.

[The Valley Below]

111. That's not true, he has done just that many times during his career.

For example, he's called for the seizure of an electric company without any compensation to the owners.

That's socialism.

Social Security is not socialism. Nor is roadbuilding, schools, police and fire, or any other government services.

[Prosper]

112. You have your tenses mixed up. I said he is not proposing and you contradict

that with a past accusation.

[Prosper]

113. Plus that place was in bankruptcy. It would have been a favor.

But he still has not proposed seizing privately owned property.

[The Valley Below]

115. Not true. That is precisely what he's done.

[The Valley Below]

114. LOL. It was his policy years ago and it is his current policy now.

Nothing is mixed up.

When Sanders says he's a socialist, he's not lying. It is his policy this campaign. See:

Bernie Sanders Calls To Seize the Means of Electricity Production

http://inthesetimes.com/article/22025/bernie-sanders-calls-to-seize-the-means-of-electricity-production-climate

[Prosper]

116. May have been his policy but show me where he is proposing that now.

I think the collective not for profit of any public service is the only way to go.

[The Valley Below]

117. I just did. In an article from 2019.

[Prosper]

124. If you are referring to the headline, Bernie did not say that.

That headline was written by Johanna Bozuwa and nowhere in that article did I see Bernie quoted as seizing that power company without compensation to owners.

[Prosper]

127. Sanders position evaluated.

Samuel Goldman, assistant professor of political science at George Washington University, states that Sanders' platform is not socialist and is better described as "welfarism" reminiscent of the 1950s that aims to regulate rather than to replace capitalism. Goldman notes that Sanders does not advocate public ownership of the means of production nor does he seek to abolish the profit system, both of which Goldman considers to be defining characteristics of socialism.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Bernie_Sanders#Prior_to_elected_office

[brutus smith]

120. I Agree!

[Scurrilous]

36. Yep!

Fighting Words

<snip>

"What’s in a name? Franklin Delano Roosevelt called himself a Christian, a Democrat, and a liberal. He did not call himself a democratic socialist, or any other kind of socialist. He was, in fact, no socialist at all. Nor was he a conservative or a reactionary, although many on the socialist and communist left charged that he was—including the Communist Party USA, which attacked his New Deal for a time (until Moscow’s political line changed) as American “masked fascization.”

The only Americans who considered Franklin Roosevelt a socialist were right-wing Republicans. “The New Deal is now undisguised state socialism,” Senator Simeon D. Fess of Ohio declared in 1934. “Roosevelt is a socialist, not a Democrat,” Congressman Robert Rich of Pennsylvania announced on the House floor a year later. Roosevelt scoffed at such talk, but in 1939 he paused to present a very concise political dictionary of his own. “A radical,” he told the New York Herald Tribune, “is a man with both feet firmly planted—in the air.” A conservative, he continued, “never learned to walk forward”; a reactionary walked backward in his sleep. A liberal, though, used legs and hands “at the behest—at the command—of his head.” The metaphor was poignant coming from him, but it also emphasized his point: In the face of all adversity, he was every inch a liberal."

<snip>

"The election of 2016 showed how confused these old labels and distinctions have become. The socialist senator Bernie Sanders, for example, rallying his supporters with a speech at Georgetown University in November 2015, offered a surprising definition of socialism, which consisted of a paean to FDR and the social protections ushered in by the New Deal. “Almost everything he proposed, almost every program, every idea, was called socialist,” Sanders said—as if the right-wing name-calling was the rightful definition.

Somewhere the ghost of FDR burst out laughing, while the ghost of one of Sanders’s other heroes, Eugene V. Debs, scratched his head.

In a piece about that speech for The New Yorker, Jedediah Purdy remarked smartly on how Sanders, while waving the socialist banner and proclaiming a political revolution, consistently and conveniently “defined his position from the right flank of history.” That the economic royalists of the 1930s and their defenders called FDR a socialist evidently made it so. Never mind that the socialist leader Norman Thomas, when asked whether Roosevelt had carried out the Socialist Party platform, famously quipped that he had not, “unless he carried it out on a stretcher.”

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/48/fighting-words/



https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/48/fighting-words/

[snowybirdie]

7. First of all

We need someone to fix what tRump has damaged. Not just another fight with repubs.

[Blue_true]

25. Unfortunately, just when things get fixed and we need to

elect a democrat to continue to progress, the Naders, Sarandons, Steins, Moores come out of the woodwork to insure that we get set back.

It is sort of like feeding a starving person a full course meal, only to get criticized because it didn't include caviar.

[brutus smith]

48. But that's what a few posters did earlier. They nitpicked FDR's accomplishment s

[Blue_true]

69. I have criticized FDR myself. There were numerous cases where

he could have taken bold, society changing actions and he shied away from them. Truman and LBJ were much better at doing needed, but unpopular with some people, reform. I am not trying to diminish FDR's accomplishments with the criticism, I am just pointing out that he was not a person that took bold action when the times were too difficult for them, whereas Truman and Johnson, who today's progressive view as less liberal, took bold actions in the face of real opposition, but they took the actions anyway because the initiatives were achievable and would have a large positive impact on the whole of society.

[brutus smith]

75. You could say Obama and Biden shied away from them also.

Which Dem President didn't? Obama and Biden should have acted more boldly when we had a super majority.

[Blue_true]

78. They had a super-majority for about 9 months.

A couple of democratic Senators, the ones from Nebraska and North Dakota was weak on bold action, so in effect, President Obama never had remotely close to the super majority that FDR had (something like 70 Senators), so what President Obama could propose and get done had linits. But as things were, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senate President Reid brought forth and got passed historic, never before done under any era legislation.

[blm]

84. They had a super majority for 24 days.

[Blue_true]

86. Kennedy was replaced by a democrat, so they had 60 until Scott Brown won in Massachusetts.

But FDR had a robust super majority for several years.

[blm]

88. Franken wasn't seated till July. And Byrd was out and then

passed away.

If you don’t count days when Congress is not in session, there were only 24 days.

[Blue_true]

100. Ok. I get it. I forgot about the protracted situation in the Minnesota US Senate

race. 24 days is no time at all to form policy. Thanks for filling in my ignorance, maybe you, in the future, should respond to the people that claim that President Obama had a supermajority long enough to push through legistlation and chose not to.

[blm]

103. I do, when I see it.

👍🏼

[DURHAM D]

9. That means they would need to serve 4 terms in the office.

Also, they would need an Eleanor to show them the right thing to do.

[beastie boy]

15. Spot on!

Very few people give due (or any) credit to Eleanor when they talk about FDR.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. FDR won in a landslide

Losing in a landslide won't get us anywhere.

[Hoyt]

29. That's it. Agree completely.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

128. Why Joe's not the answer. Only the Bernie & Elizabeth team guarantees victory over the Pee-resident!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[The Valley Below]

12. FDR was an internationalist, pro-capitalist, pro-trade, anti-populist.

We do need someone like that.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread brutus smith.

[brutus smith]

49. +1000

[Locrian]

17. agreed

BTW the conservatives and establishment HATED him.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

Roosevelt's election was upsetting for many conservative businessmen of the time, as his "campaign promise that the government would provide jobs for all the unemployed had the perverse effect of creating a new wave of unemployment by businessmen frightened by fears of socialism and reckless government spending."[9] Some writers have said concerns over the gold standard were also involved; Jules Archer, in The Plot to Seize the White House, wrote that with the end of the gold standard, "conservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor."[10]

[Progressive dog]

18. Trump is already giving us more bold and sweeping

change than the Constitution allows. FDR had super majorities and we still didn't get medicare for all, we didn't even get medicare. Bernie's progressive caucus has one Senate member and approximately 1/3 of house Democrats.

[beastie boy]

19. To get an FDR type change, you need an FDR type Congress. Do you think Elizabeth or Bernie can

come anywhere close running on their respective platforms?

[Thekaspervote]

20. No!

[TexasTowelie]

23. .

[Hortensis]

24. Brutus, the choice is DEMOCRACY or RW AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT.

Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2020, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Saving our democracy, as FDR and his broad coalition of voters did, is our first priority. Everything else depends on that.

FDR was a mainstream liberal Democrat ideologically, he and his voters were the mainstream "establishment." With the exception of Southern Democrats who moved to the Republican Party since, FDR Democrats then were exactly like those who are unifying in today's Democratic Party for this great battle to fight extremism and save our nation.

And together they all defeated the populists and extremist movements of those days, the RW fascists AND the LW socialists, and created the New Deal. The fascists AND socialists of those days despised the New Deal rescue and advances within what we'd always had, and they fought the New Deal with everything they had. And lost. Big.

Damned good thing too. You went to school. Liberal democracy committed to individual freedoms, including capitalism, won in our nation and those of our allies. After that, the surviving western liberal democracies became The Allies and fought great wars against those nations who had fallen to the socialist and fascist revolutions that destroyed them. Remember?

And here we are once again, and once again uniting to protect what we have and value and are in grave danger of losing. But not to Sanders, to RW authoritarian government.

[brutus smith]

52. Sleeping with the enemy (repubs) gets us nowhere.

[Hortensis]

62. Huh? The Repubs and the rise of RW fascism have become

the enemy we must defeat. Biden calls for us to unite to save our nation every day. The soul of our nation and that this election we must choose who we will be is the central theme of his candidacy.

If you don't know that about him, you also don't know why Joe Biden chose to run, right? He was CALLED to duty by the confluence of the enormous threat of a RW fascistic takeover, lead by the Republican Party as we watch, and his singular popularity across the nation. He beat all other candidates by dozens of points before he said a word about running or decided. And because we MUST beat Trump and the Republican Party, he stepped up.

You don't have to want Biden, but you should respect a man who would heroically sign up at his age for years of grimly constant and inescapable work. Inescapable for a responsible Democrat taking on the presidency at any time, but never more than now.

You should also realize what Biden's desire in 2015 to have a dynamic iconoclast like Elizabeth Warren for his VP workmate reveals about his goals for a presidency. You don't team with a Warren to run in place. The current mess creates great opportunities for needed repairs to take the form of advances. As the mess in the 1930s did. Warren and Klobuchar are both naturals to be a 21st century Frances Perkins to Biden's FDR.

[NurseJackie]

81. Nobody is doing that. Nobody would do that.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

26. THIS IS NOT EVEN DEBATABLE!! We need BOTH Bernie AND Elizabeth!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[myohmy2]

32. I'm with ya...

...

[Scurrilous]

35. Change needs 60 votes in the Senate. Capable that.

[ehrnst]

38. If one pays attention to how laws are made, anyway. (nt)

[Skidmore]

50. Indeed.

Wanting and getting are two quite different things.

[brutus smith]

121. I thought Joe could bring people together? Your telling me he can't bring enough repubs over?

[Scurrilous]

122. Joe isn't promising to pass all the stuff Bernie is.

Bernie wants Medicare for All which has to be voted on, Biden says strengthen the Affordable Care Act which has already passed.

Bernie says he'll pass an ambitious Green New Deal. Biden:

"Biden’s climate plan includes executive orders to help curb emissions from oil and gas extraction and increase the energy efficiency of vehicles and buildings, among other goals. Biden, who has led Democratic primary polls since he entered the campaign, also vows to “demand” that Congress act on climate change during his first year in office and to “hold them accountable” if a bill doesn’t pass."

https://apnews.com/9adf7f55aca24321b836aff887ba5cbc

He doesn't promise it will pass. Even says what he'll do if it doesn't .And so on.


https://ballotpedia.org/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign,_2020

[ehrnst]

37. "thinks they need repub approval for things" You mean like....

Bernie Sanders: I see areas where I can work with Trump

“I don’t think it makes sense to say, ‘No, we’re not gonna work in any way in any form with the Trump administration,’” Sanders told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Trump has talked appropriately about a collapsing infrastructure: our roads, bridges and water systems. If he is prepared to work with us on rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure and creating millions of jobs and doing it in a way that doesn’t privatize our infrastructure or give tax breaks to billionaires, yes, let’s work together.”

Bernie Sanders Thinks He Can Win Over Trump Supporters in 2020

Sanders has given similar remarks about Trump supporters in the past. Last year, the senator blamed the democrats for letting Trump win the presidency by not talking about how citizens are losing jobs to Mexico and China, and instead doubling down on calling most the voters racists and sexists. He criticized Hillary Clinton for labeling voters as “deplorables” during her campaign.

“We have got to reach out to those people and we have to stand with them for decent jobs, decent health care, decent education and I think we can win many of them over,” Sanders concluded at Town Hall.

Bernie Sanders Urges Democrats to Reach Out to Trump Supporters

Laura Ingraham Praises Bernie Sanders Speech in "Enemy Territory" at Liberty University

Bernie Sanders: Trump is on the right track with North Korea

Q&A: Bernie Sanders says Trump will be hard to beat, but he knows how to do it

So what we are going to need is leadership in this country that brings people together around the issues that are of concern to all of us. So if you’re a conservative Republican, you want healthcare, if you are a conservative Republican, you want to be able to send your kid to college.
..........................................................................
So to answer your question, I don’t believe that the [way to win] this election is to just speak to Republican women in the suburbs. That’s one theory. And I think many of those women will vote for me because they are appalled, correctly so, about Trump’s personal behavior and his temperament. I think we can win many of them.

[myohmy2]

41. but...

"We need bold, sweeping change"

...is Liz sweeping boldly enough?

...I don't think so...

[ehrnst]

42. ....but....whataboutism....

...doesn't Senator Sanders deserve more from his supporters than that response to his record?....



...but continued. repeated evasion of the facts is certainly easier than actually addressing evidence that one's candidate isn't doing what one is demanding of others...

...isn't it?...

... ...

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[myohmy2]

146. why...

...are we talking about Bernie's record?

...a long whataboutism way to go to call the kettle black...

[ehrnst]

149. ....are you embarassed talking about Bernie's record?....

...well, then....

...

[ehrnst]

145. ...yes, she should smile more while she sweeps...

...and if she was a 'true progressive' she would have simply never run, and played cheerleader for Senator Sanders...

...so I hear...

...from people who supported her tooth and nail until the moment that she endorsed HRC...

...

[myohmy2]

147. I agree...

...I like Liz too...

...but she ain't no Bernie...

[ehrnst]

148. ...Bernie ain't no Liz...

...she has the confidence of her peers...

...and she's a Democrat...

....

[ehrnst]

150. ....didn't think you'd have anything to say...

[myohmy2]

155. what?

...that she's a Democrat?

...not always...

...Bernie votes like a Democrat, caucuses like a Democrat, candidates like a Democrat, will President like a Democrat, so what's does that make Bernie?

..a Republican?...

[ehrnst]

156. ..."Sanders: I don't consider myself a Democrat"....

...are you saying that Bernie doesn't know what he is or isn't?...or isn't being honest about it?....

"No, I'm an Independent," Sanders said when asked by MSNBC's Chris Hayes whether he now identifies as a Democrat.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/329418-sanders-i-do-not-consider-myself-a-democrat

...You didn't respond to my evidence that "Bernie ain't no Liz" in that Warren has the deep respect of her peers, and influence far beyond career politicians who have been on the Hill for decades....

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/is-elizabeth-warren-an-effective-senator/449349/

...that would indicate that she's far, far more capable of actually getting progressive ideas into reality than any of those other career politicians who haven't got much to show for their decades on the Hill.

....Is that clearer?...

...really....

...why do you dislike politicians who are good at getting things done?...

...

[myohmy2]

157. so...

Bernie,

" If the Democratic Party is going to succeed — and I want to see it succeed — it's gonna have to open its door to independents," he continued. "There are probably more independents in this country than Democrats or Republicans. It's got to open its doors to working people and to young people, create a grassroots party. That's what we need."

...I think your path is clear...

...get a petition going to boot Bernie out of the Party...petition the Party to have 'Democrat' removed from his name on all ballots...have the DNC put out statements disavowing Bernie and everything he says or stands for...do what it takes (I'm no lawyer) to legally distance the Party from Bernie in all respects...

...you shouldn't whine about it...

...division serves no one but trump and maybe few others...

[ehrnst]

158. ...going to just evade Bernie saying himself: "I don't consider myself a Democrat....

...no real defending your position about him against his own words....

....you shouldn't whine when someone points it out...

...or perhaps you don't think Bernie is being honest when he says that?...



...and you certainly don't shun "division" when it comes to candidates who identify as Democrats...

...one shouldn't whine about divisiion when one stokes it so happily...



...you should be grateful to the DNC for welcoming Bernie with open arms to run on our ticket, even when he clearly states "I don't consider myself a Democrat" and that he runs on the Democrat ticket, not because he wants to be a Democrat, because of media coverage and funding not available to an Independent....

...you should start a petition thanking the DNC for their generosity....

....

[Recursion]

40. Why? FDR faced 25% unemployment, a falling GDP, and 33% poverty

We just aren't in that kind of existential crisis right now. This is the best economy of my lifetime, and I remember the 1990s.

In 2016, we idiotically rolled over and agreed with Trump that the nation was facing a dire catastrophe. He's not going to do that for us, and we aren't going to win a "tear the system down" election with 3.8% unemployment and the highest household incomes in history.

[treestar]

43. Well you do, unless they are a minority

in both Houses. A super minority in the Senate is required. No POTUS is "capable" without that. If we had that, Biden or Buttigieg or Klobuchar would sign the same bills Sanders or Warren would.

[MineralMan]

47. Nobody on DU Even Remembers FDR.

Not one person. He is lionized for some of the things he did that benefited people. Some of his other actions are either forgotten or go unmentioned.

I'm not going to list any of those. They're all laid out just fine in historical places. If you're interested in a briefish summary of his time in office, you can read this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

We do not need another FDR. He was a man of his time - a time none of us lived in.

We need a different President than FDR was - a President for these times. We should not be looking back, but forward.

[Prosper]

54. Since nobody remembers, lucky we have professional opinions.

“ Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George Washington are most often listed as the three highest-rated presidents among historians.“

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

[MineralMan]

55. Hmm...whatever you say.

Legends and truncated historical information. Read the Wikipedia article. All of it.

[Prosper]

59. It doesn't change the premise.

[Prosper]

63. Read it all and it doesn't change FDR's position.

It does give rise to creating illogical arguments judging the whole by evaluating certain parts. So much of what FDR has done was basic human rights and that is why they have withstood attacks over 80 years. He has the most programs stil in existence than any other president since his presidency. Plus most everybody eventually benefitted from FDR. Contrast to Repub fav Reagan and Republican cost cutting agenda.

[MineralMan]

64. Human rights for Japanese-American citizens?

I'm not feeling it.

[Prosper]

65. I agree that his programs can be examined but his accomplishments

can’t be judged by them. None of his programs were instituted without the pressure of radical opposition. Whether outright or perceived. Consequently it is not fair to perceive them as unadulterated and judge them so. A lot of his programs or derivations of them exist and are still being attacked to this day. I analogize that to a very high ranking untouchable human rights activist that ended up nailed to a cross.

[rwsanders]

83. Interesting that it is primarily the Biden supporters that want to pick apart FDR.

Makes one wonder what type of future they really envision.
But "shut up and vote the way we say" doesn't really appeal to me.

[brutus smith]

92. Me either.

[LongtimeAZDem]

56. +∞

[MineralMan]

57. I had a friend in college. She was of Japanese ancestry.

She was born in the Manzanar camp. After the war, her father committed suicide because everything he had built up was gone - stolen from him while he was incarcerated at Manznar. He was a native born US Citizen, and they took him and his family to Manzanar and others stole everything he had.

It was difficult for my friend to even speak of it. She was born in 1944. In Manzanar. She was also a native-born US citizen - born in a concentration camp in the California desert.

That was also something FDR did.

[LongtimeAZDem]

58. Yep; people who invoke historical figures usually focus only on the superficial facts that bolster

their particular argument, without regard to the actual conditions surrounding those facts.

[beachbumbob]

51. always makes me chuckle

americas never has been a left-center country

and never will.

[scheming daemons]

53. False... *FIRST* we need to put out the fire

The house is on fire. Bernie and Liz supporters are talking about how they'd remodel the kitchen.


Removing Donald Trump is literally *ALL* that matters for 2020. We have to save the house from burning down first.


After we have undone the damage the Trump and Trumpism is doing.... only *THEN* can we talk about "sweeping change".


If Bernie or Liz are the nominee, then Trump's chances of winning are greater.... which means not only do we not get the kitchen remodel, we lose the entire house.

[UniteFightBack]

74. +1000 "The house is on fire and Bernie and Liz want to talk about remodeling the kitchen".

It's scary how many people don't get this very simple fact.

[blm]

85. Not so. Warren will go after the corruption, global and domestic.

And she knows exactly where to find it.

[empedocles]

61. FDR ran for President the first time as a moderate.

[In 1940 he ran as an isolationist, despite raging Hitler and Japan]

FDR was a 'pragmatist' - and an all time winner!

[booley]

67. We need a fighter

Biden totally lost me when he floated the idea he might only serve one term.

That tells me he isnt' really fighting for anything beyond being President after trump. And after Biden we would be right back but with a smarter trump part two

[LanternWaste]

72. You conflate the words 'floated' and 'inferred.' Again.

I get it... 'inferred', despite its accuracy, doesn't really assist these data-free, faith-based narratives that fit on bumper-stickers.

[Hortensis]

70. Sanders is today's version of those who opposed the New Deal,

and the large majority of American voters supported it, as corrupt betrayers of "the people."

They wanted socialist revolution and loathed the New Deal, which they insisted protected wealthy capitalists and sold out, again, "the people."

Sound familiar? It should.

Their counterparts today also have no achievements of their own to point to, only massive failures in other nations, so they claim the progressive mainstream's New Deal as theirs in the exact same way trumpsters dishonestly dress themselves in Abraham Lincoln's glory, but not his ideals.

And for the exact same reason.

[The Valley Below]

73. Precisely right.

Nice to see a student of history who knows what really happened during the New Deal.

[brutus smith]

77. FDR had enemies from both sides. Oh yeah, just like Bernie.

"Before his first term expired, Roosevelt signed legislation aimed at fixing banks and the stock market. He approved plans to aid the unemployed and the nations farmers. He began housing initiatives and ventures into public-owned electric power. New Deal programs aided industrialists and laborers alike. His friends and enemies grew with every act he signed into law."
https://www.ushistory.org/Us/49.asp

[Hortensis]

82. Yes. History continues and is so clarifying.

It's not all in the past and gone.

Speaking of friends and "us," only some AA were Democrats in the beginning, but by the end of FDR's presidencies they had become a strong Democratic power group whose support was critical to making the New Deal happen.

And the same then for conservative Southern Democrats, who were often very strongly opposed to anything mainstream Democrats did and most passionately opposed to empowering minority Americans. They've since gone to the Republican Party, but back then they were a hard-core RW faction yet most were also committed to progressive New Deal advances, for people like them.

Given the intense opposition from Republicans, enraged LW socialist/communists, RW fascists, and so on, the New Deal couldn't have happened without either group in the Democratic coalition.

And we think Pelosi and company are herding cats these days. Some idealists with sorta-socialist dreams are nothing in comparison.

It's the LW populists, of course. Peaceful advances, especially great ones, by mainstream Americans aren't their bag. If they were all to leave to join their RW counterparts and other RWers, more than the minority who helped elect Trump in 2016, that could be serious trouble. Russia's in it now and still, working for just that, but that's not entirely new, just much more powerful and sophisticated than then. But our majority prevailed, not theirs. We'll do it again.

History, as we live its continuum.

[ehrnst]

89. Bernie is no FDR. Nor is he a JFK.

Both JFK and FDR were Democrats, to start with.

Also, JFK and FDR were the choice of the majority of Democrats for the nomination for the Democratic POTUS candidate.

[LanternWaste]

71. I think all of our Democratic candidates are quite capable.

We have a great line-up this go-around, and none of the Democratic candidates are pretending to know what the others think.

[Gothmog]

79. I strongly disagree with this claim

We need to defeat trump and if we nominate a far left candidate, trump will win

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[brutus smith]

93. So now you're comparing Bernie to George McGovern?

[Gothmog]

95. This is a very valid comparison

[BannonsLiver]

87. ...

[peggysue2]

96. Getting rid of Trump and his minions will be a bold, sweeping change

We need to do that first or nothing else is possible. Hello?

[Hoyt]

101. If they lose, another 4 years before any attempt at change. And, they will lose.

[Kurt V.]

102. absolutely. time for incremental change is literally up.

[Recursion]

125. Why?

People keep saying this. Why?

[Kurt V.]

140. bc incremental change is linear. climate change is exponential

[Recursion]

141. But raising living standards is bad from a climate perspective

If you want the middle class to be more affluent, that means the middle class will emit a lot more carbon

[Kurt V.]

142. That's under the current system. That's why the new green deal addresses this specifically

[redstateblues]

109. No politician is perfect-not even Bernie, as many of his supporters claim

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

130. True, but Bernie's about as perfect a candidate as there is, with his bold progressive agenda

that speaks the word of truth to corporate power and lights the way forward for his fellow Democrats to follow.

Perfect, no, but Bernie's damn close to it... in the FDR mold. With Elizabeth on the team, we are GUARAN-DAMN-TEED victory... with Joe's far-from-perfect moderate incrementalist approach, that doesn't excite the base, or begin to attract new Democratic voters, we lose, perhaps in an Electoral College landslide.


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[NYMinute]

133. He just apologized for lying about calling Biden corrupt

and he is being excoriated by real Democrats

His campaign is led by Jill Stein supporters.

Bernie is no FDR.

[brutus smith]

137. What has Joe apologized for?

[NYMinute]

139. Read the news

[redstateblues]

135. Delusional

[redstateblues]

136. Bernie did literally nothing while in Congress

[brutus smith]

138. Really? And your proof of this?

Bernie is known as the amendment king.

[redstateblues]

144. Oops- I forgot. He had a post office named

What bills did he sponsor?

[NYMinute]

134. ...

We need bold, sweeping change, an FDR type change. Elizabeth or Bernie are the only ones capable.

What we want and what we can get are two different things. Smart politicians like Clinton and Obama (both of FDR caliber) know this and do what is attainable.

We all want to be 21 years old, our ideal weight, tall and sexy, own a mansion, have a hot spouse and have a dream job. We all want to travel the world in first class with personally escorted tours. We all want to be debt free.

Wanting is okay, but thinking that someone can actually deliver it, is quite another and not realistic at all.

Bernie is no FDR. Nor is Sen. Warren although she is far far better than Bernie. Neither can deliver diddly except incremental change.

[brutus smith]

143. So according to you we shouldn't aim high?

So aim low and hope for the best huh?

[Wawannabe]

153. ...

I do not agree! At all!