Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.
“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview.
The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.
“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”
Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.
Voters should have never been put in this position. If we have to depend on Joe Biden and Dems to clutch out the win and save Democracy then you might as well start bracing for the worst. “Not being Trump” is low bar a dangerous way to try to win.
He has done a pretty solid job, and has passed some good legislation. If it weren’t for this whole funding Israel’s horrific war crime thing, I’d have no qualms giving him more time to clean shit up.
deleted by creator
I think they’re talking about the election campaign, not necessarily the administration. Is Joe even running?
Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think. And it is on the voters. believe it or not it is actually the voters fault (the non voters fault) that it is this way. As It was also on the voters to do candidate nomination. So you can’t excuse your first neglect and then complain it’s ‘too much’ now when it is all the way at the the election phase and you just now woke up to complain you hate who was nominated for the election. So yeah it is on the voters. This part always is. It’s like a manager hiring a shit person because they didn’t bother to do a background check and then complaining ‘it’s too much responsibility’ when the shit hiree starts toxifying the work place. It’s not just a bad employee to make that situation. It’s bad manager. So voting public are just as much to blame for making this a shit show.
No, it’s on the party, and the candidate they select to run.
It’s that simple. DNC should be having debates and put forward the best candidate. DNC is completely corrupt and bought by the most fundraising.
A. Parties haven’t held effective primaries for an incumbent since I was born.
B. Political parties are private organizations. They are completely within their rights to go back into the smoke filled back rooms.
C. That would be political suicide and tells us exactly what the DNC thinks about us.
Right? I’m tired of being fucking surrounded by misinformation, even on lemmy.
Political parties don’t give up the incumbent advantage. This isn’t new.
deleted by creator
A. Primaries have existed since 1972. 1976 Ford primaried by Reagan. 1980 incumbent Carter challenged by Ted Kennedy. 1992 Ross Perot.
If B is true, they shouldn’t be able to use tax dollars and public employees for their primary elections. They should have to fund and administer their private org election themselves. In fact, in many states only the two parties even have access to primary ballots.
C. DNC could care less about winning. See also Bernie.
Ross Perot was a third party candidate, not a primary challenger to an incumbent. I take no issue with anything else in your comment.
Sorry. Buchanan primaried Bush Sr. (Incumbent)
That makes more sense. I’d forgotten about Buchanan entirely.
Ross Perot was an independent. That’s hardly a party primary. The others were before I was born. Also primaries have been a thing since the early 1900’s. They just didn’t have as much weight then as they do now.
I’m going to need an example state where minor parties can’t get on the ballot. At any rate afaik, they pay the state for the election. But it’s also in the state’s best interest to run it.
And they did win with Biden. I think it’s more fair to say they care more about their internal politics than winning.
At any rate it was the Convention that selected candidate until…
Which is what I said.
Ohio is one example that took away third party ballot access. The first hurdle would be getting 60,000 valid voter signatures in a limited time frame. Then you would need to get 120,000 General election votes for a Gov candidate. Arkansas etc are similar
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_political_parties_in_Ohio
Other examples can be found https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_political_parties_in_the_United_States
That’s not a ban. That’s third parties not having enough support.
Exactly. The Democratic establishment is trying to play things as if its just another regular election (by not maximizing their chances of winning with another candidate), and not a critical one, with the country in the balance, in hopes of gaining/maintaining power.
The fact that they are trying to guilt-shame everybody into voting for Biden is truly unethical/immoral/wrong. People died for our freedom to vote, its not something that should be manipulated so that a vote is forced a certain way.
*unethical/immoral
TY; corrected.
So what you’re saying is that more people need to be politically engaged and go vote. I agree. Biden is the only choice.
Need to stay politically engaged. Tired as we are, this is the only true path towards lightening the burden in the long run.
No, he’s not. The party can put someone else up to run against Trump.
deleted by creator
That’s just not true. It’s been obvious to everyone since DNC admitted rigging vote against Bernie. It’s not some conspiracy, it’s been admitted to by DNC lawyers, Whatshername-Shultz and Brazille in her many writings on the subject. No one accomplished “fix it” since 2016, that’s almost eight years. Bernie would have beaten Trump and we wouldn’t be in this timeline.
People running the DNC are the ones to blame when Trump wins. Not Trump, not voters, not unelectable Biden (or Harris who?). I hope the marches in mid Nov 2024 are to oust DNC staff and hold them accountable.
deleted by creator
Clinton loss wasn’t because of voters. It was DNC rigging the system to favor a loser candidate. That is what will happen this year. Trump probably is one of the secret largest supporter of DNC.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
It isn’t voter’s fault, once again the theme for Dems is “Hey I’m not that worse guy.” to be the selling point to save democracy. People saying democracy is at stake isn’t going to motivate everyone when it doesn’t even work properly in the country they live in. The only class of people who have access to democracy is the wealthy ruling class. When they collectively want something, they get it.
Well that’s the point of voting. Has nothing to do with money you have saved in the bank. Stop looking for reasons to be lazy and blame others for the outcome of it
I think I agree but I wouldn’t have put it quite so dramatically.
I despise Trump, his popularity is infuriating. That said I don’t necessarily think he’s any more corrupt than politicians generally, he he just doesn’t have any finesse. Like someone else might make fucking everyone over look better, if that makes sense.
Even before Trump I often thought that democracy isn’t really about elected representatives executing the will of the people, it’s more about elected representatives convincing the people that their preferred course of action is the correct one.
There are a lot of problems with democracy. I don’t think the vast majority of people are capable of making objective, informed decisions about the best course of action for running a country. Myself included.
I mean, it didn’t use to be this bad. The Dems have been moving steadily right since the 90s. Clinton cut welfare, pushed mass incarceration, and deregulated Wall Street (and by repealing Glass-Steagall he helped create the 2008 financial collapse). Obama, for all his left-wing taking points, created a unprecedented mass surveillance program, a robot assassination program that has no congressional oversight, and when he had a filibuster-proof super-majority, he chose to pass the Heritage Foundations healthcare plan.
The Dems have been terrified of seeming too leftwing since Regan curb-stomped then, and as a result they’ve essentially become a center-right party, and there basically is no left anymore. That’s not the voters fault; it’s the fault of leadership that still thinks its 1980 and won’t abdicate any amount of power.
deleted by creator
the dnc