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.
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That’s one part of it. This is a good read: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
The worst part about all of this is, imo, we’ve known what the problems are for so long now, but nothing is getting fixed and the rot is apparent. I grew up in America, but seeing what it is becoming from the outside is heartbreaking.
Factionalization and internal party consensus would be a precursor as well.
Yeah repeal CU
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.
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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.
And it is on the voters.
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.
attorneys representing the DNC claim that the Democratic National Committee would be well within their rights to “go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way." https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
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.
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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.
1992 Ross Perot.
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)
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.
Presidential primaries did not exist until the 20th century, and they did not have a major impact on conventions until many years later. In 1960, John F. Kennedy won several Democratic primaries, but Lyndon Baines Johnson remained the favorite of the party establishment.
At any rate it was the Convention that selected candidate until…
After the controversial 1968 presidential cycle, the Democrats began to reform their nomination process to make it more inclusive and transparent, and to make its results more representative of the will of the party as a whole, not just the party bosses and insiders.
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
It’s that simple. DNC should be having debates and put forward the best candidate.
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.
Biden is the only choice.
No, he’s not. The party can put someone else up to run against Trump.
As of now- he’s the only choice. Get him elected and work to fix it over the next four years, or never have the chance again.
Thats your choice.
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.
You will be blamed when Trump wins. Just like how the Bernie bros were blamed when Trump won in 2016. The numbers don’t lie.
If you’re willing to sacrifice what’s left of our democracy to allow history to repeat itself, just be willing to shoulder the responsibility. Because you WILL be blamed.
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.
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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.
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.
Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think.
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.
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the dnc
In fairness to the Senator, Trump also loudly and proudly says this all the time.
If all it ever took was one bad president then democracy has already ended and it was always just a matter of time.
This reminds of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when it describes a planet ruled by reptiles:
[It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…" “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.]
👆 This Douglas Adams bit is the exact situation we find ourselves in now.
One big lesson from Trump’s presidency was that many of the rules we thought constrained politicians were only “Gentlemen’s Agreements.” They held up because everyone agreed to abide by them. When Trump walked in, refused to abide by them, and wasn’t immediately struck by the political equivalent to lightning from heaven, all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
And Democrats chose to remain straitjacketed by devotion to decorum.
It’s a really convenient excuse to not fucking do anything.
Wait… we could have been voting for lizards?
There have been a few dogs elected to Mayor
And at least three alcoholic goats, one after the other, in the same town.
It’s just a matter of time til we all die, too, but that doesn’t mean we need to kill ourselves now.
SCP-682’s home planet. It all makes sense now! Douglas Adams canon when, writers?
Lmao the Guardian source article made me double take on the first paragraph:
That big B looks as if it doesn’t just apply to the first line.
Bernie Sanders sweeps into his state office in Burlington, Vermont, Bitching to get on with our interview. When I try to break the ice by Basking the US senator how he is, he replies gruffly, “Good,”
🅱️motion
Bernie Sanders sweeps into his state office in Burlington, Vermont, Bitching to get on with our interview. When I try to break the ice by Basking the US senator how he is, he replies gruffly, “Good,”
Such a Bernie response. I love him.
🅱️itching to get on with the interview,
He’s right. Of course, this won’t stop “BOTH SIDES” fans, who want fascism in America more than anything else in the world.
They are moving away from “Both Sides” and starting “Biden supports genocide.” It’s just a new way for below average people to think they’re smarter than everyone else.
Biden does support Genocide, in this particular instance. Giving him hell for it and trying to do what people can in order to save all the innocent people getting bombed and shot right now, is fine.
Trump is still infinitely worse. If you think 20,000 dead Gazans is bad, wait until you see what Trump wants to do. Last time around, he fucked up the response to a global crisis that’s currently killed over a million Americans, and that was without even trying; and without any of the vengeful things he’s itching to do this time around if he gets in.
The salient point here that so many people are missing is that allowing Trump to be elected because of some misguided ideological purity will absolutely do nothing to protect or liberate the Palestinian people, so why even pretend to care about that, if you aren’t a right wing troll? Allowing far right demagogues to usurp control of western nations will, in fact, cause untold suffering of billions. Palestinians included.
If you are an actual leftist, then it is your duty to consider this moral liability, and soak in the discomfort of the situation with the rest of us. Ideological purity does not cleanse you from this, not matter how much you wish that.
People for whom support for genocide is a dealbreaker exist whether you understand them or not.
If Biden wants their votes, he cannot continue to support genocide.
No amount of insults or accusations will change that.
Those people are going to share some responsibility for the much worse genocide that Trump ushers in, then. They can claim it’s not their fault if that happens, but they’ll be lying.
Preemptively blaming them for the loss that centrist Democrats would prefer to having to abandon support for genocide hasn’t changed the situation:
If Biden wants the votes of people for whom genocide is a dealbreaker, he cannot continue supporting genocide.
Good luck in the hellscape that’s coming, then. You’ll have the comfort of your explanation for why it’s not your fault.
No we won’t. We didn’t want Biden in the first place. The blame lies with every piece of shit who voted for him in the 2020 primaries.
Whoa people are mad that their president is funding a genocide?? :0
Smh they should just stfu and vote. Who cares about foreigners dying
Trump didn’t care about US citizens dying, or did he apologize for fucking up his covid response yet?
Lmao did you think I was suggesting he’s somehow better?
I just find it funny that Americans pretend like their bourgeois “democracy” isn’t just a poorly veiled oligarchy where you get to “choose” between the genocidal zionazi party and the fascist party.
Neither of whom give a fuck about the working class, though one is a bit better at pretending like they do.
How is what Americans pretend to do relevant here?
Lmao, did you think I am American?
How is what Americans pretend to do relevant here?
Ah sorry, were we talking about African elections?
did you think I am American?
When did I say you were?
Oh so you just went on some rant about Americans as a reply to me even though it’s not relevant at all, gotcha
One side is clearly better unless you do false equivalence, look at the mortality rate of mothers in states with abortion bans and without etc.
I know this is not as edgy of a take as your both sides cuntery but there is clearly a better and worse choice for the US regardless what kind of zionazi epic words you want to use from your basement setup.
It’s not like Americans don’t know their system is broken, but it’s not like they can fix it one day to the next, they have an election coming up where they have to choose between a shit candidate and a straight up fascist who tried to overthrow their election
Yeah I do agree people should probably still vote for the genocide party, as long as they’re organizing outside the system and building class consciousness to eventually overthrow it.
Just that they shouldn’t pretend like they’re not voting for a genocidal zionazi.
what kind of zionazi epic words
Are “genocide” and “nazi” also “epic words”? It conveys the fact that Biden is a zionist and a nazi quite well, no? Specially when I’ve linked him admitting he is one.
He’s backing Israel because it’s what they’ve always done. It’s a strategic alliance. It’s Nathan yahoo dropping bombs on cities
If he is even allowed to run it means The Constitution is just optional.
Bernie for pres.
Except he’s not running, and is too old to run again. So do the next best thing and listen to what he’s fucking saying. This is not a joke.
So have him arrested as an enemy of the state, like a fat dumb unathletic Will Smith.
Cut a liberal…
Who is gonna do the arresting?
100% correct.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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.
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.
He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in the speech that took place near Valley Forge and on the day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.
Biden also said that Trump’s false claims about “the 2020 election never could stand up in court.”
The original article contains 319 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 48%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
America isn’t even the most democratic democracy in the world tho.
America isn’t even the most democratic country in the Americas, but that’s clearly not the point they’re making.
If the title was “…end of world democracy” you’d have a point but given how much fascistic rhetoric and policy has increased around the world since trunpism it’s fair to say many countries are following the US lead here.
How is this a counter to what he said? The second-most democratic country in the world isn’t the most democratic either, it’d still be a bad thing for it to lose its democracy
Bernie you’re all mittens now
Actually preventing votes from being counted is the end of democracy.
I suggest you look into FL 2000 then. Votes were prevented from being counted.
Ohio 2004, votes counted illegally in Warren County in secret using fake Homeland Security edict. https://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/none-dare-call-it-stolen/
The requirements to run for president are pretty clearly laid out in the constitution, you must be 35, born in the US, and have not participated in an insurrection against the United States
If someone throws away their vote on someone who is ineligible, that’s their choice
