Dear [PERSON READING THIS],
Tough times.
The American people understand that our economic and political systems are rigged. They know that the very rich get much richer while almost everyone else becomes poorer. They know that we are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society.
The Democrats ran a campaign protecting the status quo and tinkering around the edges. Trump and the Republicans campaigned on change and on smashing the existing order.
Not surprisingly, the Republicans won. Unfortunately, the “change” that Republicans will bring about will make a bad situation worse, and a society of gross inequality even more unequal, more unjust and more bigoted.
Will the Democratic leadership learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life? Highly unlikely.
They are much too wedded to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their campaigns.
Given that reality, where do we go from here? That is the very serious question that needs a lot of discussion in the coming weeks and months.
How do we expand our efforts to build a multi-racial, multi-generational working class movement?
How do we create a 50 state movement, not politics based on the electoral college and “battleground” states?
How do we deal with Citizens United and the ability of billionaires to buy elections?
How do we recruit more working class candidates for office at all levels of government?
Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties?
How do we better support union organizing?
How do we put together listening sessions around the country that intentionally seek input from people who did not vote for Democrats in the last election?
How do we best use social media to build our movement and combat the lies and disinformation coming from the billionaire class and right wing media?
How do we build sustainable and long-term issue-based organizing structures that live beyond individual campaigns?
These are some of the political questions that, together, we need to address. And it is absolutely critical that you make your voice heard during this process.
Not me. Us. That is the only way forward.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
What do we think? Considering all of the selling out he did from 2016 onward, only for none of it to be successful, I think there’s actually a possibility that he recognizes that his “legacy” is in danger. I’m actually so interested in hearing what the Hexbear community has to say about this that I’m legitimately excited to post it lmao
about 10 years too late. go to bed grandpa
I agree but that’s neither here nor there
Here and there we can continue to build solidarity. Reaching here… and supporting local guerrilla efforts from this episode… BTB episode on local, effective militia for Disparate groups to achieve a goal
Trusting Robert “Federal” Evans to give you advice on this topic?
I think the episode had an interesting/useful take on this. I still have a lot of deprogramming work to do… How bad is Robert from behind the bastards?
He works with Bellingcat, which is essentially a CIA op, and has bragged about working with the FBI before (supposedly that was to identify domestic terrorists aka fascists). He also has terrible takes on every AES state, Ukraine, and mostly follows the US state department line despite calling himself an anarchist.
Doing ad reads for BetterHelp was scummy too, that company is awful from what I’ve heard. Just the amount of alone was enough to get me to stop listening to his show, tbh.
Thanks for the explanation. I’ll give it some more thought and reading.
For BtB, I benefitted from learning about shitty people in history but I am realizing there was not a single episode I remember that provided nothing but futile sentiments like ‘Start a revolution…Or be Contrarian…Or whatever’ to thinking ‘why aren’t we discussing the root problem’.
The root problem seems to be unequivocally capitalism and colonialism/imperialism. Addressing the root problem presents opportunity for material gain. I haven’t read sufficiently on AES or ECOWAS to form an understanding there, but I see sufficient reason to drop that podcast and enjoy my efforts from better content.
His style of writing and comedy is effective and fun but I’ll look for better entertainment sources.
To my original intention for commenting, there’s a lot of work to do and I think leveraging strengths of disparate groups is worth a think… Rather than having a full accord, with everyone, to make material gains.
that’s the entire point: grandpa sold out to status quo joe’s ilk because he was the pragmatic choice, like clinton was, and now we’re worse off than before; he should go to bed before he continues gives the democrats an air of progressiveness to help them cover for their diet-republican trajectory.
disgraceful coward still can’t call it a genocide
Truly very sad and one of the biggest reasons I think he’s not actually starting a new party
If the last five years have shown anything, it’s that Bernie Sanders is a true believer in the Democratic Party brand, he’s categorically not a radical or someone who’s comfortable rocking the boat and you have to be both of those things if you want to get serious about third parties. He has his little niche inside the party and he’s happy with it, well he was until the party and his “friend” Genocide Joe started to fall apart
Either way he’s extremely comfortable in DC and no amount of temper tantrum press releases is gonna get people to think he’s the real deal again, he blew his shot, and he squandered the attention the American people gave him, he made his bed long ago
I understand what you’re saying, but it just isn’t the same shit he said after the other elections, and it isn’t particularly close either. He’s burned a lot of bridges with the left but I think he probably recognizes that at this point. What im wondering is if he now realizes that the change he was trying to produce from within the Democratic Party has not only not happened, but moved further from reality as the democrats continue to punch left and move right
fuck that and fuck him. he is a zionist and should burn with the rest of them
give me back the money you gave to joe fucking biden
Death to America
Also Joe Biden still owes us the stimulus money they lied about. Don’t worry we didn’t forget
to be completely fair, biden literally might have just forgotten
There are political parties currently in existence in the states other than D&R. If Bernie were considering building a movement quickly he’d probably be talking to or about one, rather than nebulously asking these questions.
While a politician speaking like Bernie used to be refreshing to me, his words now feel stale. He has been a statesman since before Christ, therefore I am unimpressed at broad and simple questions like:
How do we deal with citizens united?
Oh indeed, this is a question! I expect an idea. I expect a plan. I expect a lot i guess, but i don’t expect he’s serious. He’s just throwing shit at the wall.
Finally this guy here.
Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties?
Gigantic “duh” aside, while it’s a list of grievances, imma still invoke Betteridge’s law of headlines here. If he’s asking? Then he doesn’t know. If he doesn’t know? He aint leading shit.
I canvassed for him so the bitterness colors this final salt-stained opinion: if i was somehow convinced he wasn’t just taking up and dissipating all the leftist energy again? I no longer believe the man’s got what it takes.
Bernie is flattened and without sauce, into the dustbin of history with his good friend Joe
Bernie’s garbage time
Sanders exemplifies the term ‘social fascist’. I don’t trust him with power and I don’t trust his zionist allies. If he forms a party, it’s just the democrats.
I don’t trust him either and this isn’t an “I would support him or his party” post
How do we…[buncha good stuff]
Listen old man, if you don’t understand the answer is revolution after being in congress as long as you have, you have no answer.
If this rhetoric ends in him throwing his support behind PSL or even the Greens, then awesome.
His brother in the UK is already in the Green Party there (he left Labour a while back because they sucked, I think).
His support of Biden and Israel has destroyed most of the good will I had towards him. Maybe he sees his legacy and doesn’t want to die being a lackey of the Empire but IDK I could be giving him more credit than he deserves. I know a lot of us, myself included, wouldn’t be here without him.
This is exactly how I feel about it
I’ve been thinking there’s a serious split in the Democratic Party between Zionists and anti-genocide progressives. Those Senators that joined calls for an arms embargo and the House Reps that refused to watch Netanyahu speak could split and form a Party. It’d work!
I think that the issue of genocide in Palestine has become so culturally relevant that you are correct. It is a very clear dividing line between politically active people that isn’t bridged very often, if at all. Young, politically active people especially are pretty much in two entirely separate camps about it. If you are politically active enough to be an anti-Zionist, you likely don’t have any friends who are zionists (same is true on the inverse).
Am I correct in remembering an article that said Warnock and Ossof both voted to block sales? If I didn’t misread that headline, I found it sorta double take worthy because I assumed those guys were straight party operators.
For it to work it would need to peel off a non-trivial number of sitting legislators or governors. Then it would need to tactically contest specific districts. Something like what Bernie has already been doing in VT, or the DSA model of a party within a party.
Still, I think he missed his moment, which was in 2016. Even in 2020 he might have secured the nomination by responding to the Obama coalition calls with a threat to make a 3rd-party run. But at this point his momentum is all gone.
You’re right, they would basically be starting over their momentum from scratch.
The vast vast majority of anti-genocide progressives would, in this current moment, balk at splitting the Party. They believe “if you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu” and so it’s “better” to be part of a party with Zionists than to strike out on their own. They lack the political will or courage to even attempt such a thing. It’d require an entirely new mass movement of people in the streets, something on the scale of the Black Lives Matter uprisings, to make them feel confident enough in striking out on their own.
That probably won’t manifest until Trump does something the sparks it, and if no one is prepared to take advantage of the energy it’ll just fizzle out again.
i can’t comment much on the goal or whatever, but the whiplash many dems are experiencing–and the absolute failure of the party leadership to do anything but scold / have disingenuous takes about what it means–has left a vacuum for a lot of vaguely, passively center-left people emotionally invested in national politics who believed the dems were their best and only choice.
the productive takes i have heard bouncing around my own orgs/community are that “we must figure our own problems out, because no help is coming.” they are productive in the sense that it is a call to action in the here and now, not wasting effort on any of the symbolic BS around national protests or other dem pageantry. to identify material problems and work to do something about them.
washington is going to be a shitshow. same as it ever was, but the mask will be off and that’s going to traumatize people who still want to believe in at least some of our national institutions. this seems like an attempt to steer those people into some project. i assume what it does will be dictated by how many buy in and to what degree. i won’t pretend to have hope for it, but i’m not going to piss all over it just yet for not openly aligning itself to the immortal science of maoist third worldism. i’m saving my piss for the reactionaries and the revanchist crusaders.
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Agreed 100%
A lot of progressives would rally around Bernie and him joining a third party would mean he would have to cave in less with the Democrats. I wish this happened.
I think everybody who is going to see this post wishes that would happen lol
But genuinely a lot of progressives have been ready to abandon the democrats for a very, very long time. The political situation in Canada doesn’t seem far off from what a split in America might look like between liberals and their more progressive wing
Canada’s elections are different. For one, the ridings are based on population count. Secondly, while both suffer from first-past-the-post voting styles, America has more of a winner takes all kind of election system.
I just want a third party to balance out America’s gradual slide to the right thanks to the Republicans fanaticism and the Democrats trying to constantly appear moderate.
there are five left wing political parties
we should create a single unified left wing political party for everyone to rally around
there are six left wing political parties
edit: I’m pessimistic but anything is better than just continuing to do what he’s been doing for the past four years, so yeah I hope he does
