Former Democratic nominee for US Senate in Missouri reflects on questions he encountered on the campaign trail, including "Why do people keep voting against their own self-interests?"
Bernie Sanders was right. Corporate Democrats and Republicans are not that different. Senator Sanders is a populist. Donald Trump ran as a populist. Bernie’s for real. Trump’s populism is a lie. Bernie Sanders was vilified by the corporate Democrats and openly attacked by MSNBC’ s Chuck Todd and Chris Matthew’s. Leaked documents from the DNC showed their plans to interfere negatively in Sanders’ campaign.
I have written and believe that the time is right to establish a new political party. If people were offered Bernie as a choice instead of Hillary Clinton he could have won. There are a number of young Democrats and independents who would love to get things accomplished. And that includes this gentleman from Missouri. Bernie is too old obviously to ever run for President again, but he would be invaluable in helping a new party to get going. We need you.
I like Bernie too. But I disagree with him ever winning, not only in this political climate but most certainly not with our current political set up. Super PACs, right wing propaganda and Democrat capitalists would have stomped him.
Before someone like Bernie would ever have a chance, i believe these issues need to be addressed, reverse or reformed: Citizens United , campaign finance reform, election reform, and resetablishing rules/laws regarding media outlets.
I think Bernie Sanders could have done well, but you are right about corporatists trying to destroy him. And we know why. A party platform could include pledging to get rid of the things you listed. I certainly could be wrong but doing nothing and simply letting the fascists have their way should be unthinkable. At any rate, they’ll be plenty of buyers’ remorse when “President” Musk takes over. Trump’s just a figurehead but a good salesman.
Bernie ran as a Democrat and so did Kucinich before him, while Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket. A new party will have the same dynamics. We've got to get the AOC's, Jayapal, and the progressives piled into congress to move the top of the ticket to the left. Biden and Warren were moved by this. We need legislation removing money from politics and a President who will let that legislation pass. Bottom up. Gingrich and McConnell have been working this way for decades.
There will be no place for some if the ancient people keep hanging on. There needs to be a MAXIMUM age for Congress, the President, and judges. There is a minimum age requirement. A maximum makes sense.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. The problem is not “my groceries got more expensive under a democratic president”; the problem is our educational system has been broken so badly, our nation’s citizens don’t know how to think. The problem is, millions of people aren’t smart or educated enough to know the president isn’t directly responsible for the price of durable goods or energy. You can argue, successfully, I think that Biden made mistakes and that he should have done more. But trump voters are NOT smart enough to understand that corporate greed and lower taxes on the wealthy spell disaster for the working class.
The right wing 1% bought up all of the major media in the country. The major networks (ABC/NBC/CBS) are all now flinging conservative misinformation as gospel. It’s like every news station is FOX. And the millions who listened and bought into the republican misinformation machine are mentally incapable of discerning lies when they hear them. They openly soak up the anti- immigrant hate and blame, in part, because it makes them feel better about their own failures.
Red states have horrible horrible metrics across the board. Republican administration results in lower happiness scores, higher mortality, more obesity, more use of the social safety net than they pay in, and lower rates of academic achievement. It’s been that way for decades. Decades. And yet red states keep voting in republicans. It’s not because democrats were in office briefly and things got worse; it’s that 50 years of mostly republican governance of their states has hurt their people. That’s something anyone can look up, and the refusal to believe this is a willful act based on the acceptance of republican propaganda.
Democrats are far, far from perfect. But the systemic problem is lack of education and intellect, and the acceptance of right wing misinformation as fact, not the failure of the democratic party to market itself correctly.
I was just going to post essentially the same thing: I just don't buy it. Yes, their PERCEPTION may be that they are worse off under Dems — but by any factual metric, that's just not true (and that's only speaking of economic matters. Civil rights, freedoms, etc. are also under less threat under Dems). But because the news stations they listen to are all slanted Right - including many local stations they casually tune into - and demonize people they are already wary of (at best), that's an easy answer that doesn't require them to think. At all.
That said, the Dems need to stop with the neoliberal nonsense and move further Left — and do so on the offense, not on their seeming perpetual state of defense that the Right puts them in once they start using boogeyman words like socialism and communism.
However, MAGAts have so destroyed trust in the freakin' TRUTH over the past decade - all due to the fragile ego of an ignorant bigot of a man-child - so now these already willfully misinformed Americans only seem to believe whatever soothes their soul or makes them less worried about things they don't understand (instead of trusting those who DO understand, i.e., public health officials, medical professionals, etc.) It will take at least a generation (if not longer) to undo all this damage. I'm pretty sure the America we new pre-2016 is gone. For good.
It appears that Trumps primary strategy is to maintain a constant offensive, utilizing outrage as the driving force amongst the opposition. This raises concerns about his motivations behind the prosecution of Cheney. Is it possible that this action is intended to pressure Bidan into issuing a preemptive pardon, thereby allowing Trump to further expand his claims of absolute immunity for his crony leadership?
Trump bypasses the established judicial process, which serves as a crucial safeguard against baseless, outrageous accusations. Before he’s taken the office, Trump levers his executive privileges and claims of absolute immunity to imprison his opponents without due process. I worry Biden will fall for the trap and I believe this represents a significant threat to the integrity of our system.
I'm on the outside (UK) looking in, so I have no practical experience of America.
For me, these people are groomed/brainwashed from an early age. If you look at the red states, they're often underpopulated, rural areas. If they move, it's often to a neighbouring red state. Researching my family history shows me this - and this is in the last 20-30 years, not any distant past. Family in, say, New York, generally move to other blue states. They travel more widely and go on to college or university after graduating. They experience different cultures and religions because of that education, city dwelling and often travelling abroad.
I was horrified recently to discover a cousin marrying a 15-year-old girl as late as 1959. Virtually every relative of mine in a red state has married before they're 20. Then divorced. And remarried. I had one guy on his 6th marriage at the age of 25! It's a nightmare trying to pair children with the correct parents. How must those kids feel? These are the same people voting for "Family Values", yet don't practise what they preach.
I've recently checked out some of the schools they attended. Now they're ones banning books. From my point of view, they're fed right-wing bigotry at home and in school, then marry, have kids, divorce, remarry, have kids, go bankrupt, end up in jail and die at a younger age. Since fat lad was elected, I've discovered three distant cousins are murderers in their twenties, one even on death row. Another on that same twig was shot in a murder attempt. Even females aren't exempt, and one is currently in prison for battery. Domestic violence is listed on divorces, and newspaper articles confirm DUI, burglary and other regular misdemeanors.
Other commentators who live in overtly right-wing towns tell how Democrats are demonised. They're brought up to believe they're "Commies" and evil people. They're often out on a limb because they're a democrat. Brian regularly provides stats about economy, violence, crime etc. around the country, which shows how it's the red states that perform badly.
This is an outsider looking in. I've never visited America and, to be frank, I've never wanted to. I know half the population are great people because I see them on social media and in comments sections like this. I can now imagine places I'd like to see and those where I'd never set foot if my life depended on it. Even in blue New York, I'd be terrified of being in a restaurant and MAGA walking in. One person would ruin an evening in which hundreds of other people made my day a delight.
Education needs to be improved. And fast. Why else would fat lad want to dismantle it so quickly? He's already got MAGA where he wants them. Now they need to strip away what makes democrats sympathetic and "woke", and turn them all into MAGA dumbasses. Removing people of colour is also a part of that process. Without knowing others' experiences and opinions personally, they can be more easily demonised. Look at Russia and China, whose leaders fat lad idolises: very rural countries with poor education and decades of brainwashing to accept despotic communism. I saw for myself examples of darker skinned Russians from Siberia and further east being verbally and physically assaulted in Saint Petersburg, a supposedly more westernised city.
Robert Jay Lifton wrote an excellent book, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China", after interviewing both Westerners and Chinese who underwent Maoist torture in the 1950s. Years later, he revisited some of those people. Despite the often years of imprisonment and abuse, most were still sympathetic to Chinese Communism. Some even returned to China because they could no longer accept their previous Western life and democracy.
This is fat lad's erotic dream. And he's likely to achieve it with the money and madmen behind him.
There's a widespread problem of "lazy thinking", and it's not uniquely American. I put a lot of the blame on our ubiquitous dependence on electronic devices. Have you noticed that it's mainly over 50's who read, and take the time to reply, anything longer than a sentence or two? The younger generations are all suffering from ADHD. Even my own children, now in their 40's, don't read books.
If something can't be explained in a slogan, or a short video, it will remain a mystery.
I probably read too much 'speculative fiction', but I'm beginning to believe that this downward spiral humanity is on, will not end until everything crashes and must be rebuilt from the ground up. Historically, there are cycles of civilization collapse and rebirth. Here we are again.
The internet has been amazing for the ability to learn anything at the press of a button. It's also stopping us from learning because that need to constantly click tears us away from reading. I've always been an avid reader but I feel myself drawn to my laptop or phone if they're not in my hands. I love it when I can switch off, forget the world exists and just read for hours.
The younger generation has grown up not knowing what it's like not to have technology around them. Our concentration is poor and we're losing the ability to think critically, because so much information IS instantly available to us. It agrees, contradicts and confuses us at breakneck speed. All the while, we're numbed into not being able to assess what we see in a critical and positive way.
I'm also with you in your belief; I read too much "rubbish", as my father used to say! Esoteric knowledge says we've entered a reverse cycle. It tells of the battle of good and ill now being prepared. It may be speculation but it's becoming more difficult not to see that playing out on the world stage. It said it would come from Russia, and that our civilisations would fall. America is so wrapped up in grandiosity and self-righteousness to recognise the pending evil because of its own corruption.
On a more positive note, it also says the Antichrist isn't due for another couple of hundred years, so we personally won't be around to greet him. I thought it was Trump & Co. but worse is on its way! Allegedly. 😉
Lucas Kunce, you hit on something that I've said for a long time. We have to stop telling people that they are voting against their self-interests--as if we know better what those interests are than they do. It may be our impression that they are...and the results often bear out that they are...but none of us appreciates being told that we don't know our own interests. We've got to stop. Instead, we must find messages that resonate with them--from their perspectives, not ours.
Bernie Sanders was right. Corporate Democrats and Republicans are not that different. Senator Sanders is a populist. Donald Trump ran as a populist. Bernie’s for real. Trump’s populism is a lie. Bernie Sanders was vilified by the corporate Democrats and openly attacked by MSNBC’ s Chuck Todd and Chris Matthew’s. Leaked documents from the DNC showed their plans to interfere negatively in Sanders’ campaign.
I have written and believe that the time is right to establish a new political party. If people were offered Bernie as a choice instead of Hillary Clinton he could have won. There are a number of young Democrats and independents who would love to get things accomplished. And that includes this gentleman from Missouri. Bernie is too old obviously to ever run for President again, but he would be invaluable in helping a new party to get going. We need you.
https://brentabrahamson1.substack.com/p/bernies-right?r=3tcdr4
I like Bernie too. But I disagree with him ever winning, not only in this political climate but most certainly not with our current political set up. Super PACs, right wing propaganda and Democrat capitalists would have stomped him.
Before someone like Bernie would ever have a chance, i believe these issues need to be addressed, reverse or reformed: Citizens United , campaign finance reform, election reform, and resetablishing rules/laws regarding media outlets.
I think Bernie Sanders could have done well, but you are right about corporatists trying to destroy him. And we know why. A party platform could include pledging to get rid of the things you listed. I certainly could be wrong but doing nothing and simply letting the fascists have their way should be unthinkable. At any rate, they’ll be plenty of buyers’ remorse when “President” Musk takes over. Trump’s just a figurehead but a good salesman.
Bernie ran as a Democrat and so did Kucinich before him, while Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket. A new party will have the same dynamics. We've got to get the AOC's, Jayapal, and the progressives piled into congress to move the top of the ticket to the left. Biden and Warren were moved by this. We need legislation removing money from politics and a President who will let that legislation pass. Bottom up. Gingrich and McConnell have been working this way for decades.
There will be no place for some if the ancient people keep hanging on. There needs to be a MAXIMUM age for Congress, the President, and judges. There is a minimum age requirement. A maximum makes sense.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. The problem is not “my groceries got more expensive under a democratic president”; the problem is our educational system has been broken so badly, our nation’s citizens don’t know how to think. The problem is, millions of people aren’t smart or educated enough to know the president isn’t directly responsible for the price of durable goods or energy. You can argue, successfully, I think that Biden made mistakes and that he should have done more. But trump voters are NOT smart enough to understand that corporate greed and lower taxes on the wealthy spell disaster for the working class.
The right wing 1% bought up all of the major media in the country. The major networks (ABC/NBC/CBS) are all now flinging conservative misinformation as gospel. It’s like every news station is FOX. And the millions who listened and bought into the republican misinformation machine are mentally incapable of discerning lies when they hear them. They openly soak up the anti- immigrant hate and blame, in part, because it makes them feel better about their own failures.
Red states have horrible horrible metrics across the board. Republican administration results in lower happiness scores, higher mortality, more obesity, more use of the social safety net than they pay in, and lower rates of academic achievement. It’s been that way for decades. Decades. And yet red states keep voting in republicans. It’s not because democrats were in office briefly and things got worse; it’s that 50 years of mostly republican governance of their states has hurt their people. That’s something anyone can look up, and the refusal to believe this is a willful act based on the acceptance of republican propaganda.
Democrats are far, far from perfect. But the systemic problem is lack of education and intellect, and the acceptance of right wing misinformation as fact, not the failure of the democratic party to market itself correctly.
I was just going to post essentially the same thing: I just don't buy it. Yes, their PERCEPTION may be that they are worse off under Dems — but by any factual metric, that's just not true (and that's only speaking of economic matters. Civil rights, freedoms, etc. are also under less threat under Dems). But because the news stations they listen to are all slanted Right - including many local stations they casually tune into - and demonize people they are already wary of (at best), that's an easy answer that doesn't require them to think. At all.
That said, the Dems need to stop with the neoliberal nonsense and move further Left — and do so on the offense, not on their seeming perpetual state of defense that the Right puts them in once they start using boogeyman words like socialism and communism.
However, MAGAts have so destroyed trust in the freakin' TRUTH over the past decade - all due to the fragile ego of an ignorant bigot of a man-child - so now these already willfully misinformed Americans only seem to believe whatever soothes their soul or makes them less worried about things they don't understand (instead of trusting those who DO understand, i.e., public health officials, medical professionals, etc.) It will take at least a generation (if not longer) to undo all this damage. I'm pretty sure the America we new pre-2016 is gone. For good.
I agree with you 💯 percent. Thank you, Aaron.
It appears that Trumps primary strategy is to maintain a constant offensive, utilizing outrage as the driving force amongst the opposition. This raises concerns about his motivations behind the prosecution of Cheney. Is it possible that this action is intended to pressure Bidan into issuing a preemptive pardon, thereby allowing Trump to further expand his claims of absolute immunity for his crony leadership?
Trump bypasses the established judicial process, which serves as a crucial safeguard against baseless, outrageous accusations. Before he’s taken the office, Trump levers his executive privileges and claims of absolute immunity to imprison his opponents without due process. I worry Biden will fall for the trap and I believe this represents a significant threat to the integrity of our system.
I'm on the outside (UK) looking in, so I have no practical experience of America.
For me, these people are groomed/brainwashed from an early age. If you look at the red states, they're often underpopulated, rural areas. If they move, it's often to a neighbouring red state. Researching my family history shows me this - and this is in the last 20-30 years, not any distant past. Family in, say, New York, generally move to other blue states. They travel more widely and go on to college or university after graduating. They experience different cultures and religions because of that education, city dwelling and often travelling abroad.
I was horrified recently to discover a cousin marrying a 15-year-old girl as late as 1959. Virtually every relative of mine in a red state has married before they're 20. Then divorced. And remarried. I had one guy on his 6th marriage at the age of 25! It's a nightmare trying to pair children with the correct parents. How must those kids feel? These are the same people voting for "Family Values", yet don't practise what they preach.
I've recently checked out some of the schools they attended. Now they're ones banning books. From my point of view, they're fed right-wing bigotry at home and in school, then marry, have kids, divorce, remarry, have kids, go bankrupt, end up in jail and die at a younger age. Since fat lad was elected, I've discovered three distant cousins are murderers in their twenties, one even on death row. Another on that same twig was shot in a murder attempt. Even females aren't exempt, and one is currently in prison for battery. Domestic violence is listed on divorces, and newspaper articles confirm DUI, burglary and other regular misdemeanors.
Other commentators who live in overtly right-wing towns tell how Democrats are demonised. They're brought up to believe they're "Commies" and evil people. They're often out on a limb because they're a democrat. Brian regularly provides stats about economy, violence, crime etc. around the country, which shows how it's the red states that perform badly.
This is an outsider looking in. I've never visited America and, to be frank, I've never wanted to. I know half the population are great people because I see them on social media and in comments sections like this. I can now imagine places I'd like to see and those where I'd never set foot if my life depended on it. Even in blue New York, I'd be terrified of being in a restaurant and MAGA walking in. One person would ruin an evening in which hundreds of other people made my day a delight.
Education needs to be improved. And fast. Why else would fat lad want to dismantle it so quickly? He's already got MAGA where he wants them. Now they need to strip away what makes democrats sympathetic and "woke", and turn them all into MAGA dumbasses. Removing people of colour is also a part of that process. Without knowing others' experiences and opinions personally, they can be more easily demonised. Look at Russia and China, whose leaders fat lad idolises: very rural countries with poor education and decades of brainwashing to accept despotic communism. I saw for myself examples of darker skinned Russians from Siberia and further east being verbally and physically assaulted in Saint Petersburg, a supposedly more westernised city.
Robert Jay Lifton wrote an excellent book, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China", after interviewing both Westerners and Chinese who underwent Maoist torture in the 1950s. Years later, he revisited some of those people. Despite the often years of imprisonment and abuse, most were still sympathetic to Chinese Communism. Some even returned to China because they could no longer accept their previous Western life and democracy.
This is fat lad's erotic dream. And he's likely to achieve it with the money and madmen behind him.
There's a widespread problem of "lazy thinking", and it's not uniquely American. I put a lot of the blame on our ubiquitous dependence on electronic devices. Have you noticed that it's mainly over 50's who read, and take the time to reply, anything longer than a sentence or two? The younger generations are all suffering from ADHD. Even my own children, now in their 40's, don't read books.
If something can't be explained in a slogan, or a short video, it will remain a mystery.
I probably read too much 'speculative fiction', but I'm beginning to believe that this downward spiral humanity is on, will not end until everything crashes and must be rebuilt from the ground up. Historically, there are cycles of civilization collapse and rebirth. Here we are again.
The internet has been amazing for the ability to learn anything at the press of a button. It's also stopping us from learning because that need to constantly click tears us away from reading. I've always been an avid reader but I feel myself drawn to my laptop or phone if they're not in my hands. I love it when I can switch off, forget the world exists and just read for hours.
The younger generation has grown up not knowing what it's like not to have technology around them. Our concentration is poor and we're losing the ability to think critically, because so much information IS instantly available to us. It agrees, contradicts and confuses us at breakneck speed. All the while, we're numbed into not being able to assess what we see in a critical and positive way.
I'm also with you in your belief; I read too much "rubbish", as my father used to say! Esoteric knowledge says we've entered a reverse cycle. It tells of the battle of good and ill now being prepared. It may be speculation but it's becoming more difficult not to see that playing out on the world stage. It said it would come from Russia, and that our civilisations would fall. America is so wrapped up in grandiosity and self-righteousness to recognise the pending evil because of its own corruption.
On a more positive note, it also says the Antichrist isn't due for another couple of hundred years, so we personally won't be around to greet him. I thought it was Trump & Co. but worse is on its way! Allegedly. 😉
Lucas Kunce, you hit on something that I've said for a long time. We have to stop telling people that they are voting against their self-interests--as if we know better what those interests are than they do. It may be our impression that they are...and the results often bear out that they are...but none of us appreciates being told that we don't know our own interests. We've got to stop. Instead, we must find messages that resonate with them--from their perspectives, not ours.
Watch these. It illustrates how the neo liberals have handed this country over to Trump.
https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=economists and
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1664805767106142/permalink/3787524901500874/
Progressive Democrats Are Real Friends. centrist dimocrats Are fair weather friends.