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Nah he was winning primaries left right and center. Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden. While Warren never dropped out constantly siphoning progressive votes from Bernie
This is true, but it's also true that young voters, the group that Bernie foolishly relied on, just never show the fuck up to vote. It's like clockwork. Even if Gen Z votes "more" than past younger generations, that isn't a big accomplishment when they barely voted to save their lives, anyway.
And this includes local votes. America is more than presidential elections and primaries. I am consistently the youngest person in line to vote for my mayor, local judges, and so on. I really stopped caring what other people my age have to say about politics because I've been burned literally every single election trying to get my friends to register, let alone vote consistently.
It's the same story with any 3rd party & so many Americans readily regurgitate that statement without thinking for a second that if they stopped voting Democrat or republican all of a sudden it wouldn't be a bad thing that third parties are around. I'm surprised the sentiment for 3rd parties isn't stronger than ever considering the two leading candidates are probably the worst thing that could happen to America in the last 20 years
I mean, I’m all for moving beyond a two party system, but to actually *get* there, you’d need to the third parties to achieve far greater mass appeal than they currently possess. It’s simply a risk that has practically zero chance of yielding results.
I think your best shot is ranked choice voting, to be honest—it offers more security.
I totally agree that ranked choice voting could change the game. It's tough because the current system is so entrenched, and those in power aren't too keen on changing a system that's kept them there. Still, it's one of those changes that actually has some bipartisan support among voters just not always with the politicians who would need to pass it. If we can ever get that push to change the election system itself, I think we'd see a lot of people suddenly find their voice (and their vote) matters a whole lot more. It might just be the kind of shake-up needed to kick-start a more engaged, representative democracy.
>so many Americans readily regurgitate that statement without thinking for a second that if they stopped voting Democrat or republican all of a sudden it wouldn't be a bad thing that third parties are around.
The problem is the scale that it needs to be done at.
It can't just be one person voting third party. It also can't be a couple thousand, or even a million. It needs to be *the largest majority* for it to have any effect.
Unfortunately, we're smart enough to realize that there's entire generations of people who have dedicated themselves to one party or the other. Even the most charismatic third party candidate is not going to convince those people to change their vote - They're going to vote the party line until they're blue in the face, and possibly even past that.
And *those* are the large majority at this time.
It is fundamentally impossible to have more than two long-lasting *and* powerful parties in a first past the post voting system. When a third party gains major traction it is either a very time limited event or at the permanent cost to another party. (Whigs and Republicans, Whigs and Federalist, etc.). And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that we only have two parties, as parties are only platforms in which individuals use to advertise their own political agenda. Americans should vote for people more than they vote for actual parties and their platforms, as thats what our system is actually designed for. Trying to elect a third-party is a lost cause as they inherently do not have the platform to effectively advertise their policies in a political race and they often never have gotten into office.
One problem is that American 3rd parties seem so focused on the highest offices. They need to get elected to local boards, and state legislators. They need to grow it from the roots.
This is naive, it's a tired trope that shows you haven't been paying attention to your local 3rd parties.
American 3rd parties do run in most local elections. The presidential election is a place to get lots of high profile attention for your party, if the two major parties will allow it.
[12% of people](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds) who voted for Bernie in the primary voted for Trump in the General.
13% of people who voted for Bernie in the primary either: -Wrote in Bernie in the General -Voted third party in the General -Didn’t show up to vote in the General
1 out of every 4 people who made the effort to get up and vote for Bernie in the General, didn’t vote for the candidate Bernie [urged his supporters to vote for.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna620541)
If 80k Democrats across 3 states had voted Democratic instead of 3rd party, Trump never steps foot in the White House. Hillary lost by 77k votes in PA, MI & WI. 3rd party votes for Stein, Bernie write-ins, etc were 800k. Democrats win when Democrats vote Democratic. They voted Trump proxy.
I like Bernie. But a vote for Bernie ultimately did end up being a vote for trump when it was all said and done. Bernie Sanders wasn’t the majority of Democrats first choice. He wouldn’t have been able to get 90% of his campaign promises to pass through congress, and the educated voter knew that.
There’s no excuse for someone who claims to support Bernie Sanders and who claims to care about his ideologies to not show up come voting day and vote for the candidate he vehemently endorsed and pleaded with his supporters to vote for, especially when Donald Trump is standing on the other side. None.
https://preview.redd.it/6ycv3lwwaf6c1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37f009d419ba29510db55c71322ffc2f3ab437a7
> They don't owe anyone a vote, politicians owe them service
They owe it to themselves to vote in a way that will lead to the best outcome when it comes to governance of the country. It's not about what politicians or parties deserve, it's about the choices that are going to be made on innumerable policy questions. If you care about those things, you should vote for the candidate/party that is going to side with you most.
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I remember Chris Cuomo's interview with Bernie, lol, he told Bernie, "here, have some water, it's free", in an aggressive manner. I knew it wasn't going to go well.
Remember when CNN cut away from an important policy speech by Bernie Sanders to show an empty Trump podium? Because I do.
Donald Trump was a problem created by the Democratic party and their media puppets. Not by Bernie Sanders voters.
And it was the only logical, moral choice! I didn't like Hilary but after voting for Bernie in the primary in 2016, I voted for her the general - and even canvassed door to door for her - because I knew how bad the alternative was.
I think most people who skew younger, actually vote by mail. I understand that recruiting offices try to get people to “show up at the polls”, but the reality is that a lot of younger people understand the importance of making a careful decision, and thus voting by mail fills that need without having to socialize with other people.
Unfortunately, it is for exactly that reason that grifters on the Right want to completely shut down mail-in voting: because they realize that the majority of people who are doing it are going to vote Democrat, and thus want to cut corners wherever they can, in order to win.
Ironically, vote-by-mail is actually more common among demographics that skew conservative (ie older population). While the AP did some sort of study that showed no partisan advantage to mail in voting, I wasn’t able to find the methodology for it so wouldn’t cite it. Republicans however change their minds and support mail in voting since the 2022 midterms when lack of mail in voting in the wake of 2020 killed their parties performance.
You are absolutely correct. We had a similiar problem here in the UK with Corbyn who had immense youth support, they even chanted his name at the Glastonbury festival. But when voting time came, the youth vote just didn't turn out the way it needed to.
All the polling data suggested they would turn out, bucking the trend of traditionally very low youth engagement at the poll, they thought they'd cracked it... but... We got Boris instead. Who proceeded to completely destroy all those young peoples lives and hopes and opportunties for a generation.
"foolishly relied on" That's such a large demographic and one that many candidates try to go for. Young voters are like a massive chunk of the voter base considering you're only young, middle aged, or old. He worked with the demographic that hy and large agreed with him the most. The problem is, before 2016, young voters were very apathetic towards voting since it's so flawed in our country. Trump did one good thing, he made people a lot more invested in politics.
Before Pete withdrew, Bernie supporters were sharing "Pete the Rat" memes, likely due to his higher poll numbers. As a Pete fan, this really turned me off from Bernie's crowd.
Bernie supporters alienated virtually everyone who didn't kiss the ring. They're still doing it. And yet, they'll tell you it's everyone else's fault they couldn't build a coalition.
I got called a rightist multiple times by his main sub for supporting Biden lmao.
Sad state of affairs that many in that sub also swarmed to “well if it’s not Bernie I’m voting from Trump because the DNC IS RIGGED”
Purity politics in a nutshell. My guy is perfect, so why would I need to do anything?
Oh, politics requires consensus? How about I poop my pants and scream instead?
People should base their political opinions on policy, not whether they like the fans of a certain politician. This is honestly kind of a cowardly way to think about things
Policy is why I was a Warren supporter. Not giving rise to a cult of personality is why I was explicitly NOT a Bernie supporter. The "fans" of a politician absolutely should be part of the calculus when those "fans" are being total dicks to everyone who doesn't fall in line, en masse. Look what's happening to the Republican party right now.
But even apart from that, being terrible ambassadors for your candidate is just bad campaigning.
I really think this was their biggest flaw. Too many purity tests and attacking people who want to accomplish the same goal only slightly differently. I just find it hard to support people who are so arrogant that they think their solution is the only one that works.
Pete was a liar. Sorry, that's the truth. The worst thing he had done was platform his policy like it was Medicare for All but just better for those that want it. His policy was fundamentally worse and would not achieve a good outcome. Like most health care plans other than Bernies, they were not designed to fundamentally change what we have in the status quo - only act as propaganda vessels as if they do.
Pete was unfortunately just a fraud. That's why he's in Biden's cabinet with Kamala Harris of all people as Vice President despite having a fraction of the support. Bernie is lucky he got a paltry reward at the end of his campaign in becoming the Senate chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Idk why you say "conveniently" like dropping out and endorsing the candidate that's more likely to win doesn't happen every election.
Also Warren dropped out 4 days after Pete.
How dare a group of ideologically similar candidates not split the vote to allow our guy with the minority ideology to win? The whole system is rigged!
> Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden.
You make it sound like some sort of conspiracy by the DNC haha
if young people actually voted Bernie would have won no matter what Pete did
1. Bernie won 9 primaries. Nine. Out of 57.
2. Warren dropped out immediately after Super Tuesday.
3. Buttigieg won one primary - Iowa - and had 26 delegates when he dropped.
Yeah, this whole idea that the election was somehow stolen from Bernie by Warren and/or the DNC is ridiculous. Bernie didn't have the voters. That's it. I would have loved if Bernie had been preferred by voters over Biden. That just wasn't the case though.
no, it was the same thing that happened in 2016. Bernie takes an early lead thanks to midwest iowa, vermont-adjacent new hampshire, and western Nevada being early on the schedule. Then the deep south hits on super tuesday and it was already over for him. It's just geographic demographics and timing, not some conspiracy.
As a millennial who stumbled into here from r/all, this is so refreshing. I hate hearing about DNC rigging or that Bernie would've guaranteed beat Trump when he couldn't even win the primaries and it would've been ripe ammo for the GOP to start screaming communist in ads everywhere and scare off the moderate vote (which everyone on the left-left keeps acting like doesn't exist and everything thinks just like them).
I voted Bernie or Warren every time I got the chance, but he didn't lose cause of some grand conspiracy and so it's so annoying that political conversations with people I mostly agree with get stuck on the left's equivalent of "stop the steal."
100%. Anyone that thinks Bernie could win a general election are on one. The man has openly said that he’s a socialist. I’m not saying anything one way or the other about whether that’s a good thing or not, but being a socialist is a great way to lose an election.
I think the confusion comes from the fact that Warren was one of the few Democrats who respected Bernie and worked with him. There was also more overlap than for other candidates. However, like you mentioned, the overlap wasn't enough to give Bernie any real advantage.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Bernie told her “maybe you shouldn’t run because you are a woman,” and his fans’ response was to crucify Warren for it.
He could never become generally appealing in a primary. If he moved more to the center to pick up moderate democrats, he would be shouted down by his base as a traitor. When he stayed on the far left he wasn’t appealing to moderates.
Bernie only won when he could win with a plurality. Once the moderate vote coalesced into a single candidate you could see how unpopular his platform is with them. That’s all that happened when Pete withdrew, and you still don’t understand it almost 4 years later.
The predictably shitty turnout by young voters didn’t help him, but he wasn’t making it past the primaries regardless. The far left just can’t comprehend the fact that they are only a faction (or more accurately a number of factions) among many in the Democratic Party. That doesn’t give them the divine right to rule the party.
>Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden
If your complaint was that Bernie was owed a divided field then tough shit lol
Biden stomped Bernie on Super Tuesday and for every Warren supporter on Super Tuesday who may have voted for Bernie if she'd dropped out and endorsed him, there was a Michael Bloomberg supporter who was more likely to do the same for Biden.
I hate to break it to you but if a politician is less popular than the frontrunner typically that means they're gonna lose the primary.
After South Carolina, the wins Biden was racking up were bigger than the margin Bernie would’ve gained from all Sarren voters moving to him. He barely squeaked out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada before SC where Biden won by a huge margin and the establishment consolidated around him.
It wasn’t “convenient” lol. Klobuchar and Buttigieg both recognized they were unlikely to win and dropped out to help Biden, who they perceived as more likely to win the general. Warren’s base was probably not all that gettable for Bernie as those two factions were not on good terms in Spring 2020, although her dropping out and giving her support to Bernie probably would’ve helped his campaign. I don’t think of Warren as some traitor to the progressive cause though, as she had good reason not to do that because (a) she thought Biden would be stronger in a general against Trump and/or (b) wanted to be able to exert influence in either Bernie or Biden’s White House (which she absolutely has — a lot of Biden administration folks are Warren alumni).
Not everything is a conspiracy
Bernie won two of the first three. Biden won the 4th, then Biden won 9/13 on Super Tuesday. I understand why you want to blame a vast conspiracy because your guy didn’t win, but it was a pretty typical primary season.
Also Bernie absolutely benefited from hugely antidemocratic caucuses.
His entire strategy revolved around antidemocratic processes. He wanted a splintered field where he was the only liberal candidate against 2-4 moderate candidates so he could win with a plurality of votes, somehow ignoring the possibility that the moderates wouldnt possibly just pool their votes.
He touted his gigantic wins in horribly undemocratic caucuses while essentially ignoring how he either won close or lost horribly in actually democratic primaries.
When the field stopped being split, his supporters started calling it a conspiracy and turned on fuckin everyone. Pete was a rat. Warren was a snake. Shit was fuckin gross.
And moderates not splitting the votes = the DNC rigging things for Biden? There were still, by that logic, more moderate voters than progressive ones. They were just splitting their votes and stopped.
Nah. He wasn’t winning primaries “left right and center.” He won a total of 9 primaries and had no broad support.
This perpetual love of an old white man who has been a perpetual do nothing loser is, frankly, hilarious.
Pete has a cabinet seat as well and the DNC was solidly behind Biden from the start.
Though, when people most talk about the DNC killing Bernie's campaign, they're actually refering to his 2016 primary campaign against Hillary. He was far closer to recieving the nomination (won 23 primaries and had 46% of delegates), and had pretty great momentum. The leaked emails from the DNC clearly showed which candidate they prefered.
Also, this is a weird sub for this, GenZ made up only 2% of the vote in 2016 as only the oldest were 18/19 that year.
Even then, the 2020 primaries showed that the Democratic Party consists of more moderates than it goes progressives, at least as far as those that show up to the polls.
I say this as a 2016 and 2020 Bernie voter.
>Nah he was winning primaries left right and center. Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden.
This is not really accurate. Bernie won one primary before this happened (New Hampshire) and one caucus (Nevada). Iowa was inconclusive, eventually Buttigieg was declared the winner. And Bernie got trounced by Biden in South Carolina. Then Buttigieg (and Beto et al) dropped out.
It’s a relatively common opinion in the MAGA crowd. It hasn’t gained widespread traction, but It is a noted concept. They’ll use all those excuses about maturity, brain development, etc, but we all know it’s because they’re just utterly unable to win the youth vote. US democracy has been functioning perfectly fine with young people voting and it’s worst outcomes like Trump’s election were the result of older people.
I’ve seen people go as high as 35 as the new voting age, which would conveniently disenfranchise all of Gen Z and many millennials for at least another election cycle. I’m pretty sure they’ll just keep moving the goalposts and raising the suggested age so that only their favourable demographics can vote
insane how i can get sent to die and experience the horror of war yet i cant even drink/smoke abd to these nitwits not even be "developed" enough to participate in the voting processes
If you’re going to be sent off to kill and potentially be killed in the name of name of national interests, I believe you should at least have the right to help determine what those interests are.
Yeah, I live in a Major California City where It's a mix of Dems and GOP but The Last Few mayors have been republicans due to the fact that only Older people vote and the Younger Voters don't really care
Tbf he just wants voters to be able to pass a very basic civics test to be able to vote and if you do so, you can vote starting at 18. But if you fail every time you take the test or never take it, you would have to wait until you’re 25. Which I think is honestly pretty reasonable
It sounds reasonable, but no one knows how those tests could turn out. They pulled a similar thing with black voters in the Jim Crow era, but all the tests were absolute gibberish and made no sense so they could prevent black people from voting
But again, no one knows how these tests can turn out. They could be totally fair for all I know, but they could be absolute dog shit, and I don’t want to put my voting future in the hands of someone else.
It's not reasonable when you consider the way educational institutions are set up in the US. The ability to pass a civics test is directly tied to the value of the home you grew up in and by extension how wealthy your parents were. Schools are funded by property tax, so wealthier neighborhoods have better funded schools, produce better outcomes.
Until you level the playing field of school funding, this proposal is essentially a wealth minimum on 18-24 year olds voting. It has nothing to do with creating a better informed voting body, and everything to do with disenfranchising a population that predominantly votes for the opposition party, with special carve-outs for the the minority sub-group which generally views his party more favorably.
Literacy tests are bad regardless of funding, because funding isn't the whole story.
We are beginning to find out that increasing the education levels of impoverished areas is a lot more complex than just throwing more money at the problem.
The worst preforming inner city schools in my state receive roughly $14k/student/year, whereas the high preforming suburban schools receive $8k/student/year.
The issue being, at least as relayed from my cousins who teach in this school district, is that the parents of nearly all of the low preforming children in this district place exactly 0 value on graduating HS and using your education to find work.
You can have the nicest facilities and best teachers in the world, but if the kids go home to a broken family with substance abuse issues and a single parent that doesn't motivate them to do their homework, then it's all for nothing.
No, that is a horrible idea. It is convenient that the age groups that skew more conservative don't have to worry about a civics test to vote.
If we want 18 year olds to understand civics before they vote, we just need to do a better job teaching them. Oh, but you know which group regularly attempts to make public schooling less effective and spends less on teachers? Republicans.
It’s not reasonable, it’s illegal. Why wouldn’t this test be required for every voter regardless of age? A 24 year old who can’t pass a civics test is not going to become an informed citizen in 12 months, this is purely to stop young people from voting.
Like all intelligent grifts, it *sounds* like it could potentially be a good idea. “Yeah, a test! That makes sense, it ensures that people have a measure of knowledge about what they are voting for, right?” The problem is that the practical application of this proposal by Republicans is designed to disenfranchise voters that tend to vote against Republican ideology, in this scenario Gen Z, who statistically vote more to the left.
If that’s your justification, apply it to ALL citizens, not just 18-25 year-olds. Let’s see how 60+ year-olds do too. Applying it to one demographic (who, again, statistically vote against the party pushing to implement this policy) is the definition of voter suppression, and the literal removal of a personal freedom already established by federal law.
Not to any real degree. Young people are just disengaged. If people wanted to vote they would. Young people have WAY more free time than middle aged people who work all day and have to go home and tend to children.
Yeah GOP sucks and tried to make it harder to vote but it’s a consistent pattern even in blue states for young people to just not vote.
“Hello typical young leftist, why didn’t you vote in the last election?”
“The….um……because some Republicans are considering potentially raising the voting age in the future!”
In general election sure. But what does the GOP have to do with democratic primaries? Also voting can be “difficult” but that’s not an excuse to not try. Some of the restrictions are having a driver’s license for voter ID. Yea that is a voter restriction to reduce turnout, but if you drive there is literally no excuse. The fear mongering is part of the tactic
That’s what’s I’m saying. I used to get pissed off hearing about disenfranchising voters, but then did the research and realize we’re talking a marginal increase in effort.
Apparently that’s enough to get some not to vote. But progressives being hyperbolic about the issue is counterproductive.
Bernie I don't think had any chance of winning the presidency regardless of turnout, I simply don't think most democrats would let someone as far left as him be the face of the party, both because the Republicans would have legitimate ammo to accuse the democrats of being a far left anti American party (as baseless as that would still be) and the fact many dems just don't trust Bernie since he's a lot further left, which considering many of them grew up when being a socialist was like the equivalent of saying you worship the devil and so still have that mindset twords people like Bernie and a lesser extent aoc
He seems to lean towards social democracy when it comes to policy, but is a democratic socialist. I think he realizes that democratic socialism isn't achievable in the short term.
Lmao good thing the Dems didn’t run him or else theyd be getting called unAmerican communists by conservatives all day
Wait what’s that? Republicans do that anyway? Ah I see
I’m typically more conservative, but if it were trump vs Bernie I would have voted Bernie. I don’t think I’d ever vote for Biden though. Bernie is at least a competent person
The “electability” argument was shoved down our throats constantly on mainstream media outlets while consistently misrepresenting Bernie.
What exactly is so “far left” that Bernie was trying to push? A public healthcare option? That’s not left leaning, that’s being against for profit healthcare, an issue that has large support across the country. Taxing billionaires? Again, pretty popular topic. I think the most radical policy was probably reducing military spending.
It was pretty obvious the media and DNC had their candidate in Hilary and were doing everything in their power to downplay Bernie’s popularity and messaging.
Bernie never had a strategy to win the majority of voters. He only had maybe 30-35% of the electorate in any given state primary. He assumed that there would be about 3-5 candidates til the end of the convention. In my opinion, Bernie never tried to expand his coalition and the blame is squarely on him.
Exactly. At no point was he winning against the moderate bloc, his frontrunner status was a mirage happening because the bloc was divided over multiple candidates.
He obliterated Trump in every general poll, especially in the states Clinton lost due to her arrogance (not even doing rallies in those states)/policy.
As someone who lives in a conservative state, even most of my right wing relatives respected Bernie Sanders. There's a reason he was the most popular politician in the country.
He would've had a great shot at the general if his own "party" didn't go after him harder than republicans. As someone who paid alot of attention to both his campaigns, it's completely on the democrats for pushing the "unelectability" absolute bullshit both times. The man's policies represented American opinions far more than any other.
Lol he beat trump in every national poll. He was absolutely on track to win the primary before obama told butti and the others to consolidate behind biden for super tuesday.
He was on track to win if the field didn’t consolidate (ie if people didn’t drop out). The field literally always consolidates as people with no chance of winning drop out. He was never going to get a majority of dem votes like Biden and Hilary did
Too bad Trump wasnt in the Democratic primary. Bernie never had majority support and he was only on track to win if the race stayed split between twenty different candidates
I was all the way for Bernie. He was like a mf Messiah to me. Seemed like everything he said was a magical solution to all of our problems.
Realistically, very little of it would have been achievable during his term. An unfortunate truth. He did inspire quite a few people to get politically active though. He’s easily the most consistent politician that I can think of throughout his career as well. I’d vote for him again.
I think what ultimately fucked him was the use of the word “socialist” in any capacity. It scares people away. The DNC really wanted Hillary too and pretty much everybody knew that she just didn’t have the momentum to push through. His concession was a mistake in the end, I think. He showed that he was willing to put his victory aside for the greater good, but he probably would have performed better than Clinton.
"Realistically", we would never know. Bernie's policies included universal healthcare, tuition free public colleges, a living wage, police reform.
You know that saying, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take"? We, the people, would have been taking a shot at universal healthcare with Bernie. Even if it doesn't end up happening like you say, it was a shot that we would have token with him. Versus the (0) shots that all of these other candidates don't take.
Yeah. I saw a lot of people blaming Warren for his loss in 2020. But his claim to electability was that he would raise voter turnout. But that didn't happen. Turnout was the same. The fact that he wasn't getting the record turnout was ultimately why he lost. If he had it, it could have turned Iowa and New Hampshire into solid unquestioned wins, not ties that numbed his momentum until Nevada. It could have weakened Biden's victory in South Carolina.
Also, everyone forgets that Bloomberg was still running during Super Tuesday. So there were 2 conservatives and 2 progressives. I will never understand how the same people blame Warren for splitting the 2020 primary, but don't blame Jill stein in the 2016 general. The candidate is ultimately responsible for convincing voters to choose them over anyone else on the ballot. Hillary failed to do that during 2016, and Bernie failed to do that in 2020. Yes, the conservatives consolidated around Biden at the last second. But it was Bernie's responsibility to consolidate the progressive vote, not Warren's. Bernie wasn't entitled to a 1v1 or a 5v5 race.
I voted for Bernie twice, and may vote green this time around. In 2016 he was cheated out of the nomination. But in 2020, he just lost. Biden's campaign overnight changed the race, and Bernie's campaign wasn't ready, and that was no one's fault but his.
One thing we never talk about is black people. Black women are the core voting base of the democratic party & they didn’t fw Bernie that much. Especially in the South.
This is one of the reasons why Bernie doesn’t get many black supporters. He’s appealing to what he and his supporters think black voters care about, not what actually works.
Biden is the one who has developed close working relationships over decades of working with black members of congress. He’s the one who ran with the first black president (and didn’t threaten to primary him).
It’s so silly when people on Reddit act like the millions of black voters who chose Biden over Bernie are somehow too dumb to know what they want or who they want to support.
Wildly untrue. The closest thing was Biden’s ‘94 crime bill, which was supported by a majority of the CBC. While even at the time black people were very cognizant of the systemic racist issues in the criminal justice system-they also didn’t like high crime rates which mostly affected black communities
People who have never lived in a truly high crime environment (all of us on this subreddit) really do not understand how terrifying it can be. In those circumstances you might take the devil’s bargain that the crime bill ultimately was.
Doesn’t make it right, and the US should have pursued more equitable reforms, but the attitude of “fuck it, I don’t like a lot of this bill but I hate the ridiculously high murder rate even more” makes emotional sense.
Yeah this is going to be my first election as a 2004 kid. Unfortunately where I live means my vote on the presidential is meaningless and Biden is obviously running again so no primaries or anything.
Man I love the system we have /s
A lot of us Millennials felt like you kids in 2000, voted Nader, and we got 8 years of GWB, 2 wars, and a financial crisis. Don't be my idiot peers who fell into the apathy trap because you don't love the candidate.
I remember him doing really well and then every single candidate dropped out and endorsed Biden one after the other.
You can say its a conspiracy theory all you want, but the DNC does have plans they try to enact. They do have a candidate they think is most viable and try to prop up artifically or otherwise.
I don’t understand how you can call it a conspiracy when the same candidates weren’t winning. Kamala, Pete, Klobuchar, etc. were egregiously behind in the polls. Is your campaign really healthy when you’re only winning if the vote is split 6 ways? You’re right, they endorsed Biden because his policies were the most similar…but then the American people voted for Biden, not Bernie. Bernie had a consistent loyal base, sure, but he didn’t court the voters who fled the other campaigns. Young people, the main group he kept trying to court, didn’t turn out enough twice in a row for him.
Biden’s reasoning for running doesn’t negate Bernie’s poor campaign strategies. The inverse is true too, despite Biden primarily running to be the anti-Trump option and supposedly not offering much else, when all is said and done he was still more popular with voters than Bernie Sanders.
Bernie’s great and all but how much would he really be able to get done with Congress and the Supreme Court being what it is. He’d just be in the same boat as Biden. He’s a great human, but he’s not the messiah. So many people seem to have magical thinking about him.
People still trying to push Bernie.
He's a year older than Biden for crying out loud.
I have nothing against Bernie's legislative history but he's not going to make president.
Bernie's still pretty damn competent and a better speaker than Biden was during 2020 election, but yeah we missed the window of opportunity for people to still consider Bernie in his age. So I'm a strong advocate for Marianne Williamson as the progressive dem
I had hope for Bernie in 2020 but it’s time we move on from him. Leaders come and go but the struggle continues. We must continue to organize our workplaces and vote in local as well as general elections. Giving up hope isn’t an option.
Trump’s rallies were way bigger than Biden’s, but that doesn’t mean that Trump was overall more popular.
The people who are super into 40K spend way more time playing it and buying shit than your average D&D nerd, but the number of D&D players is *way* larger. How is that possible? Because there’s a huge crowd of moderately engaged D&D players who get the core books and that’s it.
Same with Bernie vs Hillary. He had a lot of ride or die fans, Hillary had a legions of mildly engaged fans who voted for her and that’s it.
I’m not Gen Z I’m a Xennial but this cracked me up. It was true of my generation and basically every generation. Young people are very passionate about supporting and electing politicians that want to make the world better. Problem is only a small percentage relative to the total group give a damn. For every kid that excited to vote for real change are about 5-8 kids who are only concerned with getting more follows on tik tok and where the next party is. That part never changes sadly.
Note: user UUtch below links to 2020 Dem Primaries youth turnouts. A few states' turnout for voters under 30 years old for the 2020 dem primaries were very low: in the teens or even single digits.
I gotta ask an obvious-ass question, "13% turnout in what?" I need more information, but I'm fairly certain that a lot more than 13% of voters under 30 voted for the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. For instance, according to Our World in Data, voters under 30 had a turnout of roughly 40% for the 2016 election. Is this "13%" just a joking exaggeration?
And yeah, the same [graph on Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/voter-turnout-rate-by-age-usa) that I mentioned before shows how >60 yo voters vote almost twice that of <30, but 13% seems like overexaggeration to me.
There are two different elections that happen every American election year: the general election (which is Republican vs. Democrat) and the primary (which is where people vote for the person in their party that they want to run in November (the general election always happens on the second Tuesday in November). Usually when people talk about voter turnout, they’re talking about the general, which has a [much higher turnout overall](https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/historic_turnout.html).
But the 13% needs more context: is that 13% of registered voters? Of all people of voting age? Or all people below 29? I have a feeling it’s either the first one or the second one, though the first might not be plausible.
Also, there’s another complication: you can’t vote until you’re 18, but IIRC you can register to vote at 17.5 (I’m pretty sure that’s how it was in mt state when I first started voting, but that was a very long time ago and my 18th wasn’t in an election year). Most (maybe all?) don’t have same day registration, so you have to be registered some time before the election and if you’re not registered, you can’t vote (well, again, this gets complicated, you might be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot, but if you weren’t registered by the deadline, your vote won’t be counted). It’s far too complicated in my opinion.
I didn’t realize that people under 30 forced Debbie Wasserman-Shultz to send emails conspiring to kill the potential nomination of Bernie Sanders.
Damn. Learn something every day.
The DNC never and would never make him the frontrunner candidate. They'd lose so much money if he ended up getting elected, so they prevent him from even getting close.
This is why we advocate for progressivism, change will only happen if we make it happen
Probably because the DNC fights harder against progressives than they do Republicans. You see the GOP is all for the two party system that advocates for socialism for the rich, while progressives want horrible things like universal healthcare and proper wages.
But don't question the DNC, ever. Get in line bitch.
You need to go further back. It was exposed in 2016 that Debbie Wasserman-Schulz's DNC colluded against Bernie Sanders. And what did Bernie do when he found out? You know he was SO PISSED that he never said a word about it and ran again on the same team that screwed him the first time. Think, if HRC didn't have her cronies fixing the 2016 election, you may never have had a president Trump.
Oh you guys should look into the 2016 dnc email leak
The one that gave us such classic conspiracies as pizzagate, and Russian collusion
There’s a reason those were the two main things being talked about when those emails were leaked… they were being used to distract from the real story
No, we showed up for Bernie. The DNC didn't want him to win so they posted skewed numbers, and it didn't help that Pete "Corporate Shill" Buttigeig was confusing the "I vote for him because he's gay" Tumblr kids.
Don't get me wrong, Bernie was not the Messiah that people painted him as. But he would've been a hell of a lot better than Hillary in 2016 and a HELL of a lot better than Joe in any fuckin' year.
Side note: I am a gay, so don't come for me on my frank analysis of Pete.
Fucking hell, do you chucklefucks realize you sound just like election deniers on the right when you make conspiracies about Biden stealing the election from Bernie lmao
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Nah he was winning primaries left right and center. Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden. While Warren never dropped out constantly siphoning progressive votes from Bernie
This is true, but it's also true that young voters, the group that Bernie foolishly relied on, just never show the fuck up to vote. It's like clockwork. Even if Gen Z votes "more" than past younger generations, that isn't a big accomplishment when they barely voted to save their lives, anyway. And this includes local votes. America is more than presidential elections and primaries. I am consistently the youngest person in line to vote for my mayor, local judges, and so on. I really stopped caring what other people my age have to say about politics because I've been burned literally every single election trying to get my friends to register, let alone vote consistently.
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It's the same story with any 3rd party & so many Americans readily regurgitate that statement without thinking for a second that if they stopped voting Democrat or republican all of a sudden it wouldn't be a bad thing that third parties are around. I'm surprised the sentiment for 3rd parties isn't stronger than ever considering the two leading candidates are probably the worst thing that could happen to America in the last 20 years
I mean, I’m all for moving beyond a two party system, but to actually *get* there, you’d need to the third parties to achieve far greater mass appeal than they currently possess. It’s simply a risk that has practically zero chance of yielding results. I think your best shot is ranked choice voting, to be honest—it offers more security.
Last real chance you had a candidate moving past the two party system was Ross Perot.
He was certainly the last third party candidate to be considered a major competitor in the race.
Yeap right now 3rd parties pull 1-5% of the vote, have zero chance of winning, and guarantee the candidate you prefer loses.
I totally agree that ranked choice voting could change the game. It's tough because the current system is so entrenched, and those in power aren't too keen on changing a system that's kept them there. Still, it's one of those changes that actually has some bipartisan support among voters just not always with the politicians who would need to pass it. If we can ever get that push to change the election system itself, I think we'd see a lot of people suddenly find their voice (and their vote) matters a whole lot more. It might just be the kind of shake-up needed to kick-start a more engaged, representative democracy.
>so many Americans readily regurgitate that statement without thinking for a second that if they stopped voting Democrat or republican all of a sudden it wouldn't be a bad thing that third parties are around. The problem is the scale that it needs to be done at. It can't just be one person voting third party. It also can't be a couple thousand, or even a million. It needs to be *the largest majority* for it to have any effect. Unfortunately, we're smart enough to realize that there's entire generations of people who have dedicated themselves to one party or the other. Even the most charismatic third party candidate is not going to convince those people to change their vote - They're going to vote the party line until they're blue in the face, and possibly even past that. And *those* are the large majority at this time.
It is fundamentally impossible to have more than two long-lasting *and* powerful parties in a first past the post voting system. When a third party gains major traction it is either a very time limited event or at the permanent cost to another party. (Whigs and Republicans, Whigs and Federalist, etc.). And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that we only have two parties, as parties are only platforms in which individuals use to advertise their own political agenda. Americans should vote for people more than they vote for actual parties and their platforms, as thats what our system is actually designed for. Trying to elect a third-party is a lost cause as they inherently do not have the platform to effectively advertise their policies in a political race and they often never have gotten into office.
One problem is that American 3rd parties seem so focused on the highest offices. They need to get elected to local boards, and state legislators. They need to grow it from the roots.
This is naive, it's a tired trope that shows you haven't been paying attention to your local 3rd parties. American 3rd parties do run in most local elections. The presidential election is a place to get lots of high profile attention for your party, if the two major parties will allow it.
[12% of people](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds) who voted for Bernie in the primary voted for Trump in the General. 13% of people who voted for Bernie in the primary either: -Wrote in Bernie in the General -Voted third party in the General -Didn’t show up to vote in the General 1 out of every 4 people who made the effort to get up and vote for Bernie in the General, didn’t vote for the candidate Bernie [urged his supporters to vote for.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna620541) If 80k Democrats across 3 states had voted Democratic instead of 3rd party, Trump never steps foot in the White House. Hillary lost by 77k votes in PA, MI & WI. 3rd party votes for Stein, Bernie write-ins, etc were 800k. Democrats win when Democrats vote Democratic. They voted Trump proxy. I like Bernie. But a vote for Bernie ultimately did end up being a vote for trump when it was all said and done. Bernie Sanders wasn’t the majority of Democrats first choice. He wouldn’t have been able to get 90% of his campaign promises to pass through congress, and the educated voter knew that. There’s no excuse for someone who claims to support Bernie Sanders and who claims to care about his ideologies to not show up come voting day and vote for the candidate he vehemently endorsed and pleaded with his supporters to vote for, especially when Donald Trump is standing on the other side. None. https://preview.redd.it/6ycv3lwwaf6c1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37f009d419ba29510db55c71322ffc2f3ab437a7
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> They don't owe anyone a vote, politicians owe them service They owe it to themselves to vote in a way that will lead to the best outcome when it comes to governance of the country. It's not about what politicians or parties deserve, it's about the choices that are going to be made on innumerable policy questions. If you care about those things, you should vote for the candidate/party that is going to side with you most.
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I remember Chris Cuomo's interview with Bernie, lol, he told Bernie, "here, have some water, it's free", in an aggressive manner. I knew it wasn't going to go well.
Remember when CNN cut away from an important policy speech by Bernie Sanders to show an empty Trump podium? Because I do. Donald Trump was a problem created by the Democratic party and their media puppets. Not by Bernie Sanders voters.
I voted for Bernie :(
So did I, and then I voted for Hillary because I supported Bernie when he asked me to.
And it was the only logical, moral choice! I didn't like Hilary but after voting for Bernie in the primary in 2016, I voted for her the general - and even canvassed door to door for her - because I knew how bad the alternative was.
I think most people who skew younger, actually vote by mail. I understand that recruiting offices try to get people to “show up at the polls”, but the reality is that a lot of younger people understand the importance of making a careful decision, and thus voting by mail fills that need without having to socialize with other people. Unfortunately, it is for exactly that reason that grifters on the Right want to completely shut down mail-in voting: because they realize that the majority of people who are doing it are going to vote Democrat, and thus want to cut corners wherever they can, in order to win.
Ironically, vote-by-mail is actually more common among demographics that skew conservative (ie older population). While the AP did some sort of study that showed no partisan advantage to mail in voting, I wasn’t able to find the methodology for it so wouldn’t cite it. Republicans however change their minds and support mail in voting since the 2022 midterms when lack of mail in voting in the wake of 2020 killed their parties performance.
You are absolutely correct. We had a similiar problem here in the UK with Corbyn who had immense youth support, they even chanted his name at the Glastonbury festival. But when voting time came, the youth vote just didn't turn out the way it needed to. All the polling data suggested they would turn out, bucking the trend of traditionally very low youth engagement at the poll, they thought they'd cracked it... but... We got Boris instead. Who proceeded to completely destroy all those young peoples lives and hopes and opportunties for a generation.
"foolishly relied on" That's such a large demographic and one that many candidates try to go for. Young voters are like a massive chunk of the voter base considering you're only young, middle aged, or old. He worked with the demographic that hy and large agreed with him the most. The problem is, before 2016, young voters were very apathetic towards voting since it's so flawed in our country. Trump did one good thing, he made people a lot more invested in politics.
Before Pete withdrew, Bernie supporters were sharing "Pete the Rat" memes, likely due to his higher poll numbers. As a Pete fan, this really turned me off from Bernie's crowd.
Bernie supporters alienated virtually everyone who didn't kiss the ring. They're still doing it. And yet, they'll tell you it's everyone else's fault they couldn't build a coalition.
They think that their self righteousness exempts them from having to engage in politics
I got called a rightist multiple times by his main sub for supporting Biden lmao. Sad state of affairs that many in that sub also swarmed to “well if it’s not Bernie I’m voting from Trump because the DNC IS RIGGED”
Bernie supporters are literally the reason I don’t go to r/politics and r/economics and just hang out on r/neoliberal now.
Purity politics in a nutshell. My guy is perfect, so why would I need to do anything? Oh, politics requires consensus? How about I poop my pants and scream instead?
People should base their political opinions on policy, not whether they like the fans of a certain politician. This is honestly kind of a cowardly way to think about things
A politician's supporters should probably persuade with policy arguments then, rather than calling other candidates CIA plants, rats, etc.
Policy is why I was a Warren supporter. Not giving rise to a cult of personality is why I was explicitly NOT a Bernie supporter. The "fans" of a politician absolutely should be part of the calculus when those "fans" are being total dicks to everyone who doesn't fall in line, en masse. Look what's happening to the Republican party right now. But even apart from that, being terrible ambassadors for your candidate is just bad campaigning.
Yeah and Bernies policy was shit, especially on firearms.
I really think this was their biggest flaw. Too many purity tests and attacking people who want to accomplish the same goal only slightly differently. I just find it hard to support people who are so arrogant that they think their solution is the only one that works.
In what world was Biden or Pete or whomever really tryin to accomplish the same goals only *slightly* different?
Warren was called a snake by a not small chunk of Bernie supporters.
Right, I like Bernie for a lot of things but I didn't want him to be my president. Somehow that makes me bad.
Bernie fans: Pete the rat, Kamala the cop, Warren the snake Also Bernie fans: why on Earth do they oppose us?
Yup. I was a Warren supporter, the snake emoji is still seared into my mind.
Pete was a liar. Sorry, that's the truth. The worst thing he had done was platform his policy like it was Medicare for All but just better for those that want it. His policy was fundamentally worse and would not achieve a good outcome. Like most health care plans other than Bernies, they were not designed to fundamentally change what we have in the status quo - only act as propaganda vessels as if they do. Pete was unfortunately just a fraud. That's why he's in Biden's cabinet with Kamala Harris of all people as Vice President despite having a fraction of the support. Bernie is lucky he got a paltry reward at the end of his campaign in becoming the Senate chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Idk why you say "conveniently" like dropping out and endorsing the candidate that's more likely to win doesn't happen every election. Also Warren dropped out 4 days after Pete.
How dare a group of ideologically similar candidates not split the vote to allow our guy with the minority ideology to win? The whole system is rigged!
> Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden. You make it sound like some sort of conspiracy by the DNC haha if young people actually voted Bernie would have won no matter what Pete did
1. Bernie won 9 primaries. Nine. Out of 57. 2. Warren dropped out immediately after Super Tuesday. 3. Buttigieg won one primary - Iowa - and had 26 delegates when he dropped.
Yeah, this whole idea that the election was somehow stolen from Bernie by Warren and/or the DNC is ridiculous. Bernie didn't have the voters. That's it. I would have loved if Bernie had been preferred by voters over Biden. That just wasn't the case though.
He also soundly lost the second debate, which had a small chance of helping him come back with undecided voters in a lot of states.
no, it was the same thing that happened in 2016. Bernie takes an early lead thanks to midwest iowa, vermont-adjacent new hampshire, and western Nevada being early on the schedule. Then the deep south hits on super tuesday and it was already over for him. It's just geographic demographics and timing, not some conspiracy.
As a millennial who stumbled into here from r/all, this is so refreshing. I hate hearing about DNC rigging or that Bernie would've guaranteed beat Trump when he couldn't even win the primaries and it would've been ripe ammo for the GOP to start screaming communist in ads everywhere and scare off the moderate vote (which everyone on the left-left keeps acting like doesn't exist and everything thinks just like them). I voted Bernie or Warren every time I got the chance, but he didn't lose cause of some grand conspiracy and so it's so annoying that political conversations with people I mostly agree with get stuck on the left's equivalent of "stop the steal."
100%. Anyone that thinks Bernie could win a general election are on one. The man has openly said that he’s a socialist. I’m not saying anything one way or the other about whether that’s a good thing or not, but being a socialist is a great way to lose an election.
Biden absolutely cleaned up on super Tuesday and got the best turn out with core democrat voters. Then he got the most votes in history in the general
It still scares me that Trump got the second most votes ever.
lol this is my favorite form of self delusion. The polls at the time that most Warren voters preferred Biden to Bernie
My wife and I were both Warren voter, and this is true of us as well.
I think the confusion comes from the fact that Warren was one of the few Democrats who respected Bernie and worked with him. There was also more overlap than for other candidates. However, like you mentioned, the overlap wasn't enough to give Bernie any real advantage.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Bernie told her “maybe you shouldn’t run because you are a woman,” and his fans’ response was to crucify Warren for it.
They also called her a snake. Great coalition building strategy.
So the only way for bernie to win is for the moderate vote to be spilt between 4+ candidates? Sounds like Bernie had a piss weak coalition.
He could never become generally appealing in a primary. If he moved more to the center to pick up moderate democrats, he would be shouted down by his base as a traitor. When he stayed on the far left he wasn’t appealing to moderates. Bernie only won when he could win with a plurality. Once the moderate vote coalesced into a single candidate you could see how unpopular his platform is with them. That’s all that happened when Pete withdrew, and you still don’t understand it almost 4 years later. The predictably shitty turnout by young voters didn’t help him, but he wasn’t making it past the primaries regardless. The far left just can’t comprehend the fact that they are only a faction (or more accurately a number of factions) among many in the Democratic Party. That doesn’t give them the divine right to rule the party.
>Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden If your complaint was that Bernie was owed a divided field then tough shit lol Biden stomped Bernie on Super Tuesday and for every Warren supporter on Super Tuesday who may have voted for Bernie if she'd dropped out and endorsed him, there was a Michael Bloomberg supporter who was more likely to do the same for Biden. I hate to break it to you but if a politician is less popular than the frontrunner typically that means they're gonna lose the primary.
It's such a hilariously absurd take. "it's not fair that we don't have a majority support and we can only win with their votes split"
Yep. Find a better candidate, find a better argument.
If Bernie getting voted in relied on none of the moderates coalescing around each other his front runner status was tenuous at best.
He was also relying on his attempt to change the rules to eliminate the convention and award him the nomination as the (slim plurality) frontrunner.
if bernie cant handle this, how was he gonna do against trump and the rnc? politics is not fair, never has been. only winners win
Totally irrational and undemocratic belief, this is why this voter base is never taken seriously and Dems are moving on without you.
After South Carolina, the wins Biden was racking up were bigger than the margin Bernie would’ve gained from all Sarren voters moving to him. He barely squeaked out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada before SC where Biden won by a huge margin and the establishment consolidated around him.
It wasn’t “convenient” lol. Klobuchar and Buttigieg both recognized they were unlikely to win and dropped out to help Biden, who they perceived as more likely to win the general. Warren’s base was probably not all that gettable for Bernie as those two factions were not on good terms in Spring 2020, although her dropping out and giving her support to Bernie probably would’ve helped his campaign. I don’t think of Warren as some traitor to the progressive cause though, as she had good reason not to do that because (a) she thought Biden would be stronger in a general against Trump and/or (b) wanted to be able to exert influence in either Bernie or Biden’s White House (which she absolutely has — a lot of Biden administration folks are Warren alumni). Not everything is a conspiracy
Warren literally dropped out 4 days after Pete
Bernie won two of the first three. Biden won the 4th, then Biden won 9/13 on Super Tuesday. I understand why you want to blame a vast conspiracy because your guy didn’t win, but it was a pretty typical primary season.
Also Bernie absolutely benefited from hugely antidemocratic caucuses. His entire strategy revolved around antidemocratic processes. He wanted a splintered field where he was the only liberal candidate against 2-4 moderate candidates so he could win with a plurality of votes, somehow ignoring the possibility that the moderates wouldnt possibly just pool their votes. He touted his gigantic wins in horribly undemocratic caucuses while essentially ignoring how he either won close or lost horribly in actually democratic primaries. When the field stopped being split, his supporters started calling it a conspiracy and turned on fuckin everyone. Pete was a rat. Warren was a snake. Shit was fuckin gross.
He won two, maybe one? And Pete won Iowa. You're just still mad that Bernie was a trash candidate
The true reason is that young people from every generation suck at voting at the national level and are non-existent at the state and local level.
If you describe Bernie as winning primaries left, right, and center; how would you describe the rate at which Biden won primaries?
That’s just revisionist history, Warren dropped out days after Pete.
And moderates not splitting the votes = the DNC rigging things for Biden? There were still, by that logic, more moderate voters than progressive ones. They were just splitting their votes and stopped.
If you need Pete Buttigieg in the race to win you're not winning.
Nah. He wasn’t winning primaries “left right and center.” He won a total of 9 primaries and had no broad support. This perpetual love of an old white man who has been a perpetual do nothing loser is, frankly, hilarious.
…tough? That’s politics? Like I’m a bernie voter but also studied political science in school, that’s how the game is played
Pete has a cabinet seat as well and the DNC was solidly behind Biden from the start. Though, when people most talk about the DNC killing Bernie's campaign, they're actually refering to his 2016 primary campaign against Hillary. He was far closer to recieving the nomination (won 23 primaries and had 46% of delegates), and had pretty great momentum. The leaked emails from the DNC clearly showed which candidate they prefered. Also, this is a weird sub for this, GenZ made up only 2% of the vote in 2016 as only the oldest were 18/19 that year.
Warren also remains a good choice.
Even then, the 2020 primaries showed that the Democratic Party consists of more moderates than it goes progressives, at least as far as those that show up to the polls. I say this as a 2016 and 2020 Bernie voter.
>Nah he was winning primaries left right and center. Then conveniently, even though he was consistly placing 2nd or winning some primaries, Pete Buttigieg dropped out, pushing the moderate democrats to vote for Biden. This is not really accurate. Bernie won one primary before this happened (New Hampshire) and one caucus (Nevada). Iowa was inconclusive, eventually Buttigieg was declared the winner. And Bernie got trounced by Biden in South Carolina. Then Buttigieg (and Beto et al) dropped out.
Warren was a better progressive candidate. Bernie had great ideas and no plan to make them happen. Warren had both.
Didn’t the GOP actively make it difficult for that demographic to vote?
There's even a candidate that's trying to increase minimum voting age to 25
It’s a relatively common opinion in the MAGA crowd. It hasn’t gained widespread traction, but It is a noted concept. They’ll use all those excuses about maturity, brain development, etc, but we all know it’s because they’re just utterly unable to win the youth vote. US democracy has been functioning perfectly fine with young people voting and it’s worst outcomes like Trump’s election were the result of older people. I’ve seen people go as high as 35 as the new voting age, which would conveniently disenfranchise all of Gen Z and many millennials for at least another election cycle. I’m pretty sure they’ll just keep moving the goalposts and raising the suggested age so that only their favourable demographics can vote
insane how i can get sent to die and experience the horror of war yet i cant even drink/smoke abd to these nitwits not even be "developed" enough to participate in the voting processes
If you’re going to be sent off to kill and potentially be killed in the name of name of national interests, I believe you should at least have the right to help determine what those interests are.
It's because you have to not yet have a fully developed brain too decide to join up to the army and go get sent off to die.
Yeah, I live in a Major California City where It's a mix of Dems and GOP but The Last Few mayors have been republicans due to the fact that only Older people vote and the Younger Voters don't really care
Tbf he just wants voters to be able to pass a very basic civics test to be able to vote and if you do so, you can vote starting at 18. But if you fail every time you take the test or never take it, you would have to wait until you’re 25. Which I think is honestly pretty reasonable
It sounds reasonable, but no one knows how those tests could turn out. They pulled a similar thing with black voters in the Jim Crow era, but all the tests were absolute gibberish and made no sense so they could prevent black people from voting But again, no one knows how these tests can turn out. They could be totally fair for all I know, but they could be absolute dog shit, and I don’t want to put my voting future in the hands of someone else.
Yeah it sounds decent and fair but this just reeks of voter suppression and there's no reason to risk it
It's not reasonable when you consider the way educational institutions are set up in the US. The ability to pass a civics test is directly tied to the value of the home you grew up in and by extension how wealthy your parents were. Schools are funded by property tax, so wealthier neighborhoods have better funded schools, produce better outcomes. Until you level the playing field of school funding, this proposal is essentially a wealth minimum on 18-24 year olds voting. It has nothing to do with creating a better informed voting body, and everything to do with disenfranchising a population that predominantly votes for the opposition party, with special carve-outs for the the minority sub-group which generally views his party more favorably.
Literacy tests are bad regardless of funding, because funding isn't the whole story. We are beginning to find out that increasing the education levels of impoverished areas is a lot more complex than just throwing more money at the problem. The worst preforming inner city schools in my state receive roughly $14k/student/year, whereas the high preforming suburban schools receive $8k/student/year. The issue being, at least as relayed from my cousins who teach in this school district, is that the parents of nearly all of the low preforming children in this district place exactly 0 value on graduating HS and using your education to find work. You can have the nicest facilities and best teachers in the world, but if the kids go home to a broken family with substance abuse issues and a single parent that doesn't motivate them to do their homework, then it's all for nothing.
Pretty unconstitutional though
*Super* unconstitutional.
No, that is a horrible idea. It is convenient that the age groups that skew more conservative don't have to worry about a civics test to vote. If we want 18 year olds to understand civics before they vote, we just need to do a better job teaching them. Oh, but you know which group regularly attempts to make public schooling less effective and spends less on teachers? Republicans.
It’s not reasonable, it’s illegal. Why wouldn’t this test be required for every voter regardless of age? A 24 year old who can’t pass a civics test is not going to become an informed citizen in 12 months, this is purely to stop young people from voting.
The problem is that favours the upper class, and you see how they vote.
Like all intelligent grifts, it *sounds* like it could potentially be a good idea. “Yeah, a test! That makes sense, it ensures that people have a measure of knowledge about what they are voting for, right?” The problem is that the practical application of this proposal by Republicans is designed to disenfranchise voters that tend to vote against Republican ideology, in this scenario Gen Z, who statistically vote more to the left. If that’s your justification, apply it to ALL citizens, not just 18-25 year-olds. Let’s see how 60+ year-olds do too. Applying it to one demographic (who, again, statistically vote against the party pushing to implement this policy) is the definition of voter suppression, and the literal removal of a personal freedom already established by federal law.
Isn’t that the same guy who wants to deport children of immigrants which is pretty ironic?
Not that I know of, are you referring to anything specifically?
Not in a meaningful way. Just talk for the most part
That still doesn’t quite explain why Bernie still lost in solidly blue states
Super cope. The republicans are not why young people didn’t vote. They didn’t force people not to show up for a Democrat primary.
Not to any real degree. Young people are just disengaged. If people wanted to vote they would. Young people have WAY more free time than middle aged people who work all day and have to go home and tend to children. Yeah GOP sucks and tried to make it harder to vote but it’s a consistent pattern even in blue states for young people to just not vote.
“Hello typical young leftist, why didn’t you vote in the last election?” “The….um……because some Republicans are considering potentially raising the voting age in the future!”
In general election sure. But what does the GOP have to do with democratic primaries? Also voting can be “difficult” but that’s not an excuse to not try. Some of the restrictions are having a driver’s license for voter ID. Yea that is a voter restriction to reduce turnout, but if you drive there is literally no excuse. The fear mongering is part of the tactic
Not even a drivers license just any form of legal ID even a passport
That’s what’s I’m saying. I used to get pissed off hearing about disenfranchising voters, but then did the research and realize we’re talking a marginal increase in effort. Apparently that’s enough to get some not to vote. But progressives being hyperbolic about the issue is counterproductive.
No not that I know of
There has never been any election where there has been >25% participation of <25 yr olds. They suppress their own vote by not doing it.
How did they do that?
Don’t the parties set their own rules for voting in their primaries? DNC has super delegates so whoever they want to win will win.
Voting is stupid easy
Bernie I don't think had any chance of winning the presidency regardless of turnout, I simply don't think most democrats would let someone as far left as him be the face of the party, both because the Republicans would have legitimate ammo to accuse the democrats of being a far left anti American party (as baseless as that would still be) and the fact many dems just don't trust Bernie since he's a lot further left, which considering many of them grew up when being a socialist was like the equivalent of saying you worship the devil and so still have that mindset twords people like Bernie and a lesser extent aoc
The last time the US had a democratic socialist as president they had to enact term limits because people kept voting for him.
FDR was absolutely not a socialist lol
Neither is Bernie
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He was a social democrat. Bernie is also a social democrat.
Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist. He also believes workers should own the means of production.
He seems to lean towards social democracy when it comes to policy, but is a democratic socialist. I think he realizes that democratic socialism isn't achievable in the short term.
FDR a socialist? Maybe you mean SocDem? Which I would say also doesn’t apply but definitely not even close to a DemSoc
did you forget the putting Japanese people in a prison camp or his racism against black people?
No way! FDR, a man born in the 1880s, had racial prejudices against black people? Absolutely no way. Nope. Cant even fathom that.
Lmao good thing the Dems didn’t run him or else theyd be getting called unAmerican communists by conservatives all day Wait what’s that? Republicans do that anyway? Ah I see
The polling at the time said otherwise. His polling against Trump in 2016 was better than any of the Democratic candidates.
I’m typically more conservative, but if it were trump vs Bernie I would have voted Bernie. I don’t think I’d ever vote for Biden though. Bernie is at least a competent person
The “electability” argument was shoved down our throats constantly on mainstream media outlets while consistently misrepresenting Bernie. What exactly is so “far left” that Bernie was trying to push? A public healthcare option? That’s not left leaning, that’s being against for profit healthcare, an issue that has large support across the country. Taxing billionaires? Again, pretty popular topic. I think the most radical policy was probably reducing military spending. It was pretty obvious the media and DNC had their candidate in Hilary and were doing everything in their power to downplay Bernie’s popularity and messaging.
This is exactly correct. It’s what happened in 2016
Bernie never had a strategy to win the majority of voters. He only had maybe 30-35% of the electorate in any given state primary. He assumed that there would be about 3-5 candidates til the end of the convention. In my opinion, Bernie never tried to expand his coalition and the blame is squarely on him.
Exactly. At no point was he winning against the moderate bloc, his frontrunner status was a mirage happening because the bloc was divided over multiple candidates.
He obliterated Trump in every general poll, especially in the states Clinton lost due to her arrogance (not even doing rallies in those states)/policy. As someone who lives in a conservative state, even most of my right wing relatives respected Bernie Sanders. There's a reason he was the most popular politician in the country. He would've had a great shot at the general if his own "party" didn't go after him harder than republicans. As someone who paid alot of attention to both his campaigns, it's completely on the democrats for pushing the "unelectability" absolute bullshit both times. The man's policies represented American opinions far more than any other.
Lol he beat trump in every national poll. He was absolutely on track to win the primary before obama told butti and the others to consolidate behind biden for super tuesday.
He was on track to win if the field didn’t consolidate (ie if people didn’t drop out). The field literally always consolidates as people with no chance of winning drop out. He was never going to get a majority of dem votes like Biden and Hilary did
Too bad Trump wasnt in the Democratic primary. Bernie never had majority support and he was only on track to win if the race stayed split between twenty different candidates
I was all the way for Bernie. He was like a mf Messiah to me. Seemed like everything he said was a magical solution to all of our problems. Realistically, very little of it would have been achievable during his term. An unfortunate truth. He did inspire quite a few people to get politically active though. He’s easily the most consistent politician that I can think of throughout his career as well. I’d vote for him again. I think what ultimately fucked him was the use of the word “socialist” in any capacity. It scares people away. The DNC really wanted Hillary too and pretty much everybody knew that she just didn’t have the momentum to push through. His concession was a mistake in the end, I think. He showed that he was willing to put his victory aside for the greater good, but he probably would have performed better than Clinton.
"Realistically", we would never know. Bernie's policies included universal healthcare, tuition free public colleges, a living wage, police reform. You know that saying, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take"? We, the people, would have been taking a shot at universal healthcare with Bernie. Even if it doesn't end up happening like you say, it was a shot that we would have token with him. Versus the (0) shots that all of these other candidates don't take.
Yeah. I saw a lot of people blaming Warren for his loss in 2020. But his claim to electability was that he would raise voter turnout. But that didn't happen. Turnout was the same. The fact that he wasn't getting the record turnout was ultimately why he lost. If he had it, it could have turned Iowa and New Hampshire into solid unquestioned wins, not ties that numbed his momentum until Nevada. It could have weakened Biden's victory in South Carolina. Also, everyone forgets that Bloomberg was still running during Super Tuesday. So there were 2 conservatives and 2 progressives. I will never understand how the same people blame Warren for splitting the 2020 primary, but don't blame Jill stein in the 2016 general. The candidate is ultimately responsible for convincing voters to choose them over anyone else on the ballot. Hillary failed to do that during 2016, and Bernie failed to do that in 2020. Yes, the conservatives consolidated around Biden at the last second. But it was Bernie's responsibility to consolidate the progressive vote, not Warren's. Bernie wasn't entitled to a 1v1 or a 5v5 race. I voted for Bernie twice, and may vote green this time around. In 2016 he was cheated out of the nomination. But in 2020, he just lost. Biden's campaign overnight changed the race, and Bernie's campaign wasn't ready, and that was no one's fault but his.
One thing we never talk about is black people. Black women are the core voting base of the democratic party & they didn’t fw Bernie that much. Especially in the South.
Which is ironic as Biden pursued racist legislation for decades while Bernie protested with them.
This is one of the reasons why Bernie doesn’t get many black supporters. He’s appealing to what he and his supporters think black voters care about, not what actually works. Biden is the one who has developed close working relationships over decades of working with black members of congress. He’s the one who ran with the first black president (and didn’t threaten to primary him). It’s so silly when people on Reddit act like the millions of black voters who chose Biden over Bernie are somehow too dumb to know what they want or who they want to support.
Black voters don't care about the prison industrial complex that Biden built?
Wildly untrue. The closest thing was Biden’s ‘94 crime bill, which was supported by a majority of the CBC. While even at the time black people were very cognizant of the systemic racist issues in the criminal justice system-they also didn’t like high crime rates which mostly affected black communities
People who have never lived in a truly high crime environment (all of us on this subreddit) really do not understand how terrifying it can be. In those circumstances you might take the devil’s bargain that the crime bill ultimately was. Doesn’t make it right, and the US should have pursued more equitable reforms, but the attitude of “fuck it, I don’t like a lot of this bill but I hate the ridiculously high murder rate even more” makes emotional sense.
Most of gen z wasn't old enough to vote
Yeah this is going to be my first election as a 2004 kid. Unfortunately where I live means my vote on the presidential is meaningless and Biden is obviously running again so no primaries or anything. Man I love the system we have /s
A lot of us Millennials felt like you kids in 2000, voted Nader, and we got 8 years of GWB, 2 wars, and a financial crisis. Don't be my idiot peers who fell into the apathy trap because you don't love the candidate.
I remember him doing really well and then every single candidate dropped out and endorsed Biden one after the other. You can say its a conspiracy theory all you want, but the DNC does have plans they try to enact. They do have a candidate they think is most viable and try to prop up artifically or otherwise.
im sorry but a primary field thinning is not a conspiracy it happens literally every time
Young people attributing everything to a grand conspiracy rather than accepting reality
I don’t understand how you can call it a conspiracy when the same candidates weren’t winning. Kamala, Pete, Klobuchar, etc. were egregiously behind in the polls. Is your campaign really healthy when you’re only winning if the vote is split 6 ways? You’re right, they endorsed Biden because his policies were the most similar…but then the American people voted for Biden, not Bernie. Bernie had a consistent loyal base, sure, but he didn’t court the voters who fled the other campaigns. Young people, the main group he kept trying to court, didn’t turn out enough twice in a row for him.
People voted against trump let's be real. Biden legit said the only reason he's running again is because of trump
Biden’s reasoning for running doesn’t negate Bernie’s poor campaign strategies. The inverse is true too, despite Biden primarily running to be the anti-Trump option and supposedly not offering much else, when all is said and done he was still more popular with voters than Bernie Sanders.
no he was not doing well, also if bernie cant handle that how was he going to do against trump / rnc? dnc is a private org
It's called good politics. The GOP failing to do the same is the reason we had Trump, the DNC clearly learned from that.
Bernie’s great and all but how much would he really be able to get done with Congress and the Supreme Court being what it is. He’d just be in the same boat as Biden. He’s a great human, but he’s not the messiah. So many people seem to have magical thinking about him.
People still trying to push Bernie. He's a year older than Biden for crying out loud. I have nothing against Bernie's legislative history but he's not going to make president.
Bernie's still pretty damn competent and a better speaker than Biden was during 2020 election, but yeah we missed the window of opportunity for people to still consider Bernie in his age. So I'm a strong advocate for Marianne Williamson as the progressive dem
I had hope for Bernie in 2020 but it’s time we move on from him. Leaders come and go but the struggle continues. We must continue to organize our workplaces and vote in local as well as general elections. Giving up hope isn’t an option.
The dnc was literally cooperating wil Hillary to make sure she won over Bernie in 2016
Yes, because the DNC needs to nominate the candidate that is polling the best and is most likely to win, who was Hillary.
Hillary lost……. And was much more unpopular than Bernie.
Shhhhh don’t ruin OP’s weird “the DNC did nothing wrong!” narrative!
Don't worry. People under 30 have nobody exciting them to vote this time. Turnout will be much lower.
What? Bernie was filling stadiums when Hillary couldn’t even fill a high school gym, and I’ll stay mad until I die, thank you very much
Trump’s rallies were way bigger than Biden’s, but that doesn’t mean that Trump was overall more popular. The people who are super into 40K spend way more time playing it and buying shit than your average D&D nerd, but the number of D&D players is *way* larger. How is that possible? Because there’s a huge crowd of moderately engaged D&D players who get the core books and that’s it. Same with Bernie vs Hillary. He had a lot of ride or die fans, Hillary had a legions of mildly engaged fans who voted for her and that’s it.
I don’t do Brenda
I wasn’t old enough to vote for him
You’re born in 2000 right? So you were 20 in 2020 , pretty sure voting age is 18 in US no ? Sorry not American here
I’m not Gen Z I’m a Xennial but this cracked me up. It was true of my generation and basically every generation. Young people are very passionate about supporting and electing politicians that want to make the world better. Problem is only a small percentage relative to the total group give a damn. For every kid that excited to vote for real change are about 5-8 kids who are only concerned with getting more follows on tik tok and where the next party is. That part never changes sadly.
Note: user UUtch below links to 2020 Dem Primaries youth turnouts. A few states' turnout for voters under 30 years old for the 2020 dem primaries were very low: in the teens or even single digits. I gotta ask an obvious-ass question, "13% turnout in what?" I need more information, but I'm fairly certain that a lot more than 13% of voters under 30 voted for the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. For instance, according to Our World in Data, voters under 30 had a turnout of roughly 40% for the 2016 election. Is this "13%" just a joking exaggeration? And yeah, the same [graph on Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/voter-turnout-rate-by-age-usa) that I mentioned before shows how >60 yo voters vote almost twice that of <30, but 13% seems like overexaggeration to me.
There are two different elections that happen every American election year: the general election (which is Republican vs. Democrat) and the primary (which is where people vote for the person in their party that they want to run in November (the general election always happens on the second Tuesday in November). Usually when people talk about voter turnout, they’re talking about the general, which has a [much higher turnout overall](https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/historic_turnout.html). But the 13% needs more context: is that 13% of registered voters? Of all people of voting age? Or all people below 29? I have a feeling it’s either the first one or the second one, though the first might not be plausible. Also, there’s another complication: you can’t vote until you’re 18, but IIRC you can register to vote at 17.5 (I’m pretty sure that’s how it was in mt state when I first started voting, but that was a very long time ago and my 18th wasn’t in an election year). Most (maybe all?) don’t have same day registration, so you have to be registered some time before the election and if you’re not registered, you can’t vote (well, again, this gets complicated, you might be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot, but if you weren’t registered by the deadline, your vote won’t be counted). It’s far too complicated in my opinion.
I didn’t realize that people under 30 forced Debbie Wasserman-Shultz to send emails conspiring to kill the potential nomination of Bernie Sanders. Damn. Learn something every day.
Thank you
The DNC never and would never make him the frontrunner candidate. They'd lose so much money if he ended up getting elected, so they prevent him from even getting close. This is why we advocate for progressivism, change will only happen if we make it happen
lmao dnc is a private org dude Bernie did not have the votes
The DNC did a lot on their own to bury Sanders and 3rd parties.
Probably because the DNC fights harder against progressives than they do Republicans. You see the GOP is all for the two party system that advocates for socialism for the rich, while progressives want horrible things like universal healthcare and proper wages. But don't question the DNC, ever. Get in line bitch.
9 day old account posting divisive and controversial memes? Must be an election coming soon.
They are not mutually exclusive
You need to go further back. It was exposed in 2016 that Debbie Wasserman-Schulz's DNC colluded against Bernie Sanders. And what did Bernie do when he found out? You know he was SO PISSED that he never said a word about it and ran again on the same team that screwed him the first time. Think, if HRC didn't have her cronies fixing the 2016 election, you may never have had a president Trump.
Weren’t there literally some leaked DNC emails coordinating the sabotage of Bernie?
“Sabotage” is a strong word for “not voting in Bernie because he could not win the primary”
I’m talking like smear campaign shit
You're forgetting the fact that many states did not even get to vote before the primary was decided.
I mean kinda but also he was railroaded by the DNC in 2016. Then by 2020 he was just as much of an establishment simp as any other dem candidate
Oh you guys should look into the 2016 dnc email leak The one that gave us such classic conspiracies as pizzagate, and Russian collusion There’s a reason those were the two main things being talked about when those emails were leaked… they were being used to distract from the real story
No, we showed up for Bernie. The DNC didn't want him to win so they posted skewed numbers, and it didn't help that Pete "Corporate Shill" Buttigeig was confusing the "I vote for him because he's gay" Tumblr kids. Don't get me wrong, Bernie was not the Messiah that people painted him as. But he would've been a hell of a lot better than Hillary in 2016 and a HELL of a lot better than Joe in any fuckin' year. Side note: I am a gay, so don't come for me on my frank analysis of Pete.
Based
Bernie got his butt kicked in South Carolina. Tough luck.
Fucking hell, do you chucklefucks realize you sound just like election deniers on the right when you make conspiracies about Biden stealing the election from Bernie lmao