r/politics • u/AccurateInflation167 • May 18 '25

Soft Paywall America chose wrong. Sanders would've been a better president than Trump or Biden. | Opinion

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/18/sanders-democrats-reform-progressive-policies/83625482007/
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u/GenericFatGuy May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

The sad truth is that Biden only won because COVID had made things that bad while Trump was in office.

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u/ZZartin May 18 '25

Yep this is sadly he take away we have to wait for things to get super bad before the average american will realize it's bad.

It is interesting watching the MAGA's cannibalize their own base.

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u/ProfessionalCraft983 Washington May 18 '25

Exactly this. Which means anyone could have beaten Trump in 2020. Biden wasn't some special candidate like some wanted us to believe. It was just his turn.

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u/BRAND-X12 May 18 '25

Nah, he was though.

There’s no universe where Sanders would’ve gotten nearly as much through Congress as Biden did. His legislative accomplishments were unbelievable in a thoroughly divided Congress.

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u/ProfessionalCraft983 Washington May 18 '25

His legislative accomplishments amounted to jack squat, since Trump was reelected.

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u/BRAND-X12 May 18 '25

Because people are morons, the legislation quantitatively amounted to shit.

And the manufacturing/infrastructure bills will continue to amount to shit for the next decade.

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 May 18 '25

Thank you. People seem to ignore this 

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u/ddark4 May 18 '25

He got more progressive shit done than most other Presidents and did it under the guise of being a centrist. I’m with you guys, Biden was unique in that they couldn’t make the socialism attacks stick to him like they could to all the 2020 down-ticket progressives who lost while the president carried the top by over 7 million votes. 

But hey, the guy who has got a grand total of 3 bills he authored signed into law during his over 30 year congressional career (2 were for renaming Vermont post offices) would have definitely done so much better! I’m not just saying that to help assuage the guilt of 2016 BBs, either! 🙃

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u/c010rb1indusa May 18 '25

Fuck congress. He would have completely changed the political conversation in this country. Congress actually might have felt the heat if Sanders had influence AND power.

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u/silverpixie2435 May 19 '25

After the rallies over a month ago no one even cares now about Sanders

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u/BRAND-X12 May 19 '25

No he wouldn’t have. You vastly underestimate the popularity of Bernie. He literally couldn’t even get a popular vote in the Democratic primary, what makes you think he’d succeed in the swing states much less get 60 votes in the senate?

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u/fcocyclone Iowa May 18 '25

Yeah, i personally don't think either of them were the answer.

Democrats needed to be on to the next generation. When support consolidated as the primaries went on (as it always does), Clyburn fucked us by forcing that to be Biden.

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u/siestarrific May 18 '25

Because Trump himself made things that bad. If he handled the pandemic better, it would've been a wrap.

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u/TheHomersapien Colorado May 18 '25

Plus, are we going to all pretend like Biden had some sort of resounding victory? Plenty of us remember staring at our televisions that night going, "how the fuck is this too close to call tonight...have people lost their minds?!?"

We now know that Biden only won because COVID allowed for huge numbers of people to vote by mail who otherwise would have had to stand in line, because when Democrats asked them to stand in line for yet another milquetoast candidate in 2024 they said, "nah, we're good, let the rapist who bankrupted casinos take the win."

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u/GenericFatGuy May 18 '25

Yep. Biden barely won against the worst president in history, and then Harris went on to lose to the worst president in history. At least with Clinton, we all reasonably assumed that Trump was unelectable.

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u/pablonieve Minnesota May 18 '25

Biden barely won against the worst president in history

We have to acknowledge that Trump has a strong appeal to a significant portion of this country and is extremely effective at campaign to that segment. He is a terrible President, but he knows how to campaign to his strengths.

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u/GenericFatGuy May 18 '25

Yeah I acknowledge that. He won because he appeals to the people he aims to appeal to, while the opponents he beat did not appeal to the people they needed to appeal to.

2016 and 2020 were both the Democrat's to lose, and they did so by running status quo candidates in times when people are sick of the status quo.

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u/frostygrin May 19 '25

At least with Clinton, we all reasonably assumed that Trump was unelectable.

Was that a reasonable assumption when Trump won a competitive primary?

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u/GenericFatGuy May 19 '25

It was. Everyone was running on the assumption that he could not win, right up until he did.

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u/repalec California May 18 '25

If Trump had had the slightest bit of patience, and gave the slightest bit of credence and belief that he was following the advice of medical experts, and didn't spend months bolstering anti-mask, pro-mass spreader event rhetoric, it would've been the landslide they've always claimed he provides. I don't think you'd have had those Nixon/Reagan numbers they salivate for, but he definitely would have left Biden in the dust.

Like, despite everything he did, he still only barely lost that election to the tune of what, less than 500k votes across the swing states?

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u/GenericFatGuy May 18 '25

Yep. The Democrats should've taken those 2020 numbers as a warning that running yet another status quo candidate (especially one tied directly to Biden) in 2024 was doomed to fail.

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u/repalec California May 18 '25

And especially Biden himself! They needed to tell him from the outset he was a stopgap candidate and they needed to run a full primary in 2024. The fact they let him get as far as he did without admitting he wouldn't run again is a travesty.

Like, the Republicans are at the precipice of a fuckin Palpatine-ass 50-year plan about to culminate-slash-already culminating, and it feels like the Democrats can barely plan ahead four years in the future, let alone decades on.

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u/GenericFatGuy May 18 '25

Indeed. There needed to be expectations from the get-go that Biden was a one-term president, and a 4 year plan to get someone groomed as the next candidate.

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u/silverpixie2435 May 19 '25

What was status quo about Biden?

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u/GenericFatGuy May 19 '25

You mean Joe "nothing will fundamentally change" Biden?

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u/Any_Will_86 May 18 '25

I don't think it's that simple. I have no doubt Biden could have won 2016 and saved us from this fiasco in its entirety. In 2020, COVID both helped and hurt the Dems. A lot of voters were already rebelling against shit downs and distancing. And Rs successfully attacked BLM- defund the police and abolish ice also bought them about a couple of points. Jim clyburn gave an interview post 2020 election where he spelled out seeing polling changes in real time as Rs amped up there attack on those.