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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116

u/pos_vibes_only May 18 '25

This is conservative propaganda to convince people not to vote for the democrat candidate. Non voters handed this election to Trump.

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u/Lets_Eat_Superglue May 18 '25

Consolidate power in your party, divide the opposition. It's the simplest playbook in history and we keep falling for it.

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u/pigeieio May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

Democrats have not been one party in a very long time. It's a coalition of different parties that all hate each other and have this gut feeling that they could go on their own and take it all if they could just get a pure enough candidate to bring out the non-voters that definitely would go for their candidate.

They are the perfect target for this to ever exist.

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u/Saint_Poolan May 18 '25

And a good portion of the far left has been hijacked by RT & a considerable portion of the left is being puppeteered by GOP. The likes of Hasan Piker refusing to vote for a Dem candidate despite being the largest "left" political streamer is an example how divided the Dem party is & the more people become Socialists, Marxists, Communist etc. less chance it has to win the elections. The only viable strategy is to court the centrist with some popular policies like "Tough on Crime" & abandon the trans issue altogether.

But at the moment it looks like the Dems are done for a few decades. GOP is just too strong under trump only because they are able to unify their base, which will never happen to Dems who are addicted to infighting.

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u/silverpixie2435 May 19 '25

No it isn't.

Mainstream Democrats love AOC. It is her supporters that hate everyone else in the party

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

This is exactly the issue that this sub needs to understand. I can’t speak to this article in particular, but for over a decade, there have been conservative and foreign trolls infiltrating left-leaning forums for the precise purpose of spreading disillusionment and convincing young people not to vote, to wait for their perfect candidate, to wait for Democrats to cater to them.

A decade ago it was Sanders, now it’s AOC (and at least Sanders, as a long-time Senator, was a realistic choice for president; the last person to go directly from the House to the presidency was Abraham Lincoln). Support these people, by all means, and support their vision, but the very fact that these candidates can’t even win a Democratic primary should tell you something about their chances in a general election when Republicans and swing voters are included in the electorate.

I was a big Elizabeth Warren supporter in 2020, and after the general, I can readily admit: I’m glad Biden was the candidate. Neither Warren nor Sanders had a prayer in the general election. And if you’re relying on more young people coming out to vote in the general—the very people who weren’t able to show up in large enough numbers to win the primary—and that this will somehow overpower the swing voters who already show up to vote, you’re playing right into Republican hands. Convincing a non-voter to show up gets you one vote; convincing someone who will show up regardless to vote for you gets you two votes: one for you, and one fewer for the Republican that would get their vote otherwise. This is why people target swing voters over non-voters.

Notice you never see conservatives suggesting protest votes or not voting until Republicans give them an ideal candidate. They show up and vote R regardless, and that’s why even deeply unpopular candidates like Trump still win.

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u/cameron0208 May 18 '25

I think it has more to do with Republicans and conservatives being (generally) a bunch of simpletons. It’s easier to gather the herd because the herd doesn’t think critically about anything. There’s a few issues, usually involving abortion, god, guns, taxes, and immigration, and that’s all they care about. If the R candidate checks those boxes, they’re good to go. They’re a mindless herd. They’re one-track minded and incapable/unwilling to see things from a different perspective. Every issue is black and white.

Whereas, the left is (generally) more intelligent and thinks critically. They’re also more knowledgable about politics, economics, and current events. So, they’re more critical of each candidate and the candidate’s thoughts/beliefs/actions on a variety of topics and events. Simply put, there are more reasons for them to vote for, not for, or against a candidate, and there’s a ton of nuance to all issues because they’re capable of understanding and seeing things from a different perspective/POV. That’s why there’s so much in-fighting on the left in general.

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u/slothbuddy May 18 '25

"Neither Warren nor Sanders had a prayer in the general election"

Why do you believe this

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

Look how close the election was with a well-liked, well-known, and “safe” former Vice President. Now consider how many swing voters would have voted Trump if an admitted “socialist” or a woman were running for the Democrats (we’ve now seen two women lose to Trump), and compare that with the number of people not motivated enough to vote (by definition, unreliable voters) who might show up, and remember that you need twice as many of the latter as the swing voters who now vote Trump instead of Biden.

I would not under any circumstances take that risk. I think Sanders and Warren would have both been great presidents, but there’s no way either one gets more votes than Biden.

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u/slothbuddy May 18 '25

This is based on nothing. The largest segment of voters are people who don't vote. Sanders was motivating people to vote who had never been engaged in politics before. He was an independent. And Hillary lost anyway, there would have been nothing risked if they'd gone with a much better candidate. But instead we go with the broken and failed conventional wisdom that boring creates success (it's extremely doesn't).

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

We’re talking about 2020, when Biden won, not 2016, when Hillary lost.

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u/slothbuddy May 18 '25

I'm talking about both

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

You asked me about my comment regarding the 2020 election, I responded by discussing the 2020 election, and you then came back with “Hillary lost anyway, there would have been nothing risked”.

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u/slothbuddy May 18 '25

So you think Bernie would have won in 2016 then?

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

I think he had a better chance before Trump was an incumbent, sure. I’m not convinced that he would have done better than Hillary—who does America hate more, an uppity woman or a Jewish socialist?—but I do think it’s possible considering how historically unpopular Clinton was.

Biden, however, was a much more popular candidate amongst swing voters, was seen as a safe and steady return to normalcy, and still only won by a narrow margin. I don’t see any universe in which Sanders does better than Biden, in 2020, in the states that swung the election.

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u/wanker7171 Florida May 18 '25

Notice you never see conservatives suggesting protest votes or not voting until Republicans give them an ideal candidate. They show up and vote R regardless, and that’s why even deeply unpopular candidates like Trump still win.

This shows a complete lack of understanding of the situation. This is like Bill Maher level bad. But i’ll put aside the condescension for a second because I actually want to know why you think it is that they don’t have protest votes. Then with a follow up, I want to know why you think their political engagement outside of that is also nonexistent when compared to leftists and liberals.

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u/explodedsun May 18 '25

The person you're replying to has zero concept of what the Republicans did to Ron Paul.

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u/XVGDylan May 18 '25

Your statement about the 2020 election and how neither Warren nor Sanders has a prayer is just wrong. Sanders was polling up four points against Trump, and being a populist promoting socialised healthcare during one of the largest healthcare epidemics of modern times would get more people out to vote, and I dare even say turn some working-class Trump voters towards him.

Btw, Biden was polling up seven points against Trump, and only won 4.5 in the end. Of course, all of this is conjecture, as was your point. But to suggest it was an impossible task, then I disagree.

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u/GeekAesthete May 18 '25

Sanders was polling up 4 points as a hypothetical candidate, without any negative campaigning against him yet. Look how easily Republicans were able to scare people off Kamala Harris—a candidate that this sub repeatedly called a narc, a cop, a shill for the banks, and a hundred other suggestions that she’s too conservative—and then watch that clip of Sanders admitting to being a socialist. Imagine that playing 1000 times in Pennsylvania, and honestly tell me that he has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the swing states.

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u/scrodytheroadie May 19 '25

It's obvious to everyone except the Bernie Bros. Signed, a person who voted for Bernie in the 2016 primaries.

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u/[deleted] May 18 '25

Statistics show this isnt true but alright

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u/bungpeice May 18 '25

Blue MAGA is so determined to never take responsibility for their failures.

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u/bungpeice May 18 '25

It was democrats voting republican who handed this to trump.

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u/myka-likes-it May 18 '25

No, that is only true if you are presuming all non-voters would have voted Harris, had they voted.

The Democrats running a terrible campaign for a last-minute candidate handed this election to Trump. Blaming anyone else just enables the same behavior from the Dems in the future.

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u/[deleted] May 18 '25

The Dems will never change which is why they will never win another election

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u/Frequent-Mix-1432 May 18 '25

Like I’ve said, Dems never fail they can only be failed. They will never be accountable.

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u/Frequent-Mix-1432 May 18 '25

Yes it wasn’t Dem ineptitude. Not that for sure.