I hate how this is the one man talking sense, and the DNC reviles him for it.
The problem is that it makes sense to us, the average Americans who would benefit from such things. But not to the elites who will be required to cede some amount of wealth, power and influence in the interest of such things.
I think that's part of his point
The DNC made some great retorts to his comments about Harris losing the election, though.
After Sanders stated the DNC "abandoned working class people" they were right to point out Biden has been the most pro-working-class president of Sanders lifetime on policies and protections, and that Harris proposed policies would have dramatically changed the lives of many of the poorest working americans.
I don't think either side, Sanders and the DNC, is wrong about this issue, I think Harris campaigned to attract right wing voters and lost her base of support as a result.
I said this here before: https://lemmy.ca/post/32815441/12768827 and stand by it. I think it would be beneficial to you guys
The problem with getting working class candidates is they are too busy working.
And lack the funds to run
It's getting to the point where a third party push seems logical.
People just want to move past NH having their primary delegates stolen, but that shit really happened. I don't see anything from the DNC that would indicate significant change. They have a candidate and that's who the candidate is going to be.
It's no effective at winning elections, but the do it's would rather have a republican than a progressive.
We need to demand the 2028 has strict campaign finance regulations. I can understand the argument we can't not do it in the general, but the primary is just Dem vs Dem. Keep the billionaires out of it and let voters pick who they're most likely to vote for in the general.
I think if we work towards ending electoral college then other things will fall into place just because people will be more incentivized to vote.
I heard 15million between NY and CA alone decide not to note at all because their vote doesn’t make a difference.
Think of all the down-ballot voting would happen with all those voters.
I don't think that's quite the strategy we need.
What we really need is a genuine grassroots movement with significant movement, like the Tea Party but not astroturfed, today gets more progressive in the Democratic party.
BUT
We need them locally, not on the federal level, because locally is where voting rules are established. The Progressives can then push for Rank Choice Voting. City by city, county by county, State by State, we get RCV implemented everywhere possible. This in turn breaks the Two Party System by allowing voters to pick third party candidates without fear of their vote being wasted.
The only problem is that the best time for this strategy was fifteen years ago, and not enough people cared back then to do it. The second best time is now, of course, but...
Ranked choice voting systems were offered in four states in this past election and were rejected in all four. If I'm remembering correctly, around $60m was spent campaigning for them. Two states have RCV already, one of which is Alaska which just narrowly avoided switching back.
No, now is apparently not the time to attempt a 3rd party strategy.
The problem will be money. Corporations can basically bankroll whatever candidates they want. It will be an extremely uphill battle given the state of campaign finance laws.
From the article:
“Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties?”
[Sanders’s question] was also influenced by the campaign of former union leader Dan Osborn, who ran this fall as a working-class independent in the deep-red state of Nebraska.
Against an entrenched Republican incumbent, and without big money backing or party support, Osborn shocked pundits by winning 47 percent of the vote.
Bernie Sanders: I think that what Dan Osborn did should be looked at as a model for the future. He took on both political parties. He took on the corporate world. He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent, he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska.
It sounds like you can still get pretty far by just addressing the actual concerns of the working class and offering real solutions to problems. Still an uphill battle, definitely, but maybe not an insurmountable climb.
You definitely can. It's not impossible, but people here on Lemmy are too defeatists
We need to pay politicians MORE money. Everyone is like, no they should be paid $3.50/year cause they don't do shit, but if you have to support yourself, own a second house in the capital city, and pay a bunch of people to do the initial campaigning (signature gathering to get on the ballot, set up the first rounds of fundraising); WHO can do that? Only rich people. Working-Class people cannot afford to become candidates.
Pay them more, and also make it illegal for them to own any stocks, or accept any gifts of any kind.
I feel like we should absolutely be providing congressional dormitories, at a minimum.
I literally know someone who's not running for a state office because even with the compensation he can't afford the expenses of actually being in office.
is is the same shit that’s always happened thou
The system is designed to keep the poor, middle and even lower upper class out. When one of them gets rich enough to run, and can't be bought out by one side or another cough cough stein cough the electoral system keeps them safely out of power. The system is rigged.
Also, the house and senate should be way bigger that are now.
I'm all for it but the problem is that working class people are too busy working. Maybe they can set up a PAC that gives scholarships to would-be politicians so they can challenge these douchebags and still pay their bills.
I think that is a great idea - I would donate to a PAC that promoted the election of progressive candidates. I'm sure many on Lemmy would do the same.
Yeah and not ones that pretend to do that by claiming they support regular progressives but then immediately ask you for your income level.
To many are just pretending to be that and then hoover up money for themselves from the liberal idea that money is helpful alone.
Change that to take over the Democratic party and you got a good idea.
I mean, running as a progressive within the Democratic Party already means you have to fight both parties. You have to fight the Democratic Party during the primaries, and you have to fight Republicans if Democrats somehow fail to keep you from winning the primaries. If you do win the primaries, you cannot count on the support of the Democratic Party in the general, as they prefer the Republican to beat you so they can run a centrist next time.
Then people need to abandon the DNC and form another option. Reform from within is fantasy, the current power structure will never allow anything that's a threat to their existence
Dan Osborne ran competitively in a neglected Nebraska Senate race. It's very common for Dems to entirely neglect seats, even whole states, and let winnable races languish.
Sanders candidates can (and did) win races like this in 2018 and 2020. The problem is that once a seat is "winnable", lobbyists state money bombing primaries. Then you get shitty corporate Dems pushing leftists out and promptly losing those seats again.
Not gonna happen as long as money is the key to political power.
Finally someone daring to say what everyone on Lemmy hates
Good. The Democrats screwed Sanders over twice, and both times, he took it graciously and stood with them against Trump. Now that they have proved completely and utterly incapable of fighting the rise of fascism, there's no need to pull punches or play nice. There's no point in supporting the lesser of two evils if it is completely incapable of opposing the greater evil.
The Democratic Party is the political equivalent of a bloated whale carcass festering in the hot sun. Maybe if we stripped away all its old, rotting fat, we might find some use for its bones, but otherwise, it serves no purpose. Anyone telling you how it's going to swim again is either delusional or lying.
We need working class candidates working outside of the right wing oligarchy. As a party Republicans and Democrats need to die off.
Unfortunately the only way to get enough signatures to get your name on a ballot can only be achieved via rich donors and mass advertising.
We would literally have an easier time killing the big pary canidates than working within the system.
This is just plain false, and also, like, aggressively defeatist. It feels to me, whenever someone says something like this, the intention is to kill off any hope in the people who aren't terminally fatalistic about the prospect of any working class representation within the American politcal system, which makes you less optimistic than a Russian Serf in 1860, and the Wobblies and other trade unionists who were literally murdered and jailed.
Like, not to pick on you, because there are a lot of other people in this thread expressing the same opinion, but to whatever degree what you're saying is true, it is only as true as the sentiment you are expressing is prevalent.
We can't do that since the rich have bought how democracy works. This is the same shit that's always happened though. They'll keep us just happy enough to keep their heads.
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