Ah Bernie, what could have been...

I've always felt that's just pragmatism from Bernie, and in truth he's ideologically a democratic socialist. If it makes any difference this is coming from a democratic socialist who's a member of a social Democrat party.

He wasn't even a social democrat. At the time, social democrats were democratic socialists, the shift away from reformist socialism happened around the 80s (some social democratic parties still hang onto reformist socialism, at least in theory).

He was a smart liberal who realized that in order to save capitalism from collapsing again, some regulations are necessary. In Europe, similar policy was often pushed by social democrats, which sometimes leads to confusion. But actual social democrats at the time went (or at least wanted to go) further, like nationalization and socialization of major industry, worker representation at companies, and increasing worker and union power in general.

Social democrats stated endgoal was a socialist society. FDR's endgoal was to protect and maintain capitalism.

Edit: Also, Bernie is definitely a reformist socialist, I will never understand why people think otherwise. He literally mentions Eugen Debbs, one of the most influencial socialists in American history, as his role model and hero every chance he can.. And he praises the nordic model because the nordic model was literally pushed by reformist democratic socialists.. Here is Olaf Palme, one of the most important figures when it comes to the nordic model and prime minister of Sweden (until he was murdered), explaining why he is a democratic socialist:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7i2Ws1X5DSA

Just imagine a conservative politican, calling themselves a fascist, keeping a picture of Mussolini on their desk, saying he is their political role model. Would you claim that he isn't really a fascist? It's not even as if Bernie Sanders was dog whistling, he couldn't be any clearer about his believes.. Yet somehow, so many American leftists seem to sonehow doubt his intentions? Why? Because he isn't radical enough? Because he isn't throwing molotov coctails at the police? What does he have to gain from falsely calling himself a socialist??

The man's presidental campaign was giving 20% of major corporations to it's employees and having about half of the board of directors be elected by workers, among other stuff..

if you don't even want to acknowledge his values and his ideology simply because he is playing the politics game and is a reformist, send him to Europe, we would love a genuine leftist like him with so much charisma. I don't think you appreciate him..

Imagine dedicating your life to fight for a better life, involve yourself in the civil rights movement, work in various socialist groups, calling yourself a socialist and calling for major industry to be socialised, being constantly attacked by right wingers for your socialist believes, etc, only for fellow leftists denying that you are a "real socialist"..

Can I see the venn diagram on this?

Not to be agist, but bernie is rapidly approaching his UBD. Closest we have to him in a viable position is AOC

I largely agree with you. Could you elaborate on your last sentence though?

DWS. I know it wasn't just her, but I will forever curse the name of Debbie Wasserman Schultz

European here. I'm curious, what did Hillary and the DNC do exactly that is unforgivable?

Yeah how dare Hillary and the DNC respect that more people voted for her instead of applying EC logic to make Bernie win despite him losing by a wider margin than Trump lost the popular vote, and how dare the moderates still be more popular than Bernie to the point that all it took was there being only one in the primary field for Bernie's chances to be "sabotaged".

Harry Potter and the magical thinking of Bernie bros who still can't get over other people not voting the same way they wanted them to while also not voting themselves.

Bernie deserved better than fucking all of you.

"Things could be worse" is always such a depressing reflection.

You're not wrong....but it sure is bleak isn't it!

You're correct, but also missing the point. He implemented economic policies that were further left than any other US president.

I am pretty sure racism was institutionalized prior to New Deal....

There isn't a single leader in history who would pass your smell test. The reality is every human is complex and no one is all good or all bad. Except Andrew Jackson. Fuck that guy

But really, take a look, for example, at Lyndon Johnson. He was a renowned racist who ushered through the Civil Rights Act among many other progressive policies. He also escalated the Vietnam War. Dude did a lot of great things and a lot of bad things, and there's no single policy or act in his life that defines the entirety of his administration.

And annoyingly he is (along with the other Roosevelt) still among our best presidents in history. We really shoupd demand more from our representatives.

Nobody said economic leftists can't be racist.

Fair points! But Bernie's are not... (Unfortunately I think he's legit too old now anyway, and I would bet he would agree.) Not saying I wouldn't vote for him, but I think age alone would stop many. (insert Biden/Trump swipe here)

His left wing credentials are a bit lacking.

No one in the US political establishment has any "left wing credentials" or ever has. FDR (and every other so-called "social democrat" then and now) are merely advocating for measures to make the status quo more stable and resilient - not for dismantling it (which is what an actual leftist wants).

You're right. Whenever somebody makes a post like op I can just smell the authoritarian bs leaking from hexbear and lemmygrad.

Roosevelt overcame strong opposition from conservative leaders in the Democratic Party and had Wallace nominated for vice president at the 1940 Democratic National Convention. The Roosevelt-Wallace ticket won the 1940 presidential election. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, conservative party leaders defeated Wallace's bid for renomination, placing Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman on the Democratic ticket instead.

Do you know where there's more specific info about how the DNC (or whatever the equivalent was in those days) Bernie'd him?

I didn't know about that thank you!

Wasn't the McGovern/Humphrey dem primary done similarly to Sanders/Clinton too? I think I remember my dad saying something like that a long time ago

The person in the image is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He was effected to four terms and died in office, shortly after his fourth inauguration (now there's a two term limit). The name in the title refers to Bernie Sanders, who OP wishes had been nominated and elected in 2016.

I would add to the other explanation only that they both represent the progressive wing of the nation's politics for their time, and are analogous to each other in that regard. Bernie is beloved and renowned for his civil rights activism and his incorruptible concern for regular folks and trying to make things better for people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Political_positions

Bernie "walks the walk" as they say, and has for his entire career.

They also refused to get rid of the filibuster. They could have done it any time after it became clear that filibustering everything was the new playbook, around about 2012. This has been a problem for over a decade now and Democrats pretend they can't just change the rule.

He did not have to beg to rich people and businesses for funding in exchange for doing favours for them.

That's totally untrue. FDR was about as deep in with the military industrial complex and the financial interests as anyone on the Republican side of the aisle. The fundamental difference between FDR and Hoover was that FDR didn't surround himself with the most economically blackpilled advisors. He treated the Great Depression as a subject of scientific inquiry and tried a whole litany of approaches to get us out of it, while Hoover treated it as a test of his convictions and clung stubbornly to the most conservative panacea.

The Roosevelts profited handsomely from both the national rebound and the subsequent war. They profited from America's predominant position as industrial superpower, by the end of the war. But their profiteering came as a consequence of successful economic experimentation and strategy.

By sharp contrast, the Von Mises / Rothbard / Ayn Rand capitalist die-hards repeatedly ruined themselves chasing economic orthodoxy and had to keep coming back to the state and national governments for bailout after bailout.

It was the private sector's continued heavy reliance on public authority that gave FDR a free hand, not FDR's own personal fortune. For the next forty years, private industry struggled to see the kind of enormous returns of the pre-war era. The struggles against an insurgent global anti-colonialism curtailed profits internationally. Strong unions at home curtailed profits domestically. Private industrialists relied enormously on state contracts and federal interest rates to turn even marginal profits.

Not until the Volcker Shock and the decoupling of labor productivity from economic growth could conservative business interests reliably reassert themselves against state control. That unleashed private enterprise from public financing and allowed for the steady re-privatization of the economy under Ford, Carter, Reagan, et al. This is the point at which unfettered freely flowing campaign donations began to eclipse the usefulness of large local party organizations, and the national privatization of politics really took off.

bro literally pulled the country out of the great depression, i wonder what could possibly influence the voters in this regard.

Because rich people are not known for wanting to become even richer.

Oh, so like Donald Trump?

/s

So what you are saying is Jay Pritzker 2024?

And FDR was in a wheelchair no less. Imagine the current rabid right’s reaction if a democrat president was in a wheelchair?

The US has, through concerted effort by the right wing, forgotten why FDR came into power. He was the heir of an extremely rich family. He managed to convince enough of the other oligarchs to avert going the way of the USSR. The US had revolutionary potential or the powerful would not have let this happen.

The policies that resulted from FDR's presidency had an enormous effect on the US's populace. It completely changed what the average American expected from their government. The politics of the Democrats, and even the Republican, president's that followed reflected the change that FDR's policies wrought.

It took 40 years of concerted media, intellectual, and religious capture for the right to regain anything resembling the political ascendancy they saw before the 1930s.

How can you say it was one and not the other? I'd say it was more likely a bit of both.

Revisionist history. To pretend like Hillary went slightly left and Gore didn't have the election stolen from him is disingenuous at best.

Let's try the more recent history again.

Obama ran on "hope" but, more importantly ,"change" and won in a landslide. Then he governed from the center as a status quo technocrat. He lost a Democratic super majority and almost the presidency to a slice of white bread.

Hillary Clinton was the most establishment centrist candidate the Democrats could have possibly run. Her campaign thought they could sweep the country by choosing a radical clown for the Republican opponent. They helped the Trump campaign get free media attention to win the primary, then they lost to the clown.

After 4 years of the clown, the country would have elected a ham sandwich. Even so, it was looking a bit close, so Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left, almost sounding like Bernie lite at times. You can chart his popularity through his presidency and every uptick coincides with a move to the left, and every downtick with a move to the right.

Holy shit trying to blame hillarys loss on being too progressive. Somehow more progressive than Obama.

And you end up with the stupid idealist 3rd party voters that think “we’ll send a message with how we vote!” (Or don’t vote) not realizing the true impact they’re causing and the message it sends by having to go back to the center (which inches right more and more each time).

3rd party does have a place, but not right now with how screwed up things are.

Bill Clinton didn't run to the center, he ran to the right. Well past the center.

So guess what Obama learned? Don't stick your head out. He ran on broad "hope", hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush's disastrous wars.

The "Hope" slogan was coined by Shepard Fairey on the poster of Obama he created and distributed independently of the Obama campaign, albeit with tacit approval. The campaign's actual slogans were "Change you can believe in" and "Yes we can."

You also left out that Clinton only won because Perot was in the race and took voters from Bush, Carter lost because of the gas shortages, not to conserve and Biden won because he was against a historically unpopular incumbent. Your explanation is in complete and reductionist.

You also left out Kerry who ran as a moderate and lost to Bush.

The DNC pursued a policy of progressive policy to counter Bush.

Obama won and the party immediately began shifting right. Eight years of pulling away from progressive policy.

And then Trump won, at which point you saw a leftist presence being entertained again by his midterms.

So to answer your final question: The record shows victories appear to cause the Democratic Party to move right. Often argued as a result or consequence of any implemented leftist policy. Backlash, if you will, but still.

I feel there is an orange man missing in this timeline.

they've lost 20 years out of the last 24 years

Where are those numbers from? Presidential elections from the last 24 years don’t add up. Are you only counting election years? Or something other than presidential elections?

• 🟥2000: GW
• 🟥2004: GW
• 🟦2008: Obama
• 🟦2012: Obama
• 🟥2016: Trump
• 🟦2020: Biden

I appreciate much of your list and accept the danger of the third party vote.

And while that's partly a result of right-wing and foreign operatives seeking to wedge-drive the Democratic coalition, it's also a reflection of lack of voter enthusiasm and greater apathy.

Like it or not, for better or worse, elections in the US are popularity contests akin to shitty reality TV. It's not about who is more qualified; it's not about experience or education. As much as it should be, it IS NOT a job interview.

Whoever stands out, for better or worse, tends to win. Obama was different. He stood out; he won. JFK was different. He stood out; he won. Trump was different. He stood out; he won.

Hillary was boring. Uncharismatic. Anything but new. Carrying the baggage of decades of right-wing smere. Poll after poll of voter enthusiasm was in the gutter.

Voter enthusiasm for Biden was shit, too. But Biden stood out because he was at least different from Trump.

If Dems wanted to ensure victory they'd yank Biden and run someone fresh, young, charismatic, likable. Easy win. Why? Because they stand out, the right-wing taking-points and marching orders wouldn't be prepared, and people would be excited for something different.

Yep. America just isn't that left in general. The right had the benefit of a cult of personality pushing fear to motivate voters. But being seen as left is still considered radical by a lot of Americans, unfortunately.

Edit: others below will continue fine reasons to shit on Hillary because Bernie just wasn't popular enough.

FDR died about a month before Hitler's surrendered. His navigation of the depression was accomplished in no small part to democratic socialist policies.