This is the time for Never Trumpers from the left to the right, conservatives to progressives, to band together to vote for Democratic candidates in 2020, to get our US democracy back on track where truth, decency, the ‘rule of law,’ evidence based thinking/ evaluations informing policy; ‘freedom of the press,’ carry the day.
I do NOT want to hear about purity of thinking from progressive leaders to where others’ ideas are blocked out and discounted as having no value, because that is no different than the US House GOP ‘freedom caucus’ members who do likewise.
I do not want to hear about Democrats eating their own, like supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders downplaying the prospects of a future star, Beto O’Rourke. As per a 12/7/18 BuzzFeed report, “Progressive activists linked to Sen. Bernie Sanders have an early 2020 message for the Democratic establishment: Don’t rush to coronate Beto O’Rourke as the presidential nominee-in-waiting.”
I’ve made a pledge to myself to not vote for any Democratic Party 2020 presidential candidate who has been caught cannibalizing their own, nor will I back anyone who does not publicly share at least the past 5 years of his/ her IRS tax returns. That means I will not be voting for Senator Sanders.
Link to entire article: Bernie Sanders Supporters Want The Beto O’Rourke 2020 Talk To Chill
SEE: Inside Bernie-world’s war on Beto O’Rourke/ NBC
See: Beto O’Rourke and the New Democratic Purity Test/ Atlantic
I’ve made a pledge to myself to not vote for any Democratic Party 2020 candidates who have been caught cannibalizing their own, nor will I back anyone who does not publicly share at least the past 5 years of his/ her IRS tax returns.
On April 2, 2019, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post penned the following op-ed piece, “Bernie Sanders has emerged as the Donald Trump of the left”
Excerpts:
“In politics, as in physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
“Hence, Sen. Bernie Sanders’s emergence as the Donald Trump of the left.”
“Fundraising and polls show that many Democrats think the best answer to an angry old white guy with crazy hair, New York accent and flair for demagoguery is, well, another angry old white guy with crazy hair, New York accent and flair for demagoguery. It’s not difficult to picture a scenario in which Bernie captures the Democratic presidential nomination with the same formula that worked for Trump with Republicans in 2016.”
“On paper, the independent from Vermont doesn’t make sense: Democrats are a party of youth, and he’s 77; they are majority-female, and he’s a man; they represent the emerging multicultural America, and he is white. Statistically, he is the worst option against Trump: An NBC News poll this week found that there are more voters with concerns about Sanders (58 percent) than there are for former vice president Joe Biden (48 percent), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (53 percent), Sen. Kamala D. Harris or former representative Beto O’Rourke (41 percent each).”
“Yet Sanders has both money and movement. His campaign on Tuesday announced a haul of $18.2 million in the first quarter from 525,000 individual contributors. The other major populist, early favorite Warren (Mass.), has floundered in both money and popularity. And undeclared front-runner Biden now looks vulnerable to accusations he inappropriately touched women, kicked off by a prominent Sanders 2016 backer who served on the board of the Sanders political group.”
“Meanwhile, Sanders himself remains untouchable, in a Trumpian way. Claims of mistreatment by male staffers from women who worked on his 2016 campaign? Yawn. His resistance to releasing his tax returns? Whatever. The idea that Democrats need a unifying figure to lure disaffected Trump voters in key states? Never mind.”
“Sanders isn’t Trump in the race-baiting, lender-cheating, fact-avoiding, porn-actress-paying, Putin-loving sense. But their styles are similar: shouting and unsmiling, anti-establishment and anti-media, absolutely convinced of their own correctness, attacking boogeymen (the “1 percent” and CEOs in Sanders’s case, instead of immigrants and minorities), offering impractical promises with vague details, lacking nuance and nostalgic for the past.”
“Sanders’s supporters hope he’ll fight Trump’s fire with fire, refusing to be conciliatory (the way Biden and O’Rourke are), or to be goaded by Trump the way Warren was into taking a DNA test. Maybe answering belligerence with belligerence will work; Trump-era predictions are worthless. Either way, the support for Sanders shows that the angry, unbending politics of Trumpism are bigger than Trump.”
“I spent Monday at a cattle call for eight Democratic presidential candidates hosted by labor unions, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and other progressive groups. Sanders was easily the least charismatic, hoisting his trousers by the waist, tugging at his socks, hunching over the lectern, sitting stiffly and awkwardly greeting questioners. But the reception among liberal activists, which had ranged from tepid (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand) to enthusiastic (Warren) was, for Sanders, rapturous. “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” they chanted, standing when he appeared and when he finished. In between, they applauded a routine full of Trumpian flourishes.”
“He simplified and blamed: “The crisis that we are facing today isn’t complicated. . . . We have a government that ignores the needs of the working people . . . yet works overtime for wealthy campaign contributors and the 1 percent.” He mocked those who questioned ideas such as Medicare-for-all (“the establishment went crazy, media went nuts, still is”), and he celebrated his prescience. He channeled rage at the “vulgarity” of a “grotesque” and “corrupt” system, the “absolute hypocrisy” of Republicans, corporations that “lie” and billionaires who “buy elections.” Of the wealthy, he said, “Many of them are bandits,” and he said if Republicans “don’t have the guts to participate in a free and fair election, they should get the hell out of politics.”
“Like Trump, he railed against companies moving jobs to China or Mexico, and he harked back to simpler times: “Forty, 50 years ago, it was possible for one worker to work 40 hours a week and earn enough money to take care of the whole family.”
It’s less hateful, perhaps, to blame billionaires than immigrants or certain “globalists” for America’s troubles, but the scapegoating is similar. So is Sanders’s “socialist” label (worn as defiantly as Trump wears the isolationist “America First”), and his Democratic credentials are as suspect as Trump’s Republican bona fides were. Most Republicans opposed Trump, but the large field of candidates prevented a clean matchup.
A similar crowd could likewise prevent Democrats from presenting a clear alternative to Sanders’s tempting — if Trumpian — message that a nefarious elite is to blame for America’s problems. Universal health care, higher education and child care are within reach.”
Related Washington Post articles:
Gronda Morin 
That will make a fine gift for Trump. I feel it is the over the top liberals sabotaging Biden who has a chance against Trump.
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Dear Holly,
Those who are pushing ideological purity from the left are behaving no different from GOP “Freedom Caucus’ group in the US Congress who block all bipartisan legislation where compromise is a dirty word.
It’s too important for Democratic Party candidates to win in 2020, we can’t be limited by purity tests.
Hugs, Gronda
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Gronda, here a few miscellaneous thoughts. I think it is a disservice to call Bernie Sanders the “Donald Trump of the Left.” I may not agree with everything Bernie advocates, I have found him to be a very truthful man. Truthful is not a word I could use to define the man in the White House. My favorite example is the only 2016 Presidential candidate to tell a group of coal miners the truth is Bernie Sanders. More coal plants have closed under the first two years of Trump than under Obama’s first four years.
On the flip side, repeating what I said in 2016, I don’t believe the US electorate is smart enough to elect Sanders, but we are stupid enough to elect Trump. People still have a largely negative reacton to socialism, not realizing we have socialistic underpinnings to our capitalistic economy – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Comp, Unemployment benefits, bankruptcy laws, etc.
Keith
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Dear Keith,
Your point is well taken. I happen to appreciate how some of his ideas have been co-opted by many of the Democratic candidates who are in the run to become the next president.
But there are some similarities that bother me. He promises what he knows he can’t deliver. His supporters appear to be more cult like. I went on Twitter to state that he lost my vote because of how he tried to cut down Beto O’Rourke and I was bombarded by trolls along with many more who agreed. I referred to the following articles:
See: The Beto O’Rourke 2020 Talk To Chill
SEE: Inside Bernie-world’s war on Beto O’Rourke/ NBC
See: Beto O’Rourke and the New Democratic Purity Test/ Atlantic
I’m not voting for any Democratic candidate who decides to eat their own. I also don’t like that he promised to release his tax returns about 5 weeks ago. I’m still waiting.
In short Sen. Sanders is off my list.
Hugs, Gronda
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During the last election, I was most definitely pro-Bernie. Now I’m not so sure.
I’m really sick of the ugliness that is displayed when the split between “Republicans” and “Democrats” is emphasized. IMO, we really need to start looking at this country in a more UNIFIED way. We’ll most likely never have true bipartisanship, but as you said in your comment … pushing ideological purity isn’t the answer either.
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Dear Nan,
At the start, my feelings were positive towards Senator Sanders. I’ve appreciated that most of his ideas have been co-opted by many of the other Democratic candidates.
But my attitude changed when he went after Beto O’Rourke. There are 3 articles that I refer to in an earlier post:
See: The Beto O’Rourke 2020 Talk To Chill
SEE: Inside Bernie-world’s war on Beto O’Rourke/ NBC
See: Beto O’Rourke and the New Democratic Purity Test/ Atlantic
I also don’t like that he promised to release his tax returns about 5 weeks ago. I’m still waiting.
The two women who came out to complain about VP Biden invading their space are Bernie supporters. A previous co worker to Lucy Flores was less than flattering in her description of the young lady. The Hill reported on this story.
This is enough for me. He’s off my list.
Hugs, Gronda
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Dear Mz. Gronda,
If the Democrats want to beat tRump, they will need the independent voters. Bernie will not carry those voters as witnessed in the last primary election cycle. While he will carry his vocal supporters, he will not carry the folks he will need to win. However, there is still a major headache for the Democrats, much as they did in the last election, if he is not the candidate, his supporters will either not vote or vote for tRump out of spite.. it is bad when a man that is not even a Democrat will empower a loss in the election..
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Dear Crustyolemothman,
You have a point. This 2020 election is too important to win where ‘we the people’ take back our democracy. Fortunately there are so many great candidates to choose from that we don’t have to settle. I’m betting that most Americans want a Democratic candidate who can trounce President Trump at the ballot box.
Hugs, Gronda
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