You should reread his speeches. He never promised universal healthcare or taxing the rich or helping unions. He promised to withdraw troops from Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan, which he did.

He didn’t lie about being a progressive, he was openly a centrist.

Zen’s fascists will control you

One hundred percent natural

You will jog for the master race

And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can’t happen here

Big bro on white horse is near

The hippies won’t come back, you say

Mellow out or you will pay

Mellow out or you will pay

The US may be the backbone of NATO, but that just means NATO can destroy Russia 20 times over.

Without the US, NATO can only destroy Russia twice over.

For one thing, the Netherlands has nearly the lowest wealth inequality in the world, yet it is a democracy.

He ran as someone who would bring together Blue America and Red America in the spirit of bipartisanship.

From the beginning, he intentionally reached out to Republicans.

We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.

His 2008 acceptance speech at the DNC mentions “Republicans” five times, and never in a disparaging manner. It does not mention labor unions even once.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land — enough! This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.

The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America – they have served the United States of America.

The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.

And I’ve seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but did.

Clinton and Obama are still alive today, they are still centrist, and they are still extremely popular.

If Trump got his way and was allowed to run for a third term in 2028, is there any doubt that Obama could defeat him?

There is no duality in which savvy, intelligent political players arrive at “Centrism wins,”

Obama and Clinton were centrists. They won.

some people just voted for President and left the rest of the ballot blank

Yes, that’s exactly what they did. They intentionally left a blank next to Sanders’s name.

They sure didn’t do that in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, voters made sure to vote for Tammy Baldwin. In fact, many people voted for Tammy and left the presidency blank, or even voted for Trump. And Wisconsin is equally un-impoverished and even less unequal than Vermont.

Likewise Ruben Gallego and Elissa Slotkin proved their ability to bring in people who didn’t want to vote for Harris. Whereas Sanders failed. The future of the party lies with those who deliver actual results.

Sanders supporters keep making excuses for him, but the fact is that his supposed ability to bring in non-Democrats has never been demonstrated in a real election. It’s just wishful thinking, exactly the same as “There’s plenty of reason to think that Kamala will be popular with white women”.

I’m not talking about the primary. I’m talking about the general election we just held. There were plenty of Senators running for re-election, including Bernie.

Nearly all of those Senators won more votes than Harris. In other words nearly all won over Harris voters and won over some non-Harris voters on top of that.

But not Bernie. Unlike the other Senators, he failed to outperform Harris. So it’s clear he doesn’t have some magical power to win the votes of people who don’t vote for Democrats. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Even if she took zero steps towards the goal, that’s infinitely preferable to Trump’s pushing for annexation of the occupied territories and dismantling the Palestinian Authority.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Israeli.

Bernie can’t bring out people who don’t vote. If he could, he would have won a lot more votes in Vermont.

they’ll vote Republican again.

That’s not how midterms usually work. More people will vote for Democrats in 2026 than 2024. The key is maximize just how many more.

Ah yes, defeat Trump by appealing to conservatives. A time-tested strategy.

I read it. A list of failures.

Even Bears fans are more resilient than leftists. But that’s fine, you can just pack it in and show yourselves out. I don’t think anyone will notice.

Pundits are losing their minds, but I don’t think the Democratic party leaders are giving up.

My hunch is that they are playing the long game. They are counting on three things. First, Trump’s plans will crash the economy. Second, the Trump White House always turns on its own. Third, with a GOP trifecta there isn’t much Democrats can do to stop Trump - for now.

So any demands they make now will be ignored, and even used in the future to blame Democrats as obstructionist. I think they are lying low and giving the GOP what they need to hang themselves. When the public is furious about the economy, it will be time to start making demands.

Basically, it’s the political equivalent of the Willy Wonka gif

Finally, a Jacobin article I agree with.

Then we agree it’s not multiple decades.

And 10 years is nothing. The anti-abortion movement set Dobbs into motion in the 1990s, when they put Thomas on the SCOTUS. Their work only paid off 30 years later. Your “movement” doesn’t have the kind of patience necessary for success.

It really was mostly performance. If you ask someone today, “What did OWS want?” they will likely be unable to tell you.

you seem to think its impossible to win an election and not do well in your home state.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying there is exactly one data point that directly compares Bernie to Kamala, and it shows more support for Kamala than Bernie.

And since that is the only place where they can be compared, there is no evidence at all that Bernie would have more support than Kamala in other states.

right wingers constantly allign with people like Bernie

There are right wingers in Vermont too. That’s why their governor is a Republican. Yet among all the people who voted for Gov Scott, there weren’t enough Bernie supporters to make a difference.

In other words people were willing to vote for Harris and a Republican governor more than they were willing to vote for Sanders. He simply does not have the support you think he does.

Right wingers do not constantly align with AOC. There very few Trump + AOC voters, she was just interested in hearing from them.

So people were literally voting for Harris, but refusing to vote for Sanders. Whereas nearly everywhere else, people voted for their Senator but not Harris.

That tells you all you need to know.

I’m saying that unlike nearly every other Democratic Senator, he performed worse than Harris. That’s a lackluster result.

If he somehow won Fox News voters, then it was at the expense of losing even more voters elsewhere. That’s not a recipe for winning nationwide.

And no, you cannot blame it on Vermont. Harris turned out Vermont voters, why couldn’t Sanders turn out as many as she did?