Great piece and synopsis of where we are and how we got here. It was a heartfelt tragedy each time the Democratic Party elite cut Bernie off at the knees. I was one of the dummies who advised in a Bernie poll that he should run as a Democrat so as to not be labeled a spoiler. I, like Bernie and many of his followers had not yet gotten the memo of where the party was. We needed to get to this point to realize how badly we had been betrayed by the Democratic Party. The party a majority had been aligned with, perhaps lifelong. I actually feel bad for Bernie at this point. Putting his faith in a party who would undermine him at every turn. Kind of seems like he succumbed to a bit of Stockholm Syndrome. Still supporting Biden and taking the Squad with him. It’s terrible where we have arrived. I would love to see a coalition of third parties come together to form a front to the failed duopoly. Is it too much to ask? I for one would support it.
Come on. Give Bernie more credit. Its not Stockholm, its transactionalism. He is constantly in the minority and used to taking what he can get. I disagree with that approach, but then again, he has a legislative record as the Amendment King. So, lets give him some credit.
The US – and not only the US – is a place where there are rich people and people who are struggling to get by. That used to be true everywhere, and people looked upon it as normal. We don't anymore. We've seen better. We've lived in a US where ordinary people could make a living. On one income. My family did.
I'm thinking of two things, that speak to me louder than statistics.
One: Years ago, decades ago, a friend came home from visiting family in Philadelphia, and reported seeing homeless men gathered around fires in 55-gallon drums. Third world in America, she said.
Two: There are people depending on food banks in Toronto who used to donate to food banks. And I don't think for a moment that it's only in Toronto.
This nails it. Time to pick up the pieces and rebuild the resistance. The most important electoral takeaway for the future is that someone in the progressive “Squad” - or someone Squad-like - must mount a decisive primary campaign for the next cycle. And it can't actually be a "someone" - it must be a group of someones, otherwise a single person will get ganged up on, as happened to Bernie in 2020. The establishments of both controlling parties are psychopathic and sociopathic. Perhaps nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the genocide of Palestine. There is sanity and great power on the popular left, as Bernie Sanders demonstrated, and that must prevail. New if informal campaigns should start now. This would be a Jesse Jackson, Bernie Sanders continuation, as I noted in more detail in The Lesson of Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders: https://fictiongutted.substack.com/p/con-don-the-con-dems-and-the-left
I wish the Squad would just resign from the Party and start their own. Those who supported Bernie would join it in a heartbeat. The Democratic Party has been Republican Lite since the Bill Clinton era. The reality is that there is no party of the people and has not been. After Sanders, there was a brief thought of trying to move the party from the inside with a group called "Dem-Enter." It was a spectacularly impotent movement that might as well never have existed. We need progressives to resign and form their own party. There are probably more of them than neoliberal Democrats. The biggest voter turnout this year was Independents.
No, he would not have won anymore than he did in 2020. African-Americans were among voters who rejected him then at the request of capital-loving democrats. The essay dances around the real issue which was elucidated by Louis Brandeis: "We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can't have both." Democrats are "humane" capitalists, but they're still capitalists. Even elected, Sanders couldn't have changed that--with two other branches bought-and-paid for. If history repeats itself, the writing is on the wall. Capitalists will never relinguish power by democratic means. Ask Julius Caesar. Ask the Gracchus brothers who attempted to reduce wealth disparity. The problem isn't candidates: the problem is unregulated capitalism. We the People now serve the capitalists instead of the other way around. Democracy has been vaporized by an ignorant populus that believes that democracy is the right to make money.
This is pure speculation. It's not correct to say that (all or most) African American voters "rejected" him based on a few primaries on Stupid Tuesday in red states like South Carolina that would never have cast their electoral votes for a Democrat in the first place. In fact the Dems coordinated a mass drop-out just prior or at the beginning of that slate of primaries and pushed the media messaging that Biden was going to win that portion of them in a landslide, when again, 90% of the states involved would never be "blue" for any presidential election. IIRC, there were still several important West Coast and Mountain West primaries to go and Bernie had a really good chance of winning most if not all of them. On top of all that, if he did get the Demo nom, do you really think African Americans would have voted for Trump over Bernie at that point in time? No way.
In any case you also cannot forget the fact that at the same time as all the Democratic contenders suddenly and concurrently dropped out of the 2020 primary, they were all also coerced into publicly endorsing Biden. I seem to recall Warren initially didn't but was quickly brow beaten into doing so. The only holdout was Bernie, so it was the entire machine of the Democratic party and their media courtiers against him, just like in 2016. That is why African Americans in South Carolina "rejected" him and it's dishonest to characterize the situation as uniquely about the AA community.
I agree with the rest of what you said, however, and think that by hook, crook or assassin's bullet, Bernie would never have been allowed to implement anything remotely resembling his populist working class platform planks if he got elected to the White House. In fact, someone probably showed him the "other angle" of the Zapruder film sometime in 2016.
100% spot on. I was just making this point to another friend last night. The Dems SCREWED the Sanders (who would have won easily ... was well on his WAY to winning easily and jammed Genocide Joe, Warmonger Joe, Busing Joe. Sack-o-Crap Joe down our throats. They DESERVE to lose and as much as I regret the fact, this country has EARNED what is coming to it.
yes, agree; we, the Democratic voters, brought this on ourselves; we let Clinton bring in neolibralism to us, then Obama failed us and supported the banks, stopped the public option, and then Genocide Joe....
Well written and compelling arguments. Between neoliberalism which with ships well-paying jobs out or crushes unions wherever possible, and the belief in meritocracy, workers are trapped. Loaded with school debt they are blamed for their own lack of success. No wonder they’re furious!
Add to that the fact that most of us in blue collar or gray collar jobs can't exactly take a day off to protest anything and if it was discovered we did, we'd probably be fired in this "Right to Work" country.
So the stated goal for the Dems has always been to win. The underlying goal, vastly more critical, has been for the power to remain in the hands of the myriads of individual fiefdoms that populate the party elite. These Dems will not anyone and I mean anyone, infringe on their personal power. Nuland is the power hegemon of Ukraine, Blinken of Israel and that is just for starters. Apiac owns congress. The mainstream media salivates at the 1 billion dollars raised by Harris. As does a host of other opportunists (See Lee Fangs article today. https://www.leefang.com/p/democratic-consultants-deceived-donors)
One thing you can kiss-off ever seeing is any reflection or after-action report by the party. Their entire effort now is internal polling to see who gets saddled with the blame. This fiasco has countless possibilities. The first group has already been decided on unanimously, done so, the minute things started to get ugly last night. It is us, the pesky ungrateful and low-IQ voters, who didn’t pay attentions to the lectures that seemed non-stop. This is perennial “go-to-move” even when there is no election. The voters never get what they want, They get what they can stomach. Moving on, we then get the progressives, the anti-Israel protesters, (fill-in your favorite). No need to be creative, they sure aren’t.
I only see one light at the end of this tunnel and it is an on-coming freight train.
I totally agree that Bernie would’ve won in 2016. And the Democrats never ever take a look at their own failures. The main thing that everybody seems to miss including Breaking Points is the role of the independent voter. A plurality identify as independents and make it clear they don’t follow party lines. The two political parties are what is destroying the fabric of our country. As I see it opening the primaries, having non-partisan elections, and changing the HOW we do politics in this country is the only answer, in my humble opinion. Let’s go independent! Break the moribund electoral system once and for all! Maybe this is the beginning??
My concern is that they take total control of our Media and prevent us from even organizing thoughts, much less actions. They have very powerful technology and they own the internet. Oh and they have guns.
Totally agree, neoliberalism is dead, and her Democratic Party will NOT allow progressives to enter but try to emulate right populist ideas....so, we need a STRONG third party, what say you??????????? We need to break the duopoly.
Great piece and synopsis of where we are and how we got here. It was a heartfelt tragedy each time the Democratic Party elite cut Bernie off at the knees. I was one of the dummies who advised in a Bernie poll that he should run as a Democrat so as to not be labeled a spoiler. I, like Bernie and many of his followers had not yet gotten the memo of where the party was. We needed to get to this point to realize how badly we had been betrayed by the Democratic Party. The party a majority had been aligned with, perhaps lifelong. I actually feel bad for Bernie at this point. Putting his faith in a party who would undermine him at every turn. Kind of seems like he succumbed to a bit of Stockholm Syndrome. Still supporting Biden and taking the Squad with him. It’s terrible where we have arrived. I would love to see a coalition of third parties come together to form a front to the failed duopoly. Is it too much to ask? I for one would support it.
Come on. Give Bernie more credit. Its not Stockholm, its transactionalism. He is constantly in the minority and used to taking what he can get. I disagree with that approach, but then again, he has a legislative record as the Amendment King. So, lets give him some credit.
The US – and not only the US – is a place where there are rich people and people who are struggling to get by. That used to be true everywhere, and people looked upon it as normal. We don't anymore. We've seen better. We've lived in a US where ordinary people could make a living. On one income. My family did.
I'm thinking of two things, that speak to me louder than statistics.
One: Years ago, decades ago, a friend came home from visiting family in Philadelphia, and reported seeing homeless men gathered around fires in 55-gallon drums. Third world in America, she said.
Two: There are people depending on food banks in Toronto who used to donate to food banks. And I don't think for a moment that it's only in Toronto.
This nails it. Time to pick up the pieces and rebuild the resistance. The most important electoral takeaway for the future is that someone in the progressive “Squad” - or someone Squad-like - must mount a decisive primary campaign for the next cycle. And it can't actually be a "someone" - it must be a group of someones, otherwise a single person will get ganged up on, as happened to Bernie in 2020. The establishments of both controlling parties are psychopathic and sociopathic. Perhaps nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the genocide of Palestine. There is sanity and great power on the popular left, as Bernie Sanders demonstrated, and that must prevail. New if informal campaigns should start now. This would be a Jesse Jackson, Bernie Sanders continuation, as I noted in more detail in The Lesson of Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders: https://fictiongutted.substack.com/p/con-don-the-con-dems-and-the-left
I wish the Squad would just resign from the Party and start their own. Those who supported Bernie would join it in a heartbeat. The Democratic Party has been Republican Lite since the Bill Clinton era. The reality is that there is no party of the people and has not been. After Sanders, there was a brief thought of trying to move the party from the inside with a group called "Dem-Enter." It was a spectacularly impotent movement that might as well never have existed. We need progressives to resign and form their own party. There are probably more of them than neoliberal Democrats. The biggest voter turnout this year was Independents.
Well written Krystal. From Hillary to Kamala, every cycle was a preordained coronation, red flags or democracy be damned.
No, he would not have won anymore than he did in 2020. African-Americans were among voters who rejected him then at the request of capital-loving democrats. The essay dances around the real issue which was elucidated by Louis Brandeis: "We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can't have both." Democrats are "humane" capitalists, but they're still capitalists. Even elected, Sanders couldn't have changed that--with two other branches bought-and-paid for. If history repeats itself, the writing is on the wall. Capitalists will never relinguish power by democratic means. Ask Julius Caesar. Ask the Gracchus brothers who attempted to reduce wealth disparity. The problem isn't candidates: the problem is unregulated capitalism. We the People now serve the capitalists instead of the other way around. Democracy has been vaporized by an ignorant populus that believes that democracy is the right to make money.
This is pure speculation. It's not correct to say that (all or most) African American voters "rejected" him based on a few primaries on Stupid Tuesday in red states like South Carolina that would never have cast their electoral votes for a Democrat in the first place. In fact the Dems coordinated a mass drop-out just prior or at the beginning of that slate of primaries and pushed the media messaging that Biden was going to win that portion of them in a landslide, when again, 90% of the states involved would never be "blue" for any presidential election. IIRC, there were still several important West Coast and Mountain West primaries to go and Bernie had a really good chance of winning most if not all of them. On top of all that, if he did get the Demo nom, do you really think African Americans would have voted for Trump over Bernie at that point in time? No way.
In any case you also cannot forget the fact that at the same time as all the Democratic contenders suddenly and concurrently dropped out of the 2020 primary, they were all also coerced into publicly endorsing Biden. I seem to recall Warren initially didn't but was quickly brow beaten into doing so. The only holdout was Bernie, so it was the entire machine of the Democratic party and their media courtiers against him, just like in 2016. That is why African Americans in South Carolina "rejected" him and it's dishonest to characterize the situation as uniquely about the AA community.
I agree with the rest of what you said, however, and think that by hook, crook or assassin's bullet, Bernie would never have been allowed to implement anything remotely resembling his populist working class platform planks if he got elected to the White House. In fact, someone probably showed him the "other angle" of the Zapruder film sometime in 2016.
100% spot on. I was just making this point to another friend last night. The Dems SCREWED the Sanders (who would have won easily ... was well on his WAY to winning easily and jammed Genocide Joe, Warmonger Joe, Busing Joe. Sack-o-Crap Joe down our throats. They DESERVE to lose and as much as I regret the fact, this country has EARNED what is coming to it.
yes, agree; we, the Democratic voters, brought this on ourselves; we let Clinton bring in neolibralism to us, then Obama failed us and supported the banks, stopped the public option, and then Genocide Joe....
Someone forgot ClarenceThomas Joe...
Well written and compelling arguments. Between neoliberalism which with ships well-paying jobs out or crushes unions wherever possible, and the belief in meritocracy, workers are trapped. Loaded with school debt they are blamed for their own lack of success. No wonder they’re furious!
Add to that the fact that most of us in blue collar or gray collar jobs can't exactly take a day off to protest anything and if it was discovered we did, we'd probably be fired in this "Right to Work" country.
So the stated goal for the Dems has always been to win. The underlying goal, vastly more critical, has been for the power to remain in the hands of the myriads of individual fiefdoms that populate the party elite. These Dems will not anyone and I mean anyone, infringe on their personal power. Nuland is the power hegemon of Ukraine, Blinken of Israel and that is just for starters. Apiac owns congress. The mainstream media salivates at the 1 billion dollars raised by Harris. As does a host of other opportunists (See Lee Fangs article today. https://www.leefang.com/p/democratic-consultants-deceived-donors)
One thing you can kiss-off ever seeing is any reflection or after-action report by the party. Their entire effort now is internal polling to see who gets saddled with the blame. This fiasco has countless possibilities. The first group has already been decided on unanimously, done so, the minute things started to get ugly last night. It is us, the pesky ungrateful and low-IQ voters, who didn’t pay attentions to the lectures that seemed non-stop. This is perennial “go-to-move” even when there is no election. The voters never get what they want, They get what they can stomach. Moving on, we then get the progressives, the anti-Israel protesters, (fill-in your favorite). No need to be creative, they sure aren’t.
I only see one light at the end of this tunnel and it is an on-coming freight train.
If history is any indication, this has set the stage for violent revolution. But things have to get a lot worse first, and that's a given.
I totally agree that Bernie would’ve won in 2016. And the Democrats never ever take a look at their own failures. The main thing that everybody seems to miss including Breaking Points is the role of the independent voter. A plurality identify as independents and make it clear they don’t follow party lines. The two political parties are what is destroying the fabric of our country. As I see it opening the primaries, having non-partisan elections, and changing the HOW we do politics in this country is the only answer, in my humble opinion. Let’s go independent! Break the moribund electoral system once and for all! Maybe this is the beginning??
My concern is that they take total control of our Media and prevent us from even organizing thoughts, much less actions. They have very powerful technology and they own the internet. Oh and they have guns.
Wow! That was good. Thank you. Such a read. Thank you so much. You got it all and didn't have to write a book.
Well written. It’s people like Krystal and Drop Site that still give me some hope for our future. Stay strong everyone!
Great summation.
I agree with this.
Agreed!
Totally agree, neoliberalism is dead, and her Democratic Party will NOT allow progressives to enter but try to emulate right populist ideas....so, we need a STRONG third party, what say you??????????? We need to break the duopoly.