I have been following all of this very closely, and this account generally accords with a lot of the commentary emanating from the US. It is certainly true to say that banging on about Cuba it not a good idea, especially when you need to win Florida. Indeed, it suggests that Sanders is probably quite dim and not a good politician.
Not mentioned is the fact that one of the reasons Sanders lost support among the ‘working classes’ is that he embraced open borders to appease AOC and The Squad. In the past he had (correctly) stated that mass immigration damages the wages and conditions of working class Americans.
Also, a lot of left-wing US commentators such as the excellent Jimmy Dore think that Sanders should have run as an independent, and dissociated himself from the preternaturally corrupt Democratic establishment, which is really no different to the Republicans in that it is hand-in-glove with Wall St and the large corporate donors. As in the UK, the party that is supposed to represent the working classes has abandoned them.
perrywidhalm
4 years ago
This author does not understand American politics. It was always going to be crazy ole’ Joe Biden. Even with his clear case of dementia, it was always going to be Joe Biden. At his core, the ignorant, arrogant Joe Biden represents Democrat Corporate America just as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Biden was pre-selected. Although, when President Trump gets finished with Biden during the debates, Trump will get re-elected in an electoral landslide.
Warren Alexander
4 years ago
A lot of my Americans friends who would usually vote Democrat simply laughed at the idea of a Sanders candidacy and saw it as a straight win for Trump. They’re none too keen on Biden either.
Try to find Paul Joseph Watson’s Creepy Joe Biden video, if they allow you to find it. I literally had to cover my eyes as he more or less molests young girl after young girl. Creepy Sleepy Veepy Joe…
Christopher Chantrill
4 years ago
You know I think it is helpful to understand left-wing politics at two levels.
First, there is the simple appeal to tribal loyalty — “what about the workers!” — and the promise of loot and plunder.
Second is the moral, religious aspect: the promise of a perfect world of equality and safety and the stigmatization of skeptics as heretics.
The first level is where the old working class and current marginalized groups live. The second is where the “educated Gentry” lives.
Let’s talk about something that the writer doesn’t even address: The “progressive” Left has been selling one thing that has proven false, time and again: Government IS the answer to everything.
Sanders camp, and his followers, were selling the Utopian BS that there’s actually a “Free Lunch” for their followers. The rich would pay for it. The part they NEVER spoke about was that the wealth they wanted to give away would not last forever, and would have to be “replenished” somehow. Given that scenario, who in its right mind would want to keep producing a wealth that would be taken away to pay for this “free lunch”? Hell, I would want some of that “Free Lunch” too, since I don’t have to pay for it.
While he had celebrated in the past the leadership of the former USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela, Sanders was trying to convince the Democrat electorate, that the “Socialist” model he was pursuing was that of the Nordic countries. He kept doing this even after the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, completely debunked this “wool over your eyes” narrative by stating: “I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,”…
The biggest mystery is that while it has pushed the “America sucks”, and everyone except us are just a bunch of racist, xenophobic, (feel free to fill the blank) uneducated rednecks, NOT ONE of the non-white, or female candidates in the Democrat Presidential candidates field received voter support to remain in the race. The Democrats decided to stay with the SAME type of candidate they, and ESPECIALLY the Squad, had taken care to fully demonize all along: An OLD, WHITE man, Washington Establishment lifetime politician. So much for inclusion and diversity. The Democrats proved that they don’t believe in what they were selling, not even the African-American, or Latino voters. This makes me wonder why the Democrats don’t call “racists” all of those voters that supported Biden. Yes. I know, the term is “pragmatic”.
Labour will dig a hole in the ground and fill it in, day after day, whether a socialist or a capitalist is telling them to do it. Only a working market economy will refuse to pay for it.
Affirming the consequent fallacy. Pointing out that not all labour creates wealth does not suffice to establish that it isn’t labour that creates wealth.
Also, there isn’t anyone directing anyone else’s labour in an actually socialist economy. People have sovereignty over their own labour. That’s the point.
Also, it’s funny how there’s always a ‘free lunch’ for the rich under capitalism.
Basil Chamberlain
4 years ago
The last sentence is all very well, but some of the most effective politicians in both Britain and America have been those who successful changed what was “mainstream” in politics. Primary examples would be FDR and Attlee, who, at slightly different times, established a left-leaning consensus that lasted 35 years in each country; and Thatcher and Reagan, who shifted mainstream political discourse dramatically to the right.
It also seems clear that a number of right-wing figures have achieved dramatic success in recent years in many countries running from outside what is generally accepted to be the mainstream. Donald Trump is evidently not a mainstream politician. As far as today’s politics is concerned, is not the real question why right-wing populism presently has so much more extensive an appeal than left-wing populism?
David George
4 years ago
“a lesson for the left” Don’t need no stupid lesson when you know the answer to everything. Just ask Owen Jones, he’s figured out that they were right all along; it was the idiot voters that were wrong.
Stewart Ware
4 years ago
Who is this person Albert Tempered?
Peter Ryan
4 years ago
I think it’s very easy to look back and say why exactly ‘I’ got something wrong with a great multitude of reasons. Say, in 2016 I predicted that the 2016 referendum would see a last minute few point switch to Remain on a heuristic of the perceived-to-be-safer getting a final surge – I think in retrospect I simply applied the rule of thumb from some situations too sweepingly. I was saying to my friends back in Iowa & NH days that Sanders couldn’t win, just by looking at the numbers of left-wing support compared to moderate. The case that moderate candidate supporters would suddenly switch to Sanders over another moderate seemed tenuous to me. The moderate support was split – and I think the bigger factor wasn’t what Sanders said in this interview or that, but that the moderates needed to trickle down into 1 candidate. (But it was only after South Carolina that I was confident in saying it would be Biden (obviously not that impressive, i.e. if one reckons it has to be a moderate and the other moderates have dropped out…).) I appreciate the lessons for the left details though (as a soft-left man myself)
John Fulchester
3 years ago
The lesson I learned from both Corbyn and Sanders is different: it doesn’t matter how popular they are the right wing establishment that dominates their respective parties will do anything and everything to make sure a left wing candidate fails. They would genuinely rather lose an election than allow for a left wing candidate to win. Everything else is immaterial.
I have been following all of this very closely, and this account generally accords with a lot of the commentary emanating from the US. It is certainly true to say that banging on about Cuba it not a good idea, especially when you need to win Florida. Indeed, it suggests that Sanders is probably quite dim and not a good politician.
Not mentioned is the fact that one of the reasons Sanders lost support among the ‘working classes’ is that he embraced open borders to appease AOC and The Squad. In the past he had (correctly) stated that mass immigration damages the wages and conditions of working class Americans.
Also, a lot of left-wing US commentators such as the excellent Jimmy Dore think that Sanders should have run as an independent, and dissociated himself from the preternaturally corrupt Democratic establishment, which is really no different to the Republicans in that it is hand-in-glove with Wall St and the large corporate donors. As in the UK, the party that is supposed to represent the working classes has abandoned them.
This author does not understand American politics. It was always going to be crazy ole’ Joe Biden. Even with his clear case of dementia, it was always going to be Joe Biden. At his core, the ignorant, arrogant Joe Biden represents Democrat Corporate America just as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Biden was pre-selected. Although, when President Trump gets finished with Biden during the debates, Trump will get re-elected in an electoral landslide.
A lot of my Americans friends who would usually vote Democrat simply laughed at the idea of a Sanders candidacy and saw it as a straight win for Trump. They’re none too keen on Biden either.
Try to find Paul Joseph Watson’s Creepy Joe Biden video, if they allow you to find it. I literally had to cover my eyes as he more or less molests young girl after young girl. Creepy Sleepy Veepy Joe…
You know I think it is helpful to understand left-wing politics at two levels.
First, there is the simple appeal to tribal loyalty — “what about the workers!” — and the promise of loot and plunder.
Second is the moral, religious aspect: the promise of a perfect world of equality and safety and the stigmatization of skeptics as heretics.
The first level is where the old working class and current marginalized groups live. The second is where the “educated Gentry” lives.
Capitalism is predicated on loot and plunder.
Let’s talk about something that the writer doesn’t even address: The “progressive” Left has been selling one thing that has proven false, time and again: Government IS the answer to everything.
Sanders camp, and his followers, were selling the Utopian BS that there’s actually a “Free Lunch” for their followers. The rich would pay for it. The part they NEVER spoke about was that the wealth they wanted to give away would not last forever, and would have to be “replenished” somehow. Given that scenario, who in its right mind would want to keep producing a wealth that would be taken away to pay for this “free lunch”? Hell, I would want some of that “Free Lunch” too, since I don’t have to pay for it.
While he had celebrated in the past the leadership of the former USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela, Sanders was trying to convince the Democrat electorate, that the “Socialist” model he was pursuing was that of the Nordic countries. He kept doing this even after the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, completely debunked this “wool over your eyes” narrative by stating: “I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,”…
The biggest mystery is that while it has pushed the “America sucks”, and everyone except us are just a bunch of racist, xenophobic, (feel free to fill the blank) uneducated rednecks, NOT ONE of the non-white, or female candidates in the Democrat Presidential candidates field received voter support to remain in the race.
The Democrats decided to stay with the SAME type of candidate they, and ESPECIALLY the Squad, had taken care to fully demonize all along: An OLD, WHITE man, Washington Establishment lifetime politician. So much for inclusion and diversity. The Democrats proved that they don’t believe in what they were selling, not even the African-American, or Latino voters. This makes me wonder why the Democrats don’t call “racists” all of those voters that supported Biden. Yes. I know, the term is “pragmatic”.
Labour produces wealth, not big capitalists or landlords.
Labour will dig a hole in the ground and fill it in, day after day, whether a socialist or a capitalist is telling them to do it.
Only a working market economy will refuse to pay for it.
Affirming the consequent fallacy. Pointing out that not all labour creates wealth does not suffice to establish that it isn’t labour that creates wealth.
Also, there isn’t anyone directing anyone else’s labour in an actually socialist economy. People have sovereignty over their own labour. That’s the point.
Also, it’s funny how there’s always a ‘free lunch’ for the rich under capitalism.
The last sentence is all very well, but some of the most effective politicians in both Britain and America have been those who successful changed what was “mainstream” in politics. Primary examples would be FDR and Attlee, who, at slightly different times, established a left-leaning consensus that lasted 35 years in each country; and Thatcher and Reagan, who shifted mainstream political discourse dramatically to the right.
It also seems clear that a number of right-wing figures have achieved dramatic success in recent years in many countries running from outside what is generally accepted to be the mainstream. Donald Trump is evidently not a mainstream politician. As far as today’s politics is concerned, is not the real question why right-wing populism presently has so much more extensive an appeal than left-wing populism?
“a lesson for the left”
Don’t need no stupid lesson when you know the answer to everything.
Just ask Owen Jones, he’s figured out that they were right all along; it was the idiot voters that were wrong.
Who is this person Albert Tempered?
I think it’s very easy to look back and say why exactly ‘I’ got something wrong with a great multitude of reasons. Say, in 2016 I predicted that the 2016 referendum would see a last minute few point switch to Remain on a heuristic of the perceived-to-be-safer getting a final surge – I think in retrospect I simply applied the rule of thumb from some situations too sweepingly. I was saying to my friends back in Iowa & NH days that Sanders couldn’t win, just by looking at the numbers of left-wing support compared to moderate. The case that moderate candidate supporters would suddenly switch to Sanders over another moderate seemed tenuous to me. The moderate support was split – and I think the bigger factor wasn’t what Sanders said in this interview or that, but that the moderates needed to trickle down into 1 candidate. (But it was only after South Carolina that I was confident in saying it would be Biden (obviously not that impressive, i.e. if one reckons it has to be a moderate and the other moderates have dropped out…).)
I appreciate the lessons for the left details though (as a soft-left man myself)
The lesson I learned from both Corbyn and Sanders is different: it doesn’t matter how popular they are the right wing establishment that dominates their respective parties will do anything and everything to make sure a left wing candidate fails. They would genuinely rather lose an election than allow for a left wing candidate to win. Everything else is immaterial.