| Jaicee said: Wow. Bernie Sanders people are even more narrow-minded than I thought. ELIZABETH WARREN, who is running on a platform objectively LEFT OF Bernie's (think not just single-payer health care and tuition-free college and a $15/hour minimum wage, but also breaking up the tech giants, giving workers a minimum 40% ownership stake in the companies they work for, etc.), is a pro-corporate, establishment tool? Really? There is also no question that she has a race problem when it comes to who is supporting her as yet, but would point out that so did Bernie Sanders back in 2016 when the nation was first being introduced to him at this same level. But Krystal Ball is full of it when it comes to the income breakdown of her supporters. Warren regularly polls in third among low-income Americans, mirroring her overall position in the polls (which has mostly been third place). I would also duly remind the reader that Warren's average campaign contribution size in the second quarter was $28, which is exactly what that of Bernie Sanders was in 2016, and is only half that of candidates like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. And that Warren does not take corporate donations or attend high-dollar fundraisers. As to all this "glowing media coverage" that Warren has received, one wonders whether Krystal Ball has been paying attention in the last two weeks because most of it that I've seen has focused on her "Pocahantas problem", as it's being termed, now that it's clear she's not going away. This message brought to you by one of those "wealthy white liberal elites" on food stamps who supports Elizabeth Warren. |
I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't paint us all with the same brush, Jaicee. Bernie may be my first choice, but Warren, so far, is a close second, and no one is close behind her for me. I'd also appreciate if you didn't make sweeping statements like "objectively to the left" because Warren is NOT "objectively" to the left of Sanders. I mean you do realize he wants to break up tech giants too, right? If I genuinely believed that Warren would break them up and Sanders wouldn't, I would switch to Warren immediately, so if you have proof there that this is unique to Warren, present it now. I'm under no delusion that Warren is an establishment tool, but there is absolutely no possible worse red flag to my trust in her trust than the Third Way think tank saying positive things about her. I'd rather the Koch brothers and their think tanks endorsed her, because I could believe that they just think she stands a chance of winning the nom and that perhaps they just think her as the nominee would give Republicans a better chance. For Third Way to talk about her as a way to stop Bernie, that gives me serious pause. This is the king of neoliberal politics we're talking about here, the demon we've been trying to exorcise from the party since the Clinton years, and they see her as a way to save the party from going full socialist. That scares me.
Again, Warren is no friend of corporate America, I know that, you know that, everyone in this thread knows that, and I doubt there's a soul alive that actually supports Bernie for ideological reasons and considers her an actual ideological enemy, but the people who support Bernie over Warren do so for a variety of reasons, and for many of us, it's that we're unabashed socialists that dislike that Warren proudly and unabashedly identifies as a capitalist, and see the election of Bernie as the more revolutionary act. If Bernie fails to get the nomination, Warren is the ONLY other candidate with an actual chance that I'd be genuinely ecstatically excited to enthusiastically campaign for. I just hope that if she does win, she learns from Bernie that continuous outreach and engagement with the people will be necessary to get done the revolutionary agenda that she shares with Bernie (name any policy of hers and I'll find you one from Sanders that's just as good or better).
That is the one thing I feel I can point to for Bernie over Warren, that while their policy agendas are in all practicality nearly identical, Bernie's political strategy for getting those policies enacted is better, in my mind. Warren wants to make nice with the neoliberal establishment of the party, which will involve allowing her amazing plans to be watered down through compromise after compromise, long before compromise is actually politically necessary. Bernie will not do that. He'll engage the people, FDR fireside chat style but more modern, to bring about an honest to God political revolution. That phrase isn't just rhetoric to him. And lets be clear, this isn't "only he can do it" personality cult speaking, this is just trust of his consistent record and faith in his strategy talking that keeps me supporting him. Warren has the record (with very occasional stains like her unwillingness to endorse in time for Super Tuesday in 2016) but not the strategy. Williamson is the only other candidate to come close to talking like Bernie on strategy, perhaps that's why I liked her so much, but she stands no chance and frankly I like Bernie's and Liz's visions and plans better, and trust their leadership more.
