HylianSwordsman said:
Speak for yourself. One person's "decent person in politics" is another person's smear target, and vice versa. You yourself in that post put Bernie under Tulsi and even Yang as if he's somehow less progressive than them, and you've smeared him in the past just because he felt it necessary to oppose Trump at all costs. Trump is corruption incarnate, and an existential threat to democracy itself, and all Bernie did was see that and try to do something about it, or at least not help Trump by splitting the anti-Trump vote. And you smear him for that. Bernie is my "one of the few decent people in politics" and he gets smeared all the time, from all sides, be it neoliberal, progressive, or...whatever you are, centrist libertarian I guess? I'm just saying, you're not innocent of smearing "decent people in politics" either. We all have different opinions, and that includes on who is a good politician and who isn't, who is beyond reproach, who could be better, who is the absolute worst, etc. Such is the nature of politics, unfortunately. As for why there aren't more good people in politics, it's because good people tend not to be power hungry, and if they strive for power at all, it's so they can give it away to others. That, and the amount of cynicism and apathy in the world mean that no one would believe a person's good intentions if they saw them and no one would lift a finger to help them even if they did believe them, even enough to go out and vote. |
I don't necessarily consider Bernie less progressive, I just tend to support the policies of Tulsi and Yang moreso, and their ideals/beliefs tend to align closer to mine than Bernie's these days.
Yes, I express my opinions on candidates, which I have a right to do, and I'm also not a gigantic media conglomerate with the power to influence millions - so my responsibility in being impartial and getting my facts right is quite a bit less. And I also try to not discredit or slag others based on fabrications, fallacies, misrepresentations, etc which the media seems to love to do with Gabbard.
I still don't appreciate Bernie selling out to the corporate establishment and basically kneel to Clinton (who embodies the Wallstreet, warmongering, Neolib establishment that he stood against). And to me he's beginning to play the fearmongering identity politics angle a bit too much for my tastes. Not that it's entirely baseless but it turns me off, and there's enough of that going on already in the D party. It's basically on record the party rigged the primary against him and instead of doing something about it he chose to rant and rave more about Trump while he ran off to his mansion. Left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
To me the difference between Bern and Hillary was at LEAST as big as Bern to Trump if not moreso. But he's supposed to step aside simply because they both have that (D) next to their name? I don't buy it. It's especially a headscratcher to me when I feel he would have had the better chance to beat Trump in the first place, not HRC! I partially get the splitting the vote thing but why isn't SHE ever viewed as "splitting the anti-Trump vote?" Bernie seemed to be the candidate of choice among the people.
But yes, at the end of the day, I still respect Bernie as a politician and least his record seems to show he's an ACTUAL progressive, and a consistant one, that genuinely wants to help the masses in America. He at least used to be my prefered candidate until Tulsi and Yang entered the picture. Good enough?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident - all men and women created by the, go-you know.. you know the thing!" - Joe Biden
