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? 

Good enough, sure, but it still sounds like you're smearing him a bit here. I agree he would definitely have beaten Trump, IF he were the only candidate running against him, but "rant and rave" and "ran off to his mansion"? You complain when people say that Gabbard runs around with dictators, and you say something like that? As far as I'm concerned, the fact that he believed Trump was enough of a threat to democracy to have the HUMILITY to endorse someone who is documented by reliable sources as having cheated him out of the nomination, says mountains of good things about his character and integrity. Yeah, it sucked that he had to endorse a corrupt cheater, but he saw her as a corrupt cheater and her opponent as an existential threat to the human race. You might disagree with him on that, but that's the logic behind his endorsement, and you gotta ask yourself, if that's truly what you believed, could you have done the same? If you genuinely though Trump represented a threat to the species, would you be able to join forces with the person who cheated you out of power to stop Trump? Because I know I'd have had trouble avoiding the temptation of being too bigheaded and thinking I could beat both Hillary and Trump, and running as an independent. Maybe I could have done the right thing and stepped down to give the remaining Trump challenger the best shot, but Hillary sure as hell didn't have the integrity to do that. If Bernie hadn't stepped down, and had tried to fight it, Hillary would have stayed in even knowing that Trump would probably win, the smears would have gotten worse, he'd have been blamed if Trump won, he would have been called sexist for not standing down for a first woman president, and we'd be in even worse shape than we are now, because Trump would have still won but Bernie's movement would be discredited. Is it unfair? Yes, but for Bernie it was never about him, it was about US, so him giving up the nomination to someone who got it unfairly may have been unfair to him, but he thought a future under Hillary would be more fair to more people than a future under Trump, and knew there was no future where he ran alone against Trump, because Hillary wouldn't allow that. Bernie was always smeared as not being pragmatic, but he's more pragmatic than the establishment ever was. Probably the most unfair part of all this is that some of his own former fans fail to see that and just see him as a traitor to his own cause.

@DarthMetalliCube I have lots of respect for you right now, you took the words right out of my mouth regarding Warren. I think you're main thing when it comes to Bernie is election integrity (which btw, is what I said Tusli would be winning over bernie voters with cause he endorsed Clinton after she cheated him). I agree to an extent but I understand Bernie's reasoning even if it was buying into the lesser of 2 evils nonsense. I don't exactly see bernie playing into Identity politics though, the only thing he did that really goes deepish into that is his choice for VP is gonna be a younger woman of colour (i'm betting Nina Turner).

Tulsi has her election integrity strengths as does Bernie though. They're both tackling it in their own way, tho Bernie is skirting the lines a bit too much while Tulsi is just calling everything out. However the root cause of everything is Money in politics and you can't beat the system while taking its money. Bernie's Money in politics plan is easily the best out of the field and would essentially stop the legal corruption of the democratic party.

I can understand why you'd put yang there but at the same time I can't. Its similar to Tulsi with him calling it out, but his policies aren't exactly on her level and his UBI is a very bad version of UBI. Either way I'm Bernie 2020 and I want Tulsi as secretary of state especially after looking at Syria real quick, she called it again. Honestly, Bernie is by far the best domestically and Tulsi wins foreign policy wise. Honestly they're the perfect team and ticket but I don't want her to be stuck in that essentially useless vp position.

My issue is not with Tulsi Gabbard, she's not a significant player in the democratic primaries and should have dropped out months ago (along with most of the others). My issue is with this jealous cult of personality fanbase that keeps spouting off nonsense (such as your post above) in attempts at taking down the successful progressive candidates.

What do you hope to achieve? You should think for yourself and not fall further into these dumbassed cults of personality and their conspiracy theories and bizarre framework.

You're lying about Elizabeth Warren for one thing:

She isn't taking corporate donations - you just made that up. Although, she should accept all donations made to her regardless of their source. It is a foolish thing to handicap yourself. It's kind of like MMA, you might be against grounded elbows, but if you refuse to use them on principle, you're potentially setting yourself up for failure in the given ruleset.

Also, she didn't lie about her native American heritage; she was mistaken about it. We know this because she administered a test and then went public with how she was mistaken about it. Again, more bullshit on your part.

Why do you think Tulsi Gabbard is going to "call out Elizabeth Warren" on stuff you're just making up? To what end do you think this is going to lead?

Well, VP isn't the only position a president needs o fill. What about… Secretary of State?

I said that though. I want Tulsi as Secretary of State, I think she's perfect for that position.

Maybe you should start by not calling everyone who calls out Warren's "progressiveness" cultist. But to your point, its a Primary. Its called vetting and with everything that has come out about her she definitely isn't progressive. Slightly more left leaning than other centrist in the race perhaps, but not progressive. She's lied too much, she's a follower of the crowd among other things. We wouldn't be calling her out for all of this if it didn't happen but it did. Maybe you feel like you want Obama 2.0 but I definitely do not and I refuse to vote for Obama 2.0. Hell Obama was Clinton 2.0 so this is the 3rd time this "progressive" neo-liberal character comes around. The people have been fooled twice, let's see if they make the same mistake a third time.

Would you prefer I called you fanboy instead of being a part of a cult of personality? Because with demonstrably false beliefs of yours like "everything that has come out about her [shows] she definitely isn't progressive." indicates you're as brainwashed as any cultist.

You aren't calling out Elizabeth Warren on anything. You're concern trolling.

First, not a cult of anything. Stop trying to label people who do not think warren is Progressive as cultist. We do not support personalities we support policies. Policies that Warren has either claimed to support then walked back on or has never supported or has pretended to support to boost her own image .She's lied and Waffled on pretty much everything. I'm not concern trolling I'm pointing out simple things that everyone can see if they take the time to dig through her record and follow her statements

This thread for example is a short list of Warren being Warren.

Now for me, I'm against Money in politics and I'm for publicly funded elections. I believe anyone who is taking money for corporate pacs etc is disqualified and will not fight for the American people. Warren transferred in over 10mil in corporate cash to her presidential run and then said she would take it in the general. "changed" her tune cause of the backlash but didn't really cause she'd allow the DNC to take corporate cash then give it to her. Lol #1 issue is money and she's failed there. Let's continue

M4a: She claims to support medicare for all but has waffled on it more times than I can count with the latest one (that I paid attention to, who knows if she's done more at this point since this is a constant) being her calling a 200 page bill a framework.

Foreign Policy and Military industrial complex: She gave trump more money than he asked for when it came to the military budget (she voted for it, bernie did not). She's horrible on the Iran, the middle east and bad on venezuela... all around her foreign policy is closer to Hillary and that's pretty horrible. Her best FP answer was literally taken word for word from Tulsi when she wasn't on the debate stage and even then would you believe her after her record on it cause I wouldn't.

Not endorsing Bernie in 2016. For someone who is a "social democrat" its quite strange that they endorsed Hillary over Bernie. Hillary's record speaks for itself and she chose to back her over Bernie who is supposedly closer to her than Clinton could ever be.

On top of that the corporate Media loves her. THIS IS A RED FLAG. The corporate media is doing everything in its power to stop bernie but at the same time propping her up. She claims she's gonna challenge their power but is signalling to the corporate and democratic elite that she'll play ball. She's a capitalist to her bones and she's trying to play both sides aka she's not gonna fight for the people.

I ask you again, do you want Obama 2.0 or do you want someone whose actually gonna challenge and change the system?

I'm quite tired of this cultist remark you throw out so often so I will say it again. I care about the policy, and based off of what Darth has said he's the same. Its not personality we're being pulled into, we have our lists, our litmus test and how much we trust the people doing or saying it. Warren has lied for the majority of her life, lied about her teaching job, lied about being native american, and seems to be lying about her support for certain policies. Why would I trust her to implement anything she says when she's a proven liar? I'm not here for someone who can be bought, give me the person who hasn't taken corporate pac money, had bundling dinners etc. Give me the person who means what they say. Give me the person that I know will fight for me and actually believes the words coming out of their mouth. Warren isn't trustworthy, so it doesn't matter what she says anymore and even when she says good stuff she turns around and takes it back. Also do you know in the LGBTQA+ town hall that they had. That answer she gave that went viral, do you know it was her MEGADONOR that asked it? Doesn't that raise red flags with you as though that was planned and scripted? Its not like the network hasn't done it before so....

But that's my point. I do not trust her to do what she says, while the thing about Bernie and Tulsi and even Yang. They believe in what they say and even when they're wrong on the issues they're driven to the correct positions through the people and we've seen examples of this from all these parties and we can believe them. Warren though? A proven liar cannot be taken by her word. It has nothing to do with supporting Bernie, it has everything to do with getting the policies we want. I'm not here for identity politics, I'm here for policies and if you've lied about it before why should I trust you to actually do anything about it?