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uran10 said:
AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I would say speak for yourself, but you already seem to be alternating between speaking for yourself and speaking for an entire movement whenever it's convenient.

Anyways, i'm kind of sympathetic to what you're saying. Bernie was my preferred candidate by far, I voted for him in my primary, and it's depressing to think that incrementalism will win the race. However, I think it's dangerous to say that Biden is as bad as Trump, let alone worse. If you care about basic human rights, a $15 minimum wage, most deportations being halted, free public college for those making an income of less than $125k, and a (admittedly kind of vague) plan to decrease drug prices by driving up competition with other nations' drug products through importation, are all steps in the right direction. You say that Biden has to earn the vote of progressives, and that they don't owe it to him, and that's right! Correct! That's exactly what he's trying to do. That's why, no matter how much Biden's base might not like Sanders or how much Sanders base don't want to face defeat, we have to look at this in the context of how much Sander's movement has actual changed political discourse. Biden wouldn't be proposing bankruptcy reform or free college if progressives weren't in the race, sure, but that's why it's important to recognize when a candidate is trying to do better and represent a bigger tent of the party. I will vote for Joe Biden because I think he has done enough to convince me and perhaps even some other left-leaning people (though I don't claim to speak for other Sanders supporters) that he will enact more progressive change in his administration, even if they will be compromises, nonetheless they will be steps forward. I do agree though that people shouldn't have to vote for candidates they don't like, that you don't owe anything to the Democratic party, and I also think that the "lesser of two evils" concept represents a huge weakness in a two-party system. But, to expand on that concept non-literally, I don't think Joe Biden is really a lesser evil, or even a neutral force, but rather more a mild good. I don't want to see all of the elections in my life time be an infinite cycle of modest progress, but in the here and now Joe is the clear pick over Trump. 

And, as much as it sucks to admit, it's not exactly like most people who are both 1) being realistic and 2) Sanders supporters, are actually voting for Sanders because they believe that all of his policies in their purest form will pass. They won't and wouldn't. There has to be a break, a compromise, somewhere in there. It's just that I believe his compromises would be farther left. 

That's you. Joe is a pathological liar and is owned by the 1% and the dem establishment. They don't want any real change, he himself said nothing will fundamentally change. Joe Biden is a corrupt politician and his 40 years have caused more devastation to us than Trump could ever. You trust giving him power cause I don't. I personally don't think he'd do anything of the sort that he's claiming to move left on. His entire record shows that so why should I trust his recent changes over his 40 years in power? Voting for Joe is like voting for the devil that's why #neverbiden was trending and I will say it, he can't convince me because I can never trust him. He lied the entire debate, he's been lying the entire campaign, he's been lying for so long what makes you think this "pivot" isn't just another lie?

on top of that, this is what Biden and his team think of the movement. If you can vote for people that say this directly to us idk man:

And 1 more edit: I can literally post hundreds of people on who are saying they will not vote for Biden ever who don't care about this fake pivot. I can only post all the ancedotes they have about others who aren't politically active who wouldn't vote for Biden but would have for Bernie and will sit home. You just described the lesser of 2 evil btw and let me ask you something very simple.

Let's say Joe tried to pass this version of free college, how much do you want to bet he'd have to compromise on this half measure and end up changing fundamentally nothing? You literally cannot start from the center with this, if you don't go all the way you'll get nothing because that's unfortunately how our system works. All these compromise ideas are doomed to fail, republicans will laugh at them just as much as they laugh at the real deal and so will most right wing dems, so please tell me how you think this left pivot is real and how you have faith in this pathological liar to actually do what he says?

You can't say on the one hand that Joe sidesteps and pivots his opinion over time (thus being inconsistent), and then say we can't trust him to make changes because they're different from opinions he had 40 years ago. That's not how that works. I hate to say it, but the good thing about Joe Biden as of now is that he's kind of in the palm of our hands. He has to unite the democratic party, many of which are progressives, and that requires promises. Now could he backpedal on this stuff in the general? Sure. Could he do it under his presidency? Sure, but I don't think it's too likely, because these are already compromises as is. 

I'm not saying these people don't exist, but I think the reality is, while the progressive block in the democratic primary is big, they aren't even doing a good job representing themselves, and most of those people will probably end up voting for Biden. If anything, a lot of those voters would probably have higher turnout in a general than a primary anyways, because that's generally the case. So when you say that "The Us in that will not move to Biden", you are categorically wrong. Even among Hillary Clinton, a candidate way less likeable and with much more baggage for Sanders supporters, still 85% of his supporters ended up voting for her. 

And look. Like I said. I agree with the pathos of what you're saying, I really think just electing incremental politicians for the rest of our lives is a bad idea. And people really shouldn't have to vote for a candidate they don't like, because it's slightly better than an alternative, let alone entire parties. However, what I explained was not a lesser of two evils. A lesser of two evils is a concept based on hating both candidates almost equally, and thinking that both have intentions which will either lead to problems for the country or so little change that it comes at the expense of the American public. I don't think either is the case for Joe Biden, he's just getting us to that same path just slower. I won't lie, I'm a little worried about what a Biden win would signal to the party as I think it could essentially put in cement that progressives can't win an election, at the same time, the policies and political mind-share have already been won by progressives in reality. 

And let's be honest, Biden can't fall back on these campaign promises. Not when they are the biggest reason for progressives and youth voters to join his side. There's not even a valid comparison to be made between the level of scrutiny one gets for changing their opinion over the course of decades behind the scenes in the senate, and doing so on a campaign trail for presidency. 2016 showed more than anything that depressed voters can't win elections. Despite winning the popular vote, Hillary still lost, and I think a lot of that is (besides the electoral college obviously) because many of her voters were depressed voters. They didn't get people in-line. They didn't draw huge turnout. People weren't convincing their friends to go vote. Sure, she already won the popular vote, but she could have made that win even more convincing, and she didn't. And that's really not shown to be the case for Biden, if anything it's the exact opposite if you compare voter turnout for states that had previously already had primaries. 

Also while I think Sanders campaign would push for a more left-leaning compromise, I don't think the fact that he pushed for no compromises originally would lead to less compromise inherently in execution. I do think it's possible that Sanders would have a more left-leaning compromise, I mean, that's why I voted for him in the end. But that's an oddly bizarre take in general, and doesn't make a lot of sense. Compromises are not like a binary thing where, every time something is proposed, there is automatically a compromise. It's more like whenever something is too far left of something, compromises have to be made to draw those congressmen in. As it is, some democrats might not even vote for Bernie's proposals, whereas Biden's would probably be way more popular in congress, and we may even flip the senate. 

And at this point, as a Bernie supporter, I've learned to detach these politicians from their supporters, even their campaign staff. I think it's really odd to highlight Biden's campaign as being disrespectful in this regard when, Bernie's staff has gotten criticisms for a lot of the same things. I would think, if anything, the number one thing you would learn as a Bernie supporter is that these staffers and fans don't represent these politicians very well (and let's be honest, policies speak louder than words).