Like I said before tho, they're messing up impeachment. If they went and investigated everything instead of focusing on this miniscule subject I'd be somewhat behind it, but they're screwing it up. This wont hurt trump if they go this route it will help him. If they wanted to impeach there are so many better avenues but instead they're doing it in the stupidest way to try to protect biden and I just can't with that. If impeachment hurts trump, I'll be happy but if the democrats screw it up (and they already are), I don't see it hurting trump but helping him. But that's just me.

Now on to some other things you stated. Bernie is doing more events than any other candidate, this means big speeches and smaller events, in fact he has done more smaller town hall events than any other candidate so this idea that you have about warren listening and Bernie being about himself is kinda crazy to me. Bernie's campaign slogan is Not me. Us. On the other hand Warren's basically going around and saying I HAVE A PLAN key word I. So I'm gonna have to reject that premise outright because it is not true at all. On top of that, We just recently saw in a small event a man who wanted to kill himself talk to bernie. Bernie CANCELLED another event to sit and talk to this man for over an hour and to convince him not to end his life. He did something that would hurt his campaign (aka not campaign) to talk to a man who couldn't take it anymore. This isn't out of the norm for him. He did the same way back in 2015 with Amy Vilela. He has these intimate small events you're giving warren credit for and he has more of them and he listens to the people and he talks to them and takes time to answer them.

And to contrast this with Warren real quick, she did a town hall event like you said recently. She took 3 questions then said that's it because we have to take selfies.

I'm just saying that town hall point is definitely not true and while bernie does rely on his stump speeches for the most part, he goes out and has smaller events to hear about what everyday americans worry about out. He does the legitimate most campaigning and in all honesty, I personally think he needs to chill. I think he's doing too much, but at the same time I understand why he's doing this and I see him fighting for us.

Way too much to respond to here, but I agree with a lot of what's being said, however I don't have nearly as much distrust of Warren as uran, but neither do I have as much trust for her as Jaicee. I look to Bernie's decade's long consistency as trustworthy and more important than Warren's Republican past connecting her to rural voters. I think Bernie reaches rural voters just fine. He went on Fox News when Warren wouldn't, and he's a senator of one of the most rural states in the country. Jaicee says she's shocked by the fact that there are Trump voters in his ranks, I say that's evidence that he reached rural voters, though I've seen many more polls that suggest that Trump voters make up a much smaller portion of his base.

I definitely think we can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions, because I come to the opposite conclusions as Jaicee. Bernie seems like the innovator, Warren the imitator, to me. Bernie the leader, Warren the follower. I feel like Jaicee is cherry picking what she sees because she trusts a women more, due to the fact that women's issues are her main concern. If you disagree Jaicee, ask yourself, if AOC and Bernie were switched, and AOC talked like she does but had the same Vermont seat and results with rural voters and progressive presidential candidacy, would you still pick Warren? Because it seems to me that the difference between Bernie and Warren is the same as the difference between Warren and AOC. AOC is like a younger, female Bernie (yes, yes, with her own ideas and identity, before you say anything) and I can't wait until she comes of presidential age so I can campaign for her until my voice is hoarse and my arms and legs fall off, and donate to her until I can't afford groceries.

I find it really odd that Jaicee seems to have almost my exact foreign policy opinions, yet likes Warren over Sanders, when Sanders is the clear winner on foreign policy to me over Warren or Gabbard. I feel like uran is blinding himself to evidence of Russian interference and the rise of an international authoritarian right, because he feels it undermines his narrative. It doesn't, and he should embrace the facts on Russia. Given Gabbard's coziness with Russia and with various authoritarian right-wing dictators, I don't understand how uran, who claims to be so concerned about the overton window presenting a false center in America, can be so unconcerned about the global shift of the overton window towards right-wing authoritarianism.

I encourage both uran and Jaicee to read this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2018/sep/13/bernie-sanders-international-progressive-front

I think Bernie's assessment of the foreign policy reality, and his prescription to fight back, are spot on and exactly what we need, and trust him more than any other candidate to deliver on this.

To answer your bolded question first, yes. My own views are more similar overall to those of Elizabeth Warren than to those of AOC. I think you may be overestimating my zeal around, you know, wishing that Israel were just washed into the sea or something. I think that's a generational thing. "The squad" are okay with me and have been important in leading on certain issues (like the principle of doing away with ICE, for instance), but they're not really my idols. I think that's a generational thing too.

None of the leading Democratic candidates fully represents me on foreign policy. That's a weak spot for the party as a whole in my book. The easiest way you can tell is by the fact that none of them supports the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are anarchist-socialists I strongly support. The progressive Democrats are leaning toward outright pacifism in foreign policy. I don't go entirely that far. That's just an area I have to largely set aside in this election. I recognize that. I'm okay with that because it's worth it on balance, I think. There are other areas too where I don't agree with the Democratic Party's consensus. I'm setting those aside for this election.

I honestly think that we're making mountains out of molehills here. We basically agree on the issues. Most issues anyway. I think Bernie does pretty well among rural voters too, I was just highlighting a margin of difference because I was directly asked to. *shrugs*

@HylianSwordsman You're wrong about how I view Russia as it does nothing to undermine what I'm saying I'm just looking at it in a simple way. You claim xyz happens, you claimed russia hacked the DNC, you claimed russia attacked out democracy but when push came to shove you didn't provide the evidence. You didn't let the FBI investigate you went with some third party group which was later found out to be compromised and trying to enrich themself off of the entire angle. My entire take on Russia gate is that it is a false narrative and it was created for 2 reasons and both relate to Clinton. 1st, The DNC leaks. What every Sanders supporter was saying turned out to be true, the primary was rigged against him and Hillary played a big part in it and we were angry. To try to re-direct that anger she tried to focus on making Russia the source and said that they hacked when all evidence proved that it was internally done. The speeds recorded show that it was someone else internally that took the data. She basically was saying, look, blame russsia for attacking the dnc and ignore the details that wikileaks dropped. Julian Assange btw is biased against clinton but his record is 100% true. 2nd, to Undermine trump and to create a scapegoat for her loss. This also prevented the democrats from having to look inward and access how badly out of touch their party was with the people. I've never bought Russia gate and I never will. I don't see any evidence pointing to it being true and even Muller's report was a big bag of nothing except trump obstructing justice cause he's really stupid.

Tulsi is objectively better on the majority of foreign Policy decisions as well. These ties to right wing dictators everyone loves to bring up annoys me a ton cause she's meeting with leaders of countries as part of the foreign affairs committee. On top of that she also meets with the opposition but we conveniently ignore that in corporate media cause it doesn't fit the narrative. She is 100% right on Venezuela and mostly right on Syria and right on Iran. I think her weakest is Israel Palestine which IMO only Ilhan Omar and Tlaib are mostly right about. Jaicee is definitely right the Dems on a whole are weak on foriegn policy and I love bernie he's my #1 choice but he's not better than Tulsi on Foreign Policy. He caves too much to the neoliberal and neocon wings of american politics. You don't have to denounce Maduro, he did nothing wrong and is not a dictator, stop feeding that narrative because it's wrong!

But that's just where I stand on the matter. I trust bernie to get the policies I want implemented but I want Tulsi as secretary of state in his ear when it comes to foreign policy.

All this time I thought you were a socialist not a social democrat... :''''( but yeah I think you're right that it's a generational thing. The squad specifically AOC have become important icons among my generation and my personal idols. AOC and Bernie have inspired me to get into the political sector. Like Hylianswordsman, I too can't wait until AOC is presidential age she'd have my 10000% support!

You interpret them quite differently than I do. I do NOT want Israel "washed into the sea", so please don't accuse me of that. If anything, I'd like to go there someday when it's more peaceful. I want Netanyahu gone. I want the settlements to stop. I want the hard-right Jewish parties to falter in favor of a left-wing secular alliance. I want Israel to continue to be a bright beacon of secular democracy in the theocratic authoritarian darkness that is the Middle-east. I think AOC and "the squad" agree with me here. I thought you did too. I agree with you on Tulsi.

I very, very much agree with you on the Syrian Democratic Forces. Honestly, for some reason I thought Bernie supported them too, but I can't find anything to support that right now. I do know that he doesn't like that the United States is allies with authoritarian nations that treats women as second-class citizens (that's in that article I linked, though he says third class, presumably after men and royalty), and that he is against Assad, though he says he'd rather place international diplomatic pressure on Assad to step down rather than use unilateral military force. He wants a peaceful end to the civil war, which would necessitate the SDF surviving. That's all I can find. If he really is waffling on supporting the SDF, which it seems like he is, then that's super disappointing, but you're right, there are no other candidates to turn to on this issue, so I guess it's a moot point. Hopefully he can be pressured to support them as president when he tries to push for his "international progressive front".

We are making mountains of molehills, no two ways about it. I think a lot of arguments on both sides, and not just in this forum, have been exaggerations to justify and rationalize our first choices, because at the end of the day you can only pick one candidate, and in practice these two are very much alike. I recognize that, and recognize that the difference between them is in practice largely rhetorical, but feel that Sander's consistency over the years means his socialist rhetoric means something, and that's reason enough for me to say I support the democratic socialist over the social democrat capitalist.

And this is what happens when you live in the American millennial bubble, ignoring the history of the US and all of the rest of the Western world.

You could call Bernie Sanders an imitator of Canadian politician Tommy Douglas and US President FDR, and I wouldn't go so far to say he is as progressive as either. And that's just in the North American sphere.

There might have been a mix-up. I'm the forum's local classical socialist =)

I am in favour of: the elimination of the stock market, union ownership of corporate board of directors, breaking up of big business, wealth tax, high estate tax, etc. Where I differ with social democrats is that I am in favour of the phasing out of minimum wage - I think this is harmful to start-up businesses who may need volunteer labour to get started - and I believe in union ownership of wage rates + UBI + Union membership mandate on businesses of specific sizes (and business networks, such as things like app-based businesses), etc... I also oppose the bureaucracies of social democracy as much as corporate alike.

Like Jaicee, I am highly in favour of the anarcho-socialist forces in the Syrian region and think this is an important foreign policy issue for every Western nation. I support any policy that promotes the transition away from authoritarian regimes and hierarchical societies. Additionally, I am in favour of more significant pressure on governments not living up their emissions reduction standards + countries who are violating other environmental protections and scientifically determined standards (not just that, but the ethics of destroying more natural space need to be called into question considering we already use FAR too much land for livestock farming).

That's me, I am not sure, but maybe the most far-left person on the forum.

The DNC leaks though, that's what I mean about it seeming like you think Russia undermines your narrative, the DNC leaks narrative, which I also believe, by the way. I do not care who hacked the DNC and revealed that Hillary and the DNC rigged the primary against Sanders, the fact of the matter remains that they did, and that Hillary should have withdrawn immediately once it was discovered. Trustworthy news sources had this all well documented, I don't see how you couldn't believe it was rigged unless you had an establishment agenda. This doesn't change the fact that trustworthy sources agree that Russia is attacking us, not just with those hacked emails that damaged Hillary, but in many other ways as well, like with the troll farms (I know Hillary had her own troll farms, but at least they were American citizens). I think foreign troll farms are a serious danger to our ability to reach across the aisle and connect with the other side. Bernie can and did reach Trump supporters, which is why he would have won, but those troll farms polarize our democracy and make that kind of consensus forming and unity finding much more difficult. Ultimately, Clinton had a number of things dragging her down, and as close as it was, the removal of almost any of them could have allowed her to beat Trump, but against that, I say two things. First, while it may be true, the focus should be on those things which are illegitimate, like foreign influence, not legitimate, natural, fair ones like the primaries (FFS, Hillary, way to be a sore winner even as you're a sore loser). Second, people have deluded themselves into thinking Trump was a strong candidate because he beat Hillary, when the opposite was true. It's based in the delusion that she's some unstoppable, infinitely electable force that Trump miraculously stopped. Wrong. She was the most unelectable candidate in history, besides maybe Trump himself. If she wasn't so damned unelectable, she could have beaten Trump. Anyone could have. He's in a stronger position now, having consolidated the Republican establishment and party apparatus, but at the time, he was the weakest political candidate in history, and she still lost, because she sucks that much that a bit of troll farming and a vague letter from Comey were enough to drag her behind him in the electoral college. It's pathetic, but not as pathetic as the pervasive delusion on both sides of the aisle that Trump won because he was always supernaturally politically strong, when the truth was that Hillary was always unprecedentedly, historically politically weak.

All of that said, evidence shows that Russia is trying to hack us, and that it might not just be troll farms and social media propaganda next time. They could absolutely get into our voting machines with the actual votes in them themselves, and change the actual fucking votes, and that should terrify you. Any huge changes would be noticed and result in a do-over election, for sure, but Russia doesn't have to go that far, they just have to find a few close races and change them just enough to make it seem like what should have been a close win was actually a close loss. The fact that so many races have no paper trail for votes means there's absolutely no way to check or audit after the fact. How the fuck do you think we lost the Georgia governor's race in 2018? We didn't, the GOP cheated. Same with Florida. How is it that after a hurricane wiped out the Republican part of Florida, and after all signs pointed to a youth voting surge, a surge which absolutely materialized all over the country, somehow in Florida which had the gun control movement kids registering voters after Parkland, you didn't see any youth surge and Republicans in the areas affected by the hurricane weren't slowed down at all. There were reports of stolen ballots not being counted in places that did have a paper trail. And you think the machines weren't hacked to make up for the loss of voters in the hurricane areas with the votes of the newly registered and fired up students?  Bullshit. The GOP cheated in Florida, and they probably had Russia's help. Even if they didn't, what makes you think that Russia won't hack the machines in the future? Who cares what you think the establishment purpose of promoting the narrative is, what about the actual possibility that it's true? Voting experts say our democracy is at risk with these electronic voting machines, what do you have to gain by ignoring them? What do you have to lose by listening to them? You're like climate change deniers. If climate change is real, and we act on it, we save the planet and the human race. If it isn't, we create tons of new jobs and stop polluting things so much, and create more wealth than would be lost by not digging up fossil fuels. Why deny that? Same with you and Russia. Russia is NOT the friend of the west. They're right-wing authoritarian kleptocrats, and their government needs to be defeated and liberalized. You lose nothing by taking steps to keep up our guard against them to make sure they don't destroy our democracy and turn us illiberal.

I really don't think I'm going to get anywhere with you on Tulsi, but I agree with you on Omah and Tlaib. I'd rather have Mike Gravel as the Secretary of State if he were willing. His ideas for dealing with nuclear weapons are great, he really understands the gravity of the issue, and would be strong on climate change diplomacy too. I wouldn't mind having him be whispering in Bernie's ear about his Legislature of the People, either.

I like FDR as much as the next guy, but the dude ran concentration camps for Japanese people. Bernie is more progressive than that. FDR's New Deal was great, but not so great for non-white people. And that's what happens when you live in a Germanic bubble. You guys are like 90% white. That's why we're seeing Nazi apologists surge in the polls just because a few brown refugees showed up. But yeah, keep on telling me that I'm ignoring history and the "rest of the Western world."