11mo ago

Sanders says Trump reelection would be the ‘end of democracy’

thehill.com Sanders says Trump reelection would be the ‘end of democracy’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian. “It will be the end of democracy, …

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.

“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview.

The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.

“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”

Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.

338 comments

He's right. Of course, this won't stop "BOTH SIDES" fans, who want fascism in America more than anything else in the world.
- They are moving away from “Both Sides” and starting “Biden supports genocide.” It’s just a new way for below average people to think they’re smarter than everyone else.
  
  Biden does support Genocide, in this particular instance. Giving him hell for it and trying to do what people can in order to save all the innocent people getting bombed and shot right now, is fine.
  Trump is still infinitely worse. If you think 20,000 dead Gazans is bad, wait until you see what Trump wants to do. Last time around, he fucked up the response to a global crisis that's currently killed over a million Americans, and that was without even trying; and without any of the vengeful things he's itching to do this time around if he gets in.
  
  The "Genocide Joe" shit is so obviously right wing astroturfing I legitimately cannot read it without imagining trump sitting at a computer typing with his index fingers.
  To be very clear - there are some very big issues with the military support of Israel which should discussed out in the open. But doing the Trump name calling thing isn't engaging in good faith. It's obvious trolling.
  
  If Biden doesn't want people saying the he supports genocide, he should stop supporting genocide.
  When a centrist Democrat breaks out the insults, it's a surefire indicator they can't defend their positions on their merits. And since genocide is indefensible, insults are all centrists have. Not that they've ever had much else.
  
  "I have serious objections to American foreign policy not being aggressive enough against genocide even when committed by geopolitical allies."
  "Let me take the exact course of action that will put power into the hands that gave the particular genocidal state I'm ostensibly so upset with at this moment the Golan Heights, West Jerusalem, and significant chunks of the West Bank."
  "I am a very smart person!"
  
  Yes, FFS. I am so tired of people falling for that garbage.
  
  Whoa people are mad that their president is funding a genocide?? :0
  Smh they should just stfu and vote. Who cares about foreigners dying
  
  Lemmy needs to fricking understand that saying ‘Biden supports genocide’ IS NOT the same as ‘vote for Trump’, if he is committing an atrocity, he is gonna get called out by any sane person, I agree Trump is infinitely worse, but that doesn’t make Biden good, the American electoral system needs a reform but until then, you have to keep electing the lesser evil, but it isn’t equal to good
  
  It’s just a new way for below average people to think they’re smarter than everyone else.
  Now if that ain't the pot calling the kettle black...
  We should not be afraid to speak out against morally unjustifiable support for the mass killing of innocent civillians in our name, and with our tax money. That is the reality of the situation, and it is wrong. It will always be wrong regardless of who is doing the killing.
  You thinking you have the more enlightened position simply because you are willing to carte blanche accept this behavior or foreign policy position from the candidate that will be better for the United States doesn't make you a genius, it makes you self-rigtheous and self-centered. Real innocent people are really dying, and your ability to shrug that off in such a smug, self-satisfied way is truly appalling.
- Those forkfaces wouldn't know a good-faith argument if it drugged and molested them at a GOP fundraiser.

Lmao the Guardian source article made me double take on the first paragraph:

That big B looks as if it doesn't just apply to the first line.
Bernie Sanders sweeps into his state office in Burlington, Vermont, Bitching to get on with our interview. When I try to break the ice by Basking the US senator how he is, he replies gruffly, “Good,”
- 🅱️itching to get on with the interview,
  
  When I try to break the ice by 🅱️asking the US Senator
- 🅱️motion
- 🅱️ernie
  
  🅿️anders
- 🅱️asking
- Bernie Sanders sweeps into his state office in Burlington, Vermont, removed to get on with our interview. When I try to break the ice by Basking the US senator how he is, he replies gruffly, “Good,”
  Such a Bernie response. I love him.
  
  I just want you to know I appreciate that you quoted it correctly

If he is even allowed to run it means The Constitution is just optional.
- for Republicans.

Voters should have never been put in this position. If we have to depend on Joe Biden and Dems to clutch out the win and save Democracy then you might as well start bracing for the worst. "Not being Trump" is low bar a dangerous way to try to win.
- He has done a pretty solid job, and has passed some good legislation. If it weren't for this whole funding Israel's horrific war crime thing, I'd have no qualms giving him more time to clean shit up.
  
  I think they're talking about the election campaign, not necessarily the administration. Is Joe even running?
- Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think. And it is on the voters. believe it or not it is actually the voters fault (the non voters fault) that it is this way. As It was also on the voters to do candidate nomination. So you can’t excuse your first neglect and then complain it’s ‘too much’ now when it is all the way at the the election phase and you just now woke up to complain you hate who was nominated for the election. So yeah it is on the voters. This part always is. It’s like a manager hiring a shit person because they didn’t bother to do a background check and then complaining ‘it’s too much responsibility’ when the shit hiree starts toxifying the work place. It’s not just a bad employee to make that situation. It’s bad manager. So voting public are just as much to blame for making this a shit show.
  
  It isn't voter's fault, once again the theme for Dems is "Hey I'm not that worse guy." to be the selling point to save democracy. People saying democracy is at stake isn't going to motivate everyone when it doesn't even work properly in the country they live in. The only class of people who have access to democracy is the wealthy ruling class. When they collectively want something, they get it.
  
  So what you're saying is that more people need to be politically engaged and go vote. I agree. Biden is the only choice.
  
  Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think.
  I mean, it didn't use to be this bad. The Dems have been moving steadily right since the 90s. Clinton cut welfare, pushed mass incarceration, and deregulated Wall Street (and by repealing Glass-Steagall he helped create the 2008 financial collapse). Obama, for all his left-wing taking points, created a unprecedented mass surveillance program, a robot assassination program that has no congressional oversight, and when he had a filibuster-proof super-majority, he chose to pass the Heritage Foundations healthcare plan.
  The Dems have been terrified of seeming too leftwing since Regan curb-stomped then, and as a result they've essentially become a center-right party, and there basically is no left anymore. That's not the voters fault; it's the fault of leadership that still thinks its 1980 and won't abdicate any amount of power.

In fairness to the Senator, Trump also loudly and proudly says this all the time.

He's not wrong.
- And still, half of America probably is like: "don't threaten me with good times".
  
  Maybe like a third or so. Unfortunately, due to our silly system, they have an outsized say.

If all it ever took was one bad president then democracy has already ended and it was always just a matter of time.
This reminds of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when it describes a planet ruled by reptiles:
[It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.]
👆 This Douglas Adams bit is the exact situation we find ourselves in now.
- One big lesson from Trump's presidency was that many of the rules we thought constrained politicians were only "Gentlemen's Agreements." They held up because everyone agreed to abide by them. When Trump walked in, refused to abide by them, and wasn't immediately struck by the political equivalent to lightning from heaven, all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
  
  all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
  And Democrats chose to remain straitjacketed by devotion to decorum.
- Wait... we could have been voting for lizards?
  
  There have been a few dogs elected to Mayor
- SCP-682's home planet. It all makes sense now! Douglas Adams canon when, writers?
- It's just a matter of time til we all die, too, but that doesn't mean we need to kill ourselves now.

Bernie for pres.
- Except he's not running, and is too old to run again. So do the next best thing and listen to what he's fucking saying. This is not a joke.

100% correct.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.
The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.
Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy.
The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.
He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in the speech that took place near Valley Forge and on the day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.
Biden also said that Trump’s false claims about “the 2020 election never could stand up in court.”
The original article contains 319 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 48%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Bernie you're all mittens now

Actually preventing votes from being counted is the end of democracy.
- I suggest you look into FL 2000 then. Votes were prevented from being counted.
  Ohio 2004, votes counted illegally in Warren County in secret using fake Homeland Security edict. https://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/none-dare-call-it-stolen/
- The requirements to run for president are pretty clearly laid out in the constitution, you must be 35, born in the US, and have not participated in an insurrection against the United States
  If someone throws away their vote on someone who is ineligible, that's their choice

The U.S. was never a democracy to begin with. The Constitution decreed that only rich white males had the vote. Excluding a majority of the population makes it an oligarchy, not a democracy.
- I'd call it a "flawed democracy." The ideals behind it were sound, but the execution left much to be improved upon. And we've made many improvements (though we still have a ways to go).
  Still, even a flawed democracy is preferable to Dictator Trump.
  
  Solid post.
- Really they intended land owning men to elect a handful of people to go to the capitol and get together and elect a leader, hopefully respecting the votes of those back home.
  So not really oligarchy. Citizens United and Bush v Gore means this system is a joke and the rich and powerful decide who leads, luckily Trump is neither.
  If Trump had any influence he could have launched a single successful recount challenge or court case with ANY evidence of fraud or election misconduct. He couldn't, so he relies completely on a fervent cult-like group of followers.
  
  Yeah but he's planning to purge the people that stopped him from winning his challenges.
  Came down to Mike Pence. He refused to get into the car with the Secret Service because they were planning to kidnap him. He refused to adjourn the session after the putsch. He said "clean the shit off the walls, turn those machines back on, bring those people back in here, and let's start the transition." Then he stepped over that foolish dead girl and reconvened the session, and obviously if he wasn't going to go along with it neither was the Senate, not in that moment.
  Without that, we'd have been fucked. The Joint Chiefs letter was a week later and it voted the certification as grounds to remove Trump from the Whire House on January 20 if he didn't go willingly. He already says he regrets leaving and that he should have had his supporters literally fight the military.
  Without that, statehouses would have been demanding to send new slates of electors.
  They had a whole plan to seize the Supreme Court and State Department. That was only thwarted because the Capitol Police refused to let the crowd into the mall without metal detector screening, despite Trump's orders.
  Next time, Trump isn't going to have a VP who refuses orders. That's kind of the whole thing with fascists and cults.
- Never a democracy
  I hear this more and more all over the place. Promoted everywhere seemingly to say it doesn’t matter if everything gets torn down and the US Constitution ripped up— because it’s all BS anyways, right?
  The US is a Democratic Republic. Simple As.

The American choice: Vote for the good orphan-crushing machine. Vote for the bad orphan-crushing machine.
- Trump and Biden are so similar!
  I literally can’t tell the difference between a guy who says he will be a dictator and one that doesn’t!!!
  
  If you can't see that both these candidates crushes orphans, as one is litterally supporting genocide, that crushes orphans, then God help you all.
- Not exactly a hard choice. Either vote for fascism, or dont. Given the choice, which we still have, I think I'll vote against fascism, thanks. Unless you would like to give us an amazing third choice in this situation?
  
  Fascism popular definition is state and private companies working together to oppress peoples will. Ok, so who is using cia, fbi, doj, to persecute their political rival? Twitter files, anyone? Fb, google, legacy media all in bed with fascism too. Fascism entered the chat long ago, just not on the side you expected, therefore are still oblivious to it..

then what about Silent Joe
the one who quietly sat in office while people starved on empty promises made to raise minimum wage, protect human rights and safeguard the ones we do have, to not increase funding for the military industrial complex, bolster environmental protection, reign in a militarized police force keeping the citizens trapped under their boots and citizens suffered physically and mentally in cages, expanding healthcare, journalist being silenced, and sure the list goes on and on in silence
"Not Being Trump" is not a qualification to run a country let alone move it into the current century
- What about. What about. Are you saying trump is a better choice?
  
  I actually love the "Silent Joe" line, because Trump is a notorious loudmouth. It even sounds like some playground nickname he'd come up with. Yeah, Biden doesn't do nearly enough to achieve things, but the alternative is explicitly going to make shit much, MUCH worse. Things can be unequally bad, and the gulf has only gotten bigger with an overtly fascist movement as a major player.
  Do the Democrats suck shit? Yeah, no one's really denying it. But I'd rather fight against some milquetoast liberals than, I can't stress this enough, literal fascists. Democrats can be dragged kicking and screaming to do something after they feel the winds changing. Republicans will be intentionally trying to make shit worse for the vast majority of people.

It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
Your biggest problem is that there is half the country willing to elect him again. Who will they elect next? Trump is not the end point on that particular axis. They were quite prepared to march into the Capitol building. What else are they prepared to do?
Trump is a symptom. Sure, you can stop him running. Hell, he's a fat old man. Can't be long until nature takes it's course. But the country will still be sick.
- It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
  Because he had no fucking idea what he was doing and no plan. That mistake won't be made a second time.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
- Who will they elect next? Trump is not the end point on that particular axis.
  But Trump is really the glue that holds many of these people together. I don't follow conservative politics too closely but I don't see someone else that has his ability to hold the ultra-right together as he has done. Not saying there aren't a large pool of con artists that are fighting to take his place when he is gone. I think there are quite a few people that want that power and I think that is going to breed a shit show for the far right (lots of infighting).
  Of course if he gets re-elected and has a favorable Congress then well established laws and political norms can and will be changed to allow for something of a monarchy which takes the above off the table. That is his family becomes the de-facto ruling family.
  But if he doesn't get re-elected or has a Congress that will fight and make his tenure difficult, and when he dies I think the far-right is going to fracture with 3 or 4 new crazy people trying to take over what Trump has held together.
- It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
  If US Democracy is gone, how can it be that there’s (real) elections? There will be a dictator/King at the helm. Barron William Trump is the king-in-waiting at that point.
  Democracy is dead then the US Constitution is dead and all ‘rights’ revoked.
  
  Barron Trump will turn 18 on March 20th. That will make him fair game for the press. His mother has reportedly raised him without his father's overall involvement. We have no idea what she's been saying to him about his father. I'm very interested in seeing his first public interview.

America isn't even the most democratic democracy in the world tho.
- How is this a counter to what he said? The second-most democratic country in the world isn't the most democratic either, it'd still be a bad thing for it to lose its democracy
- America isn't even the most democratic country in the Americas, but that's clearly not the point they're making.
  If the title was "...end of world democracy" you'd have a point but given how much fascistic rhetoric and policy has increased around the world since trunpism it's fair to say many countries are following the US lead here.
- Yeah so maybe lets not let the Republicans fick it up even worse.
- Curious! Who is?
  
  It's usually the Nordics and New Zealand topping the rankings each year, depending on which index you ask

This is just in! Genocide Joe is not the other guy!!!!
- You should know, anyone that says "genocide Joe" unironically isn't fooling anyone. It's generally seen as a conservative dogwhistle round these parts.
  
  Genocide Joe is a nickname coined and used by progressives.
  Calling it a dogwhistle is generally seen as IDF propganda around these parts.

More alarmist thinking from Bernie Sanders. But this is basically reddit so he gets jerked off here, too
- Is it alarmist though? Do you think that if Trump wins the election, democracy in the US will be the same 4 years from now as it is today?
  
  I heard all the same shit last time trump was running, too.
- He is not wrong.

Do people still listen to the old birdie Bolshevik?
- Lol. Some people still think communism or socialism is inherently bad.
  
  no, some people know comrade birde is inherently badinsky.
- Put your goddamn helmet back on.
- Lol Bernie is barely to the left of center on the political scale
  
  Bernie has shifted to the right after 2020
- Sanders' name appears in a headline, and both centrist Democrats and Republicans start using identical talking points.

338 comments