Don’t Trust Bernie Sanders | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson Cambridge, Mass

[riversedge]

Interesting --I do not think he likes any politicians but his wrath is not directed at Hillary--so ......

TWEETS:
MA_NYC ?@ma_nyc7 14m14 minutes ago

MA_NYC Retweeted Hillary'sYellarDawg

A lot of Liberal elite in NYC feel the same. #ImWithHer




Hillary'sYellarDawg @StrayYellarDawg

Don’t Trust Bernie Sanders | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/1/Dont-trust-bernie/#.VtlgoR-sgCZ.twitter … The liberal elite are onto the BS sham. Here's proof!



Don’t Trust Bernie Sanders
By Ted G. Waechter, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER3 days ago
63

The foundation of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is voters’ trust. Americans believe he’s sincere, earnest—that he’s a different kind of politician. But this trust is misplaced. Sanders is not really a different kind of politician, his election will not give rise to a different kind of political system, and Americans should trust neither our politicians nor our politics. It’s pleasant to indulge in the willful ignorance of Sanders’ candidacy, but we must be honest. The hagiographic narrative of his campaign is false.

Though he’s advocated a number of populist policy positions, Sanders is not a different kind of politician with respect to justice for the oppressed. Time and again, he has curried favor with blue-collar white voters at the expense of other groups. He urged Democrats to deemphasize reproductive justice because Southern whites “are getting hung up on abortion.” He claims he was “19 years ahead of the curve” on LGBTQ+ issues, but he opposed same-sex marriage until 2009 and resisted basic employment nondiscrimination initiatives as the mayor of Burlington.

In 1994, Sanders voted for President Bill Clinton’s hyper-carceral crime bill. Gun violence is a matter of racial justice, but he shored up support with rural voters by opposing gun restrictions, including universal background checks. He supported the loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase a pistol and kill nine people in the hate crime at Emanuel Church. And Sanders has lobbied for bald-faced environmental racism, co-sponsoring legislation for a nuclear waste disposal site in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Poor, majority-Latino Sierra Blanca was selected as the dumping site for Vermont’s radioactive waste at least in part because residents couldn’t speak English and wouldn’t understand environmental reports that were never translated into Spanish. Sanders’ record might be better than former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s, but that’s not a high enough bar—especially since he comes from one of the most liberal states in the nation. When Sanders announced his presidential campaign in Burlington, few of Vermont’s black and Latino leaders attended.

Above all, Sanders’ candidacy is premised on a dangerous mistruth about American government. When he calls our political system merely broken, Sanders pretends as though it once worked and can be fixed. In fact, it has never been just. To trust any politician is to trust a political system that was founded on oppression and that is not built for the liberation Sanders promises. Ironically, as the putative independent and self-proclaimed outsider who cut a deal with Democrats to win his seat in Congress—and as both a white man’s populist and the most progressive candidate for President of the United States—Sanders is proof of this. Revolutions unfold outside and against power structures, not within them. In selling voters on a figurative revolution, Sanders dangerously legitimizes the American political system............

[Treant]

1. An interesting opinion

It seems a little too cut and dried, however. Sanders is a politician, just like any other, just from an extremely liberal and relatively libertarian state.

The mistake he made is thinking that this approach would play well across the country. So far, of course, that's been proven wrong and it doesn't look to improve much in the foreseeable future. He's dominant with Independents, but you can't win the Democratic nomination (or the generals) on Independents alone.

Most of us do see government as at least damaged, but also don't tend blame the Democrats for that. We firmly hang the blame on the "party of no" and the "party of filibustering."

I don't fault Sanders for voting for the crime bill or against the Brady bill and any other gun control measures. That's what politicians do--they support their constituency. By the same token, lay the hell off other politicians for doing the same or expect to hear about it.

Waechter doesn't discuss the negative impacts of Sanders parachuting into the Democratic Party very late in the game after a history of denigrating its politicians and criticizing everything in sight. It was certainly a telling move as to how blind Sanders is to the concept of loyalty.

At this point, I think the concept of any danger is over-rated. It's pretty clear the electorate has seen the problems and rejected the message. Effectively, the Sanders campaign ends March 15th after Florida, although it'll continue to stagger on for some time yet.

[countmyvote4real]

2. Pot troll calling kettle black. n/t

[yallerdawg]

3. This is a succinct, valid critique!

"Our political system isn’t broken and can’t be fixed. It’s oppressive by design. The only revolution that can end institutionalized oppression—including class-based oppression—is one that will never happen: a real one. We can make incremental, limited but meaningful change, but that’s a hard sell and one Sanders seems unwilling to make."

[Fla Dem]

4. All smoke and mirrors. BS has cared for nothing except BS his whole 35 years of political life.

He has been on the side of the issues which benefited him and his career. He has never stuck his neck out and gone against his constituency for the betterment of others and the nation. A false god. Excellent article.

Unfortunately your OP will probably be hidden because the BS crowd doesn't like to see anything that's not glowing about their new prophet even when it's posted in a protected forum.

[NurseJackie]

5. I don't.

Go, Hillary! We love you!