Bernie Sanders turns the tables on Trump over 'democratic socialism'

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

"Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country," Trump said at his State of the Union address in February. "America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country."

Sanders will also call on voters to reject Trump's attacks on his ideology, claiming that the president and his "fellow oligarchs" don't "really oppose all forms of socialism."

"They may hate democratic socialism because it benefits working people, but they absolutely love corporate socialism that enriches Trump and other billionaires," Sanders will say, citing the Great Recession bailouts from the federal government that he said made Wall Street "big government socialists."

Sanders' campaign said that the speech will also call on the American people to reject Trump's "xenophobic and authoritarian policies" and "instead complete the unfinished business of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal."

(snip)


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-turns-tables-trump-over-democratic-socialism-n1016611

[SidDithers]

1. Well OK then...nt

Sid

[Uncle Joe]

2. ...

[Lucky Luciano]

3. haters gotta hate

[Gothmog]

8. Trump plans to hit Democrats on "socialism"

Link to tweet

[guillaumeb]

4. Recommended.

It is always socialism for the rich.

And austerity for the workers.

[Uncle Joe]

5. I believe that's a winning message guillaumeb.

[Gothmog]

10. trump will have fun with this issue

Trump had a two foot thick book of oppo research on sanders http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach....

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers....

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

I am so glad that sanders will not be the nominee

[Gothmog]

13. As Bernie Sanders Leans Into Socialism, His Rivals Laugh

I doubt that this speech will accomplish anything https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/06/bernie-sanders-socialism-trump/591493/

Not everyone believes the message will penetrate. “There is zero electoral evidence that voters support hard socialism or care about the fights the left relitigates every day on Twitter,” one frustrated former 2016 Sanders aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely criticize the current campaign, told me.

“Candidates during campaigns have to introduce their philosophies and what they believe to voters every time they run, and it’s important for Bernie Sanders to run an issue-based campaign on what he’s believed for a very long time,” Ari Rabin-Havt, Sanders’s campaign chief of staff, told me yesterday morning. “The way to win is to make our case directly to voters, and to lay this out directly to voters.”

His opponents’ critiques line up: Sanders is promising pipe dreams that most people don’t even really want, and certainly won’t get, and along the way he’s playing right into Trump’s “Democrats are socialists” scare tactics, in addition to his subtler attack on Democrats—that they always promise big but rarely deliver.

“What people want is health care,” Bennet told me. “What people want is a job that will actually pay them enough so they can buy housing, health care, higher education, and early-childhood education. What people actually want is to know that we’ve got a durable solution on climate.”

[Gothmog]

6. Less Than Half in U.S. Would Vote for a Socialist for President

This polling would make it very difficult to win with a socialist candidate on the ballot https://news.gallup.com/poll/254120/less-half-vote-socialist-president.aspx

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Less than half of Americans (47%) say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is a socialist -- the same percentage Gallup found in 2015. A socialist candidate is the only one among a dozen hypothetical candidates about whom a minority of Americans say they are willing to give their vote....

In spite of the expanded tolerance for diversity, candidates labeling themselves as socialists may struggle to gain traction in a presidential race, as Americans have not become more open to such a candidate. Even as political figures advocating socialist ideas have gained popularity in Democratic circles in recent years, less than half of Americans remain willing to give an avowed socialist candidate their vote. This creates a challenge for the Democratic Party, as it seeks to avoid alienating the Democratic socialists within its rank and file, while still aiming to win a national election.

[pat_k]

7. Hmmmm. Wish we could come up with a better turn of phrase than "big government socialists"

I like the intent, but I wish we could come up with a better "catch phrase" that would embody the republican hatred of social safety nets for vulnerable citizens and love of "safety nets" that ensure the most powerful keep, and gain, ever more power.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

9. BOOOOOOM!!! Bring it Bernie!!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Uncle Joe]

11. ...

[crazytown]

12. I am a critic of socialism

but ... any sharply tuned criticism of Trump that invokes the New Deal is welcome. I will be interested to read the entire speech.

[Gothmog]

14. Washington Post-Sanders wants Americans to buy into socialism. He's got some convincing to do

I do not think that the Democratic Party can win with a socialist on the ticket

Link to tweet

It’s a risky move, not least because he has some convincing to do — among his 2020 Democratic field and the whole country. “Should the Democratic Party embrace socialism?” is at the heart of its debate about what kind of candidate can beat President Trump.

Let’s start with the whole country. Less than half of Americans say they’d vote for a socialist for president. More say they’d vote for an atheist or Muslim, according to a Gallup survey in May. That’s the same as 2015 when Sanders first launched his presidency, despite his efforts during that campaign to warm Americans up to socialism. A Monmouth University survey in April finds 57 percent of Americans think socialism is not compatible with American values.....

“If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up reelecting the worst president in American history,” said former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper. (He got booed by a gathering of Democrats in San Francisco for saying that.) It’s also notable that the most vocal proponents of dropping socialism from the campaign trail are at the bottom of the polls right now....

Republicans are downright giddy about all this. What’s a scarier term to the American public than “socialist”? And with one of the leaders in the Democratic Party embracing it, their pitch to voters that Democrats want to radically change the country to something unrecognizable just got a lot easier.