Trump made it clear from the opening bell of this 2020 primary campaign that he relished Sen. Bernie Sanders as his Dem opponent and would use his socialism against him. I believe the fear of this among huge swaths of Democratic voters is what mainly led to Bernie Sanders' drubbing in at least 4 states yesterday, including Michigan, which he desperately needed. That drubbing has now given Joe Biden effectively an insurmountable lead no matter what transpires in the Dem debate Sunday.
Why would so many millions of voters fear that Trump would succeed in trashing Bernie to a far thee well? Mainly because Trump is a clown, an entertainer who thrives on roping in victims to daily episodes of his "Trump show". In such shows - thanks to a clueless media (that pays him way too much respect) - he is usually able to paint targets in whatever way he desires and essentially converts them into political pinatas. This is what he'd do to Bernie, because most Americans are totally, seriously ignorant about democratic socialism.
Add that to the fact he'd have an eager capitalist propaganda machine (such as FOX News, but also mainstream pundits) doing his work for him and we know Bernie wouldn't stand a chance. And it wouldn't even necessarily be to paint Bernie as a commie socialist. Recall, for example, a majority of Americans are so desperately ignorant they still think Hitler's national socialism is a true form of socialism like the democratic socialism of Bernie. Hence back in 2010 Tea baggers portrayed Elaine Kagan as a raving Hitlerite National Socialist when she was being considered by Obama for a Supreme Court position, e.g.
And who can forget how even mainstream pundits and cartoonists have come after socialism, i.e.
So this is the sort of crap Sen. Sanders would face in any presidential campaign vs. Trump. (And why, if he had any chance of winning, he'd have to use TV ads similar to what Bill Maher imaginatively developed for his Real Time audience, e.g.
https://lastnighton.com/2020/02/03/bill-maher-new-rule-democrats/
The fake ad, "There will be mud" was televised along with Maher's advice that the Ds needed to play as dirty as the Reeps. The fake ad itself included a terrific deep fake of the fat slug Trump in an imitation of what we envisage the notorious pee tape to be like. Yeah, Sanders would need to use lots of ads like this if he had any chance to beat the Dotard. He'd need to prove that having Trump again was vastly worse than having a democratic socialist.
But as I've pointed out in previous posts, what Bernie calls democratic socialism (for him) is actually closer to "Rhine Capitalism". This is a market economy but with high taxes and large redistribution component. Indeed this is what most of those branded "Reds" by the Right, including Bernie and AOC, aspire to, as opposed to outright democratic socialism. (Which I embrace). To this end they have suggested using the tax commons to support such things as single payer health care, which the present system can't allow based as it is on Pareto capitalism, see e.g.
Brane Space: Is the U.S. Economic System Pareto-Compromised?
In truth, a primary litmus test for whether U.S. citizens are anywhere near actual democratic socialism would be their degree of happiness. We already know from The World Happiness Report ('Americans are becoming more miserable and data backs it up', Denver Post, p. 8A, March 24, 2019) the U.S. places at No. 17, down 6 places (probably coinciding with Trump's ascension). Meanwhile, the Scandinavian nations that top the happiness list all practice democratic socialism - a point about which even the great Oprah had to be educated. See e.g.
Oprah got perfect response from Danish woman
What is instructive to see in this video is the transformation of Winfrey's visage to one near panic and disbelief, before the women straighten her out on socialism, and the more relaxed, rational countenance after. Oprah appeared to have a mental readjustment in the wake of her brief interview, but sadly such an awakening would not apply to most Americans. They've been conditioned by the Right's PR tanks to be virulently anti-tax and also suffer from the rampant commie paranoia and hysteria that's existed since the 1950s and McCarthy's "UnAmerican" activities crusade. I've dealt with this in previous posts, e.g.
Also, taking away their existing health insurance and replacing it with something they have no idea of (Medicare for All) would not have worked.
The lack of interest of the Young also contributed to Bernie's demise as he himself put it last night:
And further, as we learned from a post election NY Times article::
But maybe most of the young were also not as enamored of socialism as Bernie led us to believe. Or, in the most benign take, maybe they believe Bernie is simply too old to be its standard bearer.
See Also:
And:
And:
"So yes, I think it’s very possible for Biden to beat Trump. Because for so many people, it doesn’t matter what Biden says or doesn’t say, how incoherent he is, how many outright lies he tells, how atrocious his record is or how diligently he is serving the domineering elites who have blighted our society to such a degree. It doesn't matter that he has made it clear that he is not going to do anything about climate change, student debt, the healthcare crisis, rampant militarism, police brutality, economic injustice, low pay, ICE, and on and on. What matters that he is a fresh screen where our most unworthy fears and unrealistic hopes can be projected, for a time; where we can forget, for a time, the massive disasters that are looming ahead and pretend that things can somehow go back to “normal.”
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