#bernie 2020

[hydeordie]

Pics I took this week plus one photo I found looking for an install I did years ago with the late Alan Hanson on the chain link fence at the Silverlake Resevoir

[theculturedmarxist]

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Joni Mitchell & Co. performing Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” at the Gershwin Prize Ceremony, 2024.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andrew Prokop at Vox:

The left’s hopes for sweeping change from the 2010s have crashed into the reality of the 2020s. The energy of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and the George Floyd protests is a distant memory. Some members of the Squad have moved toward the Democratic mainstream, while others lost primaries. Several of the progressive prosecutors elected in recent years have been ousted from office (by voters or due to scandals) or appear headed that way. In Democrat-dominated spaces — like cities and mainstream media outlets — there’s been growing pushback against the left. Ambitious progressive rallying cries of just a few years ago, such as defunding the police and Medicare-for-all, are now absent from the discourse. Politicians who assiduously cultivated left activists are now increasingly tacking to the center — most notably Vice President Kamala Harris, who has abandoned many of the positions she took while running in the Democrats’ 2020 presidential primary. Altogether, it’s seemed that progressives have moved from being on the offensive to being on the defensive — in both politics and the nation’s culture.

Of course, it’s not as if progressives’ gains over the past 20 years or so have been entirely wiped away. The Democratic Party remains significantly further to the left than it was a decade ago and certainly two decades ago (see, for instance, my recent article about the rise of the New Progressive Economics). Yet, as bloggers Noah Smith and Tyler Cowen have argued, there are growing indications that the leftward drift of the party and of the country’s culture broadly has stopped. On some fronts, there has indeed been a reversal. “No matter who wins, the US is moving to the right,” Semafor’s David Weigel argued last week, citing “immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, climate change policies, and criminal justice reform” as issues where progressives are on the defensive. Being on the defensive is not new for the left — it’s the historical norm. Bursts of activist energy and successful reform are typically followed by long stretches where either the new status quo persists or a backlash reverses at least some recent change.

[...]

The era of rising progressive ambitions lasted from about 2005 to 2020

Historical periodization is a tricky thing, but here’s a rough attempt at it. From about 1980 to 2005, the left was mostly irrelevant to national politics. The Cold War was over, and capitalism reigned ascendant. The Republican Party moved right, while the Democratic Party moved to the center. The country cracked down on criminals, unauthorized immigrants, and non-working welfare recipients. 9/11 made patriotism mandatory. Same-sex marriage was viewed as politically toxic. But 2005 to 2020 was, broadly, a period where progressives and the left became increasingly influential inside the Democratic Party, in Democrat-dominated spaces, and in the larger culture. Call it the era of rising progressive ambitions. The disasters of George W. Bush’s second term kicked off the shift, discrediting Republican governance. This enabled the election of the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whose agenda was strikingly ambitious and progressive when compared to the Clinton years. Democrats’ leftward shift accelerated in the 2010s, which saw:

The increased cultural influence of the social justice left, which transformed how much of the country thought and spoke about racial and gender issues (“the Great Awokening”)

The launch of viral protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Me Too

The nationwide spread and Supreme Court’s protection of same-sex marriage rights, followed by increased advocacy for trans rights

The rise of more economically progressive and even democratic socialist politicians, as seen in the support for Sanders’s campaigns, the Squad’s arrival in Congress, and party leaders’ embrace of some of Elizabeth Warren’s ideas

A leftward move of mainstream Democrats on issues like immigration and criminal justice, where activists had made the case that status quo policies were cruel and harmful

Increased public discussion about causes like Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, and student loan forgiveness

Basically, on a host of issues, the “Overton window” — the boundaries of which political and policy ideas are deemed fit for mainstream discussion, rather than fringe or self-evidently absurd — opened far further left. Trump’s election didn’t stop the left’s rising influence. Indeed, it intensified it, raising the stakes of politics and heightening passions. (Trump’s rise simultaneously opened the Overton window further right on some issues, as leading Republicans increasingly embraced bigotry and flouted democratic norms.) The assumption spread among Democrats that the establishment’s approach had failed and that bold new progressive ideas were necessary. During the party’s 2020 presidential primary, most candidates — including Harris — scrambled to the left, wooing activist groups. Joe Biden, the most old-school major contender, won, but rather than a full-on pivot to the center for the general election, he embraced much of the progressive agenda. It was a political necessity for helming the Democratic Party of 2020.

[...]

The backlash and disillusionment of the 2020s

Things feel different in the Biden years. In part that’s due to the constraints and disappointments that always exist when a party tries to turn a bold campaign agenda into governing reality. Narrow congressional majorities limited Democrats’ legislative possibilities (and then they lost the House). The conservative Supreme Court, meanwhile, blocked some Biden actions like student loan forgiveness and rolled back abortion rights protections. But the trend was broader. Democrats in cities disavowed police cuts as they struggled with rising crime and complained they couldn’t handle a migrant influx. Corporations have laid off DEI workers. Mainstream media companies, increasingly influenced by progressive causes (and sensitive to left criticism) in the 2010s, are now more forthrightly asserting their journalistic independence and challenging progressive ideas. Activism in protest of Israel was met with fierce pushback at universities. Commentators started declaring that “wokeness” had peaked as social justice controversies grew less intense and frequent.

[...]

All of this has happened before

Meanwhile, there’s also been a conspicuous decline of energy and intensity among progressive activists. While many certainly remain committed to their longtime causes, others have disengaged or shifted their focus to opposing Israel’s war in Gaza (an issue that bitterly divides the Democratic Party and where Democratic leaders are disinclined to embrace the left). Perhaps if Trump wins, progressive energy would surge again in opposing him — but perhaps too many people are now burned out and apathetic, and the mobilization won’t match the bygone days of Trump’s first term. And a backlash against Trump’s governance would not necessarily spur the Democrats to resume their leftward march. Activists naturally get disappointed and disengaged when major change proves elusive. “Every major social movement of the past 20 years has undergone a significant collapse,” the activist Bill Moyer wrote in 1987, “in which activists believed that their movements had failed, the power institutions were too powerful, and their own efforts were futile.” Fatigue, burnout, and organizational crisis then ensue; some move on to new causes.

This Vox article explains how the progressive left has been in defense and retreat mode since 2020 after being in the ascendency since 2005 or so.

[blondebrainpowered]

Elton John - Step Into Christmas, 1973

“Step Into Christmas” was released in 1973 and reached #1 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart. During the instrumental break, Elton’s lyricist Bernie Taupin can be seen “hitting” the gongs (actually played by percussionist Ray Cooper), after which Elton holds up his beloved Watford Hornets Football Club membership card.

Over 50 years after Elton’s performance, the 2024 Step Into Christmas video starring Cara Delevingne finds the video production team frantically trying to get the set ready for his arrival as they attempt to make it “Christmassy enough”. Despite the addition of balloons and confetti, chaos reigns as they wrangle an escaped turkey, fail to book a real reindeer and tackle a fan who storms the set, all whilst Cara brilliantly mirrors Elton’s choicest dance moves and iconic facial expressions from the original video.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

I detest the belief that if you think democrats are better than Republicans, you must not care about immigrants or foreign policy. I strongly believe that America should have open borders and should welcome immigrants instead of creating 1000 arbitrary hoops they have to jump through in order to be considered "legal." I also oppose our involvement in weapons dealing and funding militias that wreak hell onto women overseas.

I'm just not a single issue voter. I care about multiple issues, like women's rights, women's health, and diversity quotas. I'm not blind to how callous and racist the democratic party is and has historically been. I'm also not blind to the fact that diversity and women's autonomy is directly connected to democratic policies and democratic leaders, nor am I blind to the fact that the primary campaign points of Republicans are promises to destroy existing civil protections for women and minorities. Promises that they have made good on before.

I will never see Elizabeth Warren as the primary conservative candidate, because her values fundamentally oppose conservative values. But i might see her as the primary democratic candidate, if the leftists who do share her values ever decide to actually participate in the government and support a candidate they agree with, instead of abstaining from making a choice entirely and then refusing to vote for the representative that other people picked for them. But it seems like most american leftists are more interested in taking advice from people who don't know shit about the US government than they are in listening to the people who have dedicated their lives to trying to make our government less evil, callous, and racist 🤷‍♀️

[tpwkmadeline]

my roommate was in the living room and misread something on the news and screamed “BERNIE SANDERS PASSED AWAY?!”

i’m not even slightly exaggerating when i tell you i nearly slipped to my demise in the shower

[wawek]

Its so funny talking to cisguy classmates about us elections because they always assume i believe democrats were supposed to win. Babygirl lets be forreal

[tacogrande]

Genuinely asking who are you planning to vote for in November? I'm not a fan of Kamala by any means but want to avoid Trump even more

at the moment its jill stein, she has actual good policies like universal health care and does not support sending arms to israel. (i will not vote for ANY one who supports the genocide in gaza, and that goes for democrats as well)

many will say its a wasted vote, but I think voting for the party who's only policy is 'you dont want the red team to win do you?' and empty promises is sort of a wasted vote in itself.

[shinyasahalo]

[deadpresidents]

Do you think Biden would have beaten Trump had he run in 2016? I know Biden stepped aside because because of his son, but it also seems likely he stepped aside for Clinton.

Yes, I do think that Biden would have beaten Trump in 2016. I don't know how Biden would have handled a campaign at that time with the death of his son having taken place much more recently, but if he could have emotionally handled the rigors of a full-on Presidential campaign at that time, I think he would have beaten Trump in the general election.

The question to me is whether or not Biden could have won the Democratic nomination in 2016 if he had run against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Obviously, Biden was younger at the time than he is now and still a much better retail campaigner than Hillary ever was, but I don't know if a Biden campaign in 2016 would have had the same energy as the Sanders campaign that year -- either from the grassroots or from the top-down. It would have been a much different campaign than 2020, as well, because that one took place during the pandemic and Biden was able to run against an historically unpopular incumbent in the midst of botching the worst public health crisis that every voter in America had ever lived through.

The other big question if Biden had run in 2016 is the role of Barack Obama. In 2016, Biden was the incumbent Vice President, finishing his second term of a partnership with President Obama that ended up being one of the closest personal and political relationships that a President and Vice President ever had. But it is no secret that President Obama did not believe that then-Vice President Biden was the best choice to succeed him. Biden's emotional well-being after the death of his son in May 2015 certainly worried Obama, but in books and reporting since that time, it's been apparent that Obama believed that Hillary Clinton made more sense as his successor in 2016 than Biden for a number of reasons. That ultimately resulted in some hurt feelings on the Biden side at the time when Obama seemed to be urging Biden to step aside in 2016 while the Vice President was still considering a potential run. It never impacted Biden's loyalty to the Obama Administration or truly got personal, but it was especially troubling to Biden because he still had not made a final decision about a potential 2016 campaign and one of Beau Biden's dying wishes was that his father would run for President. Obama never directly discouraged Biden from running in 2016; he thought that Biden earned the right to make his own decision about the race, but he was worried about Biden's emotional state in the wake of Beau's recent death, he worried that Biden wasn't the right candidate to defeat Hillary or Bernie for the nomination, and he worried that a potential Biden loss -- either in the primaries or the general election -- would tarnish Biden's overall political legacy and possibly come across as a repudiation of the Obama Administration eight years in the White House.

Of course, Trump's victory over Hillary in 2016 gave Obama's successor the opportunity to immediately start reversing many of Obama's accomplishments and reset the hope and change represented by Obama's successful 2008 campaign. And the irony is that the crucial, traditionally-Democratic blue-collar voters that Hillary Clinton's campaign tended to overlook in 2016 are the same voters that Biden has spent a significant portion of his political career representing and connecting with. So in 2016, Trump won battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that Obama had won in both 2008 and 2012. Without those states in 2016, Trump wouldn't have defeated Hillary Clinton, and when Biden did run against Trump in 2020, his victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (Trump once again won Ohio and Iowa) were crucial in the Electoral College.

[neofelis----nebulosa]

Older generations and their obsession with weight is crazy. Like i was talking to my mom about my dietary changes that im doing to fix my digestive issues shes just like oh you look better youve lost weight. Like this was not at all the point of this. I just want my digestion to work correctly i dont care about that.

[sugarspunfaerie]

Bernie keeps getting worse by kissing Trump & Musk's asses & I am so embarrassed at the fact that I voted for this guy in the primaries twice thinking he was super progressive. 💀

[glitchyscreencaps]

[amcrypt]

imagine how different the world would be if bernie sanders had won the primaries in 2016