It seems obvious, and was obvious, that in the last decade there was a rising anti-establishment tide. The GOP rode their expression of it, while the Democrats ruthlessly suppressed theirs. And now we're here. - ThreadSky

garyalexander.bsky.social • 37 days ago

It seems obvious, and was obvious, that in the last decade there was a rising anti-establishment tide. The GOP rode their expression of it, while the Democrats ruthlessly suppressed theirs.

And now we're here.

Reposted from Political polls

Bernie Sanders Approval Rating

🟢 Approve 69% (+42)
🔴 Disapprove 27%

✨ Highest approval rating in Senate

Morning Consult

Comments

dargondarkfire.bsky.social•37 days ago

Bernie for president?

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

Either 8 or 4 years ago sure, too late now.

dargondarkfire.bsky.social•37 days ago

Pretty dure hes far more mentally sound and healthier than trump is.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

Doesn't matter, moment's gone

docseuss.bsky.social•37 days ago

but also... nice

twohitgood.bsky.social•37 days ago

Controlled opposition aren't supposed to actually be successful in their oppositional efforts. They're supposed to be ineffectual and feckless.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

I do not believe in the controlled opposition theory. I believe that US liberal ideology is just that blinkered and maladapted.

dingokayfabe.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yeah, democrats and republicans represent genuinely distinct factions within the American elite, but both parties are pretty much run by and for elites. Which means the discourse is so disconnected from mass concerns, it’s understandable why it looks like a controlled opposition situation to many.

dingokayfabe.bsky.social•37 days ago

It turns out that conservatism has something of a natural mass constituency, and liberalism, not so much

twohitgood.bsky.social•37 days ago

Whether you believe it or not, that's functionally what we get.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

Nah, liberals and Democrats are who I studied in grad school. They're actually just like this. Controlled opposition I think gives them too much credit, it suggests they personally know better but are compromised. I think they just suck all on their own.

themilfmag.net•37 days ago

more like out of control opposition lol

garyalexander.bsky.social•35 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/nickjbrumfield.bsky.social/post/3lfzqdzl2fc2p

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

I don't think establishment Republicans (initially) went willingly, but Trump had "world famous celebrity for almost a half century" in his favor, and succeeded in forcing the issue, whereas Sanders was an obscure back bencher running a protest campaign that didn't start out thinking it could win.

striderhlc.bsky.social•37 days ago

I think GOP party leadership thought Trump could be useful and also be thrown under the bus if they had to. It’s the difference between a party that has longterm goals and one that maybe wants to improve the status quo by 5%.

dingokayfabe.bsky.social•37 days ago

being a status quo party never would have been my choice if it were up to me but the thought process was at least legible to me back when the status quo was broadly popular with voters. But the 20th century has been over for a while

striderhlc.bsky.social•37 days ago

This is one of the underlying problems with Dems, they haven't had any longterm goals besides 'stay in power, maybe make incremental improvements to the status quo' since at least the 80s- there's a lot of lack of ambition in leadership, they just wanna pass infrastructure bills & go on vacation.

dingokayfabe.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yeah I mean it’s the socialism taboo. Even if all you wanted was more reformist liberalism, it’s political suicide to be afraid to back any policy that can be characterized as socialism, and to means test it to the nth degree or disguise benefits in the tax system or…

dingokayfabe.bsky.social•37 days ago

The time when that phrase was political poison has passed and Dems need to get more comfortable with it even if only cynically

edburmila.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yeah the missing component of your original post is that the institutional GOP *tried like hell* to stop Trump, they just couldn't. Their primary voters are used to bossing the party around; with Democratic primary voters it's vice-versa.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

First draft of it had that caveat but yeah it needs to be in there somewhere.

edburmila.bsky.social•37 days ago

They were so desperate they were pitching some kind of Cruz-Kasich "fusion ticket" in the late stages of the primary, which is as close to scraping resin off the bong as you can get in GOP politics!

ravikanodia.bsky.social•37 days ago

but then it turned out they were only worried because they assumed that the electorate as a whole would reject The Most Awful Living Human so thoroughly that their entire party would be discredited for a generation. Once they realized that he could win, they fell all over themselves to kiss the ring

edburmila.bsky.social•37 days ago

Want to clarify that yes I meant Kasich, and the Cruz-Fiorina "Fusion Ticket" was a DIFFERENT ridiculous disaster.

speciesbeing.bsky.social•37 days ago

Do you think he could have done anything to resist the establishment suppression?

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

Probably a million things, too late now.

speciesbeing.bsky.social•37 days ago

Its obviously too late now, but I was just wondering about lessons for the future. My too simplistic conclusion of Bernie Sanders was that he wasn't ruthless enough.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

And UK Corbyn supporters wish he was as ruthless as Sanders!

speciesbeing.bsky.social•37 days ago

It's very depressing, especially when left history had such bold individuals like Lenin and Mao. lol

blaqjaqshellaq.bsky.social•37 days ago

He might have double-crossed the Democrats and defected to the Green ticket. (He could have actually won the three-way race--at the very least he'd have reduced Hillary to the dreaded "spoiler" role!)
But he played it safe instead...

musicfighter.bsky.social•37 days ago

And probably only really gained steam because Hillary/the Clinton brand is uniquely reviled among everyone outside of the weirdest dem ride or die types

resurrectedmarquis.bsky.social•37 days ago

Democrats decided a politician who only won around a 1000 votes in the 2020 primary was more desirable than a politician who won millions of them. The biggest mistake they ever made was assume that mentally stable people liked Kamala.

boshyboo.bsky.social•37 days ago

me in 2047 huddling around a campfire with the rest of the mutants: ...Bernie would've won

xydexxunicorn.bsky.social•37 days ago

I still think about this image a lot.

xydexxunicorn.bsky.social•37 days ago

That wistful longing that somewhere, in an alternate timeline, things turned out okay, and better things were possible.

boshyboo.bsky.social•37 days ago

There's alternative versions of us out there with universal healthcare 🥺 not this one tho

bourbonsaurus.bsky.social•37 days ago

My issue here is that we’re so wrapped up in blaming our issues on “the Dems” as an institution that we tend to ignore that said institution is more often reactive to voter whims than they are proactive in shaping them. Key reason Bernie’s numbers are high is he never ran in a general for POTUS.

garyalexander.bsky.social•37 days ago

I don't agree, and I'd point to the polling swing on immigration which followed the Dems shift to the right on it. I'd also point to how GOP polling swung on tariffs and various other Trump positions away from conservative orthodoxy once he won the election. Most people follow elite discourses.

bourbonsaurus.bsky.social•35 days ago

I think you're both ascribing a proactiveness to Democratic pols that doesn't exist, and showing a fundamental misunderstanding of what drives Trumpists. There really isn't such a thing as conservative orthodoxy among the rank and file beyond "hurt others"; anything else is post hoc justification.

garyalexander.bsky.social•35 days ago

I'm claiming that Democratic politicians *arent* proactive, but if they were they could shape polling a lot more than they do, which is just react to the GOP, who act like protagonists.

Re: point 2: then what explains what conservatives believed in 2015 that they don't anymore because Trump doesnt?

bourbonsaurus.bsky.social•32 days ago

Your first point was that shifts in immigration polling were a result of a Democratic shift, which I took to mean a shift among Dem elites; possible I read you wrong? On point two, the conservatives don't believe in *anything * that isn't "angrily lash out". Trump is their id personified. That's it.

garyalexander.bsky.social•32 days ago

yeah and if you misunderstand the implication of point one - that they arent following polling but leading it - i cant help you

for the point two i think that's cope, theres a whole subfields of study on various conservative ideologies, only the most vulgar freudian would claim anything like that

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