Summary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused Bernie Sanders of taking millions from Big Pharma during a heated exchange, but Sanders refuted the claim, stating his donations came from workers, not corporate PACs.
Kennedy repeatedly insisted Sanders was the top recipient of pharmaceutical money in 2020, but financial data shows no corporate PAC contributions to Sanders.
Meanwhile, Kennedy has profited from anti-vaccine activism, earning millions from lawsuits and speaking fees.
The debate ended without Kennedy answering whether he would guarantee health care for all as HHS secretary.
Sanders is one person that I wouldn’t question the integrity of. Malicious dopes, would, but I wouldn’t.
And honestly? If he did something unethical let’s call him out for it. But it doesn’t invalidate everything good he currently fights for. I’ve made mistakes, neither of us is perfect…
Editing to add: We can’t have inhuman perfection be the standard to meet when they have a literal rapist and felon in the White House!
“And by the way, Bernie, the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies. It’s in Congress too,” Kennedy said. “Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Sanders said, raising his hand to quiet the applause that erupted from the gallery. “I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives; not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from the workers.”
RFK just kept saying it over and over again like Sanders didn’t address it. 1.5 million of the 200 million raised for his presidential campaign came from health care workers. And he still didn’t answer the question, only for Sanders to be told he’s battering the witness.
Fucking hate this time line.
It’s always been like that. It’s throwing mud and hoping it sticks.
Shit. They are throwing shit.
RFK just kept saying it over and over again like Sanders didn’t address it.
Sanders is used to this sort of treatment. Though not from Republicans.
Yup. When I make a donation, one of the lines is “Who do you work for?” But just because I donated doesn’t mean my employer or business category were the ones donating.
Keep saying it as if it was never addressed because that’s what works.
If you say something enough times it is reality to the majority of the voter base in the US.
If you ignore all refutes logic or facts and simply steam ahead with your word being the only right word then that will become reality
Yup, plenty of people will say that RFK won the argument, simply because he remained aggressive and seemed to be on the offensive. Lots of people don’t critically listen to the content; They just listen to the tone, and determine the winner based on that.
It’s silly to think Bernie is corrupt, you can’t be corrupt if you don’t have any power.
rfk. go away. that is all I have to say.
Questioning Sanders’ integrity would be the last thing I’d want to do; especially if I were as ill-advised as RFK.
We’re talking about a guy who, I shit you not. picked up roadkill – specifically a dead bear – and kept it in his car all day. He was planning on eating it but got busy. Eventually, it ceased to be fresh enough even for his palate so he decided to dump it in central park. He staged it with an old bike he had in his car so that it looked like a bicyclist rode into it and killed it. This is the quality of decision making we’re talking about here.
One thing I really do not understand. How can a bear be roadkill? What does your car look like after you hit a bear?
Lots of bears where I am. If you hit them head on, your car is usually totaled.
This is why bullbars are somewhat common in rural areas. More for deer than bears, though. And you’re more likely to beat crack your radiator than have a total loss, unless you keep driving with a leaking radiator of course…
One of the companies that makes bullbars is called Ranch Hand.
This is massively off topic, but the subject never comes up. I wonder if I could trouble you for independent confirmation that their logo looks like a Ferengi.
Depends on the kind of bear. A black bear cub like this would be like hitting a dog, I suspect. An adult would fuck your car up good.
Black bears in general aren’t very big bears. They weigh about 100 kilos on average and are about the height of a person if they are standing but only a meter tall on all fours. I’ve ran across them a few times while out hunting deer and it always surprises me how small they are.
Depending on the car as an 18 wheel semi will liquidate anything it runs into.
so that it looked like a bicyclist rode into it and killed it
That’s how the Internet still helps my mental health sometimes.
…and kids, that’s how you get worms in your brain. (undercooked wild meat)
Honestly out of the things he’s said I don’t even care about this. Other than the eating roadkill part this is the kind of shit me and my friends got up to when we were younger.
yea honestly? it’s funny as fuck, legendary prank. Oh no a dead bear in central park oh noooooo
Hear me out: what actually troubles me is his opinions about vaccines. Strange take, I know.
Yea, far more concerning things about him to focus on.
Sure it’s just kids being kids. He was only 61 years old at the time.
Eh, weird but still pretty harmless imo.
I doubt you were up to the kind of shit JFK was up to unless you spend your youth on a carcass pit feeding your pet hawk and had your own gang. Behind the Bastards had an episode on RFK Jr and it’s wild.
Just casually driving by myself on a tuesday oh look a bear carcass. Better put that in my vehicle for later. To eat.
3 days later… fuck thats right theres a rotting bear in my car. Better get rid of it in a funny way im going to be making health decisions for the entire country soon
RFK believes that he is above reproach. He is the delusional you get when you are born into massive wealth and privilege and think that you personally hit a home run. Completely surrounded by yes men his entire life. Trumpesk even.
Yes, and in my personal experience, I’ve found people who feel they are never wrong to be the most uninformed and unintelligent of all people. It’s so sad that these people also are the ones that somehow rise to power and influence.
It’s all about confidence. If you think you are infallible you will have perfect confidence no matter how wrong you are.
Conman is a shortened version of confidence man.
I encounter lots of people that are confidently incorrect.
We really need to stop thinking the Kennedy family are in any way special other than Joe who IRL is a nice guy who tries to stop people from freezing to death.
We really need to stop thinking of anyone as special and treat everyone with dignity and respect (excluding Nazis).
Yep one should never generalize anything that broad. Joe and maybe caroline. She at least sees the writing on the wall and has no desire to get involved with politics. Just living her own life
I never met her. I have met Joe a few dozen times campaigning for candidates and gay marriage in MA decades ago.
I can’t say I know a ton about her either. But I seem to remember in the early aughts there were some pushing for her to get involved in politics. And I know she’s come out against Robert Jr etc. And that’s at least two decent decisions. But Joe definitely sounds like a pretty stand-up guy.
esk
-esque?
Probably, I don’t particularly care about spelling as long as my point is made
I prefer -esk as it is less refined. A bit crude. Vulgar.
also fuck french
most the stupid ass spelling mistakes I make like this come from french loan words
You should, or the point you make is we shouldn’t listen to your point because you are barely literate 🤷?
Any machine you can write a lemmy comment on can also spell check. Not checking means you don’t give a shit about what you write, so why should anyone else?
Point out the flaw in my argument? The whole point of writing is communication. If my message is received it did its job. I especially don’t give a shit about spelling on here because this is an anonymous account that I just shoot the breeze from.
But on a larger point codified grammar, spelling, etc are all just class signifiers that have literally nothing to do with clear communication or intelligence. Language is fluid by its very nature and spelling is as well. It behooves the reader to ignore things you find unintelligent based on superficial nonsense. Trying to understand a writers point based on their arguments is a much better strategy.
No no no.
I didn’t read your comment or your argument. I won’t because I don’t give a shit for one, and for two if you don’t give a shit enough to proofread it it’s obviously not worth the time.
You can descriptive grammar yourself right to the downvotes and don’t give a shit pile. Sorry bout ya. It’s “dumbesk”.
Cool dude!
I feel sorry for Sanders calling out that buffoon.
Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.
Congratulations on your victory, Deep Coo.
Hey there fellow Harris voter! 😃
Troll someone else.
Kind of hypocritical seeing as that’s what you were doing in the post I replied to LOL. I mean that’s extremely on brand for you though.😘
I feel sorry that the Democratic party opted to cheat us out of President Sanders.
How did they do that?
“Cheat” is a wide-ranging term which is a little too cumbersome to use here, but there were absolutely some shenanigans at play.
The heavily abridged version (which is open to criticism for doing so) is that the democratic leadership had effectively selected Hilary Clinton before the party had even had the chance to select the candidate officially, and Bernie’s campaign had it’s legs done before it even had a chance to take off.
Would Bernie have won? Who knows, but he’s consistently a decent and open candidate.
They consistently presented these super delegates as a forgone conclusion.
Brilliant, thank you for the clarification. Eight years feels like a long time ago.
It’s still infuriating.
It’s completely inappropriate here. If I tell you the rules to the game. And you agree to play. As Sanders did. And we both abide by the rules. Then no one cheated.
Shenanigans? Barely. Wasserman Schultz lost her job over it. Minimally impacting the Sanders campaign for a few days at most.
The Democratic primary rules were ironically not very democratic. But no one violated them or cheated anyone. Sanders knew that that going in. And he still almost won. Not only that. He didn’t whine like a entitled child that he’d somehow been cheated. In a winner take all contest. He lost. But still won concessions. That’s why I voted for the man. He made the future primaries more democratic and open to people like himself.
Not only was the primary rigged, but it was established in court that both, it was rigged, and that the DNC are fine to rig their primaries.
“ On August 25, 2017, Federal Judge William Zloch, dismissed the lawsuit after several months of litigation during which DNC attorneys argued that the DNC would be well within their rights to select their own candidate. “In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent,” the court order dismissing the lawsuit stated. This assumption of a plaintiff’s allegation is the general legal standard in the motion to dismiss stage of any lawsuit. The allegations contained in the complaint must be taken as true unless they are merely conclusory allegations or are invalid on their face.
The order then explained why the lawsuit would be dismissed. “The Court must now decide whether Plaintiffs have suffered a concrete injury particularized to them, or one certainly impending, that is traceable to the DNC and its former chair’s conduct—the keys to entering federal court. The Court holds that they have not.” The Court added that it did not consider this within its jurisdiction. “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, possessing ‘only that power authorized by Constitution and statute.'”.”
Im not sure that means what you think
An opinion piece with a hyperbolic factually unsupported headline? TDD doesn’t care. They’re here for the misinformation. They literally posted another article to NPR claiming that NPR said that it was rigged. NPR didn’t say that. NPR quoted a tweet from Trump saying that. NPR didn’t. They’re literally quoting Trump let that sink in.🤔
the term rigged is bullshit. What people have answered before is more accurate which I would describe as pushing other candidates to endorse and play ball and they would be rewarded. Your article uses the term rigged a lot but gives no explanation for the actions its considers to have rigged it.
We don’t know if it was rigged because that was never actually addressed in court.
“We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’”
Their argument in court was that, as a private organization, they have a right to do that, and since they have that right, the lawsuit should be dismissed. Their argument was that as a private group, they can rig it if they want to and it’s only their own rules that they are breaking so nobody can stop them. How can anyone take such an argument at face value? “We totally didn’t rig it, but if we did, it was totally legal to do.”
Have you heard that old saying?
If the law is on your side pound the law, if the facts are on your side pound the facts, if neither are on your side pound the table.
This is the DNC pounding the law (“we’re a private organization, that’s not how this works”) to be able to avoid fact-finding discovery.
People always focus on “pound the table” but I think “pound the law” should also be considered. Because there’s a lot of bullshit ass law out there.
The DNC went well out of their way to avoid talking about the facts and to focus on the legal mechanisms protecting them from having to admit facts. They also flat out admitted that if they wanted to choose the candidate, they could, and nobody could stop them. It was literally their argument for why the lawsuit should be dismissed, that it was legal for them to choose the candidate without input from the party.
no because the accusation does not really fit what I would call rigged. which would be like changing votes or something. what they did was basically influence influencers.
Anything where an election is manipulated is “rigging” an election. You’re just splitting hairs.
https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_super/3/33013/2638039-election rigging.jpg
Notice that the image I just showed is named “election rigging.jpg”?
The Definition for “rig”:
rig: manage or conduct (something) fraudulently so as to produce a result or situation that is advantageous to a particular person.
Having literal media organizations promoting the idea that the Super Delegates were all in the bag for Clinton and emails that showed they actively tried to hamstring him all falls under “rigging.”
It’s funny that they don’t actually have a proper response to this. All tropical ding dong can do is quote Trump. Pretty ironic don’t you think?
Rigged is the correct term, in spite of you lack of curiosity.
No it is not. Rigged implies making it impossible for the result. Like changing votes or otherwise just messing with the system like that. What was done was basically cajoling influential people. The voters could have still voted bernie in by giving him the majority of votes. Heck even trumps win is more rigged because of voter disenfranchisment and jerrry mandoring which is directly mucking with the process. Encouraging heavy hitters or influential folks to be negative about him or positive about clinton while being bs just does not fit with rigged. man its just like both sides kind of thing. its like yeah in the broadest terms, yes but folks take it way down to be like literally exactly the same and its like. no. by no means. in the details there is a massive gulf between them. details being things like no surprise billing or funding renewables and such. pretty big deal items. calling it rigged is disingenuous.
Since you are trying to rewrite history, I’m at least going to post this here so people understand the context of why we say, with out mixed words or a lack of emphasis, that the DNC rigged the primary against bernie.
- DNC officials secretly worked against Sanders while claiming neutrality. Emails show them strategizing ways to discredit him, including attacking his religious beliefs to hurt him in Kentucky and West Virginia.
- The DNC colluded with major media outlets to boost Clinton and undermine Sanders. They leaked debate questions to Clinton in advance, controlled coverage, and worked with reporters to push pro-Clinton narratives.
- Debate schedules were rigged to benefit Clinton. The DNC deliberately scheduled fewer debates and placed them at times designed to limit Sanders’ exposure.
- DNC funding was funneled to Clinton’s campaign. The “Hillary Victory Fund” raised massive amounts of money supposedly for the party but sent it straight to Clinton while starving down-ballot candidates and Sanders of resources. This directly contributed to the growth of MAGA, since down-ballot candidates suffered so massively.
- Sanders’ campaign was blocked from crucial voter data while Clinton’s team had full access. When a glitch in the NGP VAN database briefly allowed Sanders’ team to see Clinton’s data, the DNC punished only Sanders, locking them out.
- The DNC chair and top officials were forced to resign after getting caught. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, CEO Amy Dacey, and CFO Brad Marshall all stepped down, but the damage was already done. The primary had already been rigged beyond repair.
This wasn’t incompetence—it was outright election interference. The DNC didn’t just favor Clinton; they actively sabotaged Bernie Sanders while pretending to be fair. The leaks confirmed everything.
NPR didn’t call it rigged. They quoted a tweet from Donald Trump calling about. Why are you spreading Trump lies?
Says the revisionist historian. What a crackup.
Those were the rules. Those have always been the rules. So you’re saying an organization has no right to have a say in its leadership?
Try reading your own source as there is a whole explanation about why the case was dismissed that you need to read.
Oh, oh. It gets soooooo much better. Search the article for the word rigged. There’s one instance. Where they literally link to a trump tweet or truth calling it that. And I dunno about you. But if the only sources I can find to support my opinions are DT. I’m changing my opinion fast! 🤗
Don’t forget they were DKIM verified to be real and unaltered.
But Assange was turned into the villain in this story because he didn’t personally hack the Republicans and get dirt on them too, and because nobody did it for him, that’s all his fault somehow. I’m still not entirely convinced of the story that he somehow had similar access to similarly compromising material on the Republicans and just chose not to release it.
Yet somehow…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/13/media/trump-campaign-hack-news-media-report-iran-wikileaks/index.html
News outlets were sent leaked Trump campaign files. They chose not to publish them
Huh. Hmm. Interesting. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, there’s a thing called “editorial discretion” something no one seemed to think Assange deserved. Let alone once again that I have never seen definitive proof that Wikileaks had documents on Trump in 2016 that they refused to release. We even had a massive internal leak of their chats and nothing about having Trump info that they were sitting on and not releasing.
Note: Assange is shown in the chat logs to be quite the sexist and to in particular have an overly glaring hate for Hillary Clinton. I’m not saying Assange is a good dude, I’m pretty sure he’s a sex pest, and he has the sexist attitude to support it. But in this instance, regarding the DNC emails, I think he was unfairly maligned.
To quote Orwell apocryphally: “The truth is the truth, even if it comes from a scoundrel.”
Assange is no hero here and clearly has/ had an agenda of his own. I think if anything it shows we shouldn’t rely on personalities or tribes of one for necessary acts of public good. Its a good thing that the DNC emails were leaked, and more importantly, found to be unaltered. Anything about Trump also should have just been fully released. Its a bad thing that didn’t happen. It would be better if Assange had no editorial hand in what did or didn’t get leaked, but thats not what happened.
Yes those were the rules the Democrats had used for the last 40 years. It wasn’t actually rigging. It wasn’t very democratic. But when you’re abiding by the rules that were set up. That’s not called rigging or cheating. them’s the rules. That’s why I voted for sanders. Because even though he didn’t win the grand prize he won concessions to change those rules and actually make it more democratic. Before those rules. We didn’t even get to vote publicly in the presidential primary.
It’s been rigged for 40 years to keep candidates like Bernie Sanders out and push shitty candidates forward. Controlling the rules is rigging it.
Before this the party simply picked a candidate at the convention. The public didn’t get to vote.
It wasn’t a very democratic primary process ironically. It was definitely far too weighed towards national leadership. But hardly rigged. It’s hyperbolic and unconstructive to even claim. The fact Obama won only illustrates that. Rules didn’t change between Obama and Sanders. Organizations are allowed to set their own rules within reason. And Sanders helped make them better.
And despite all that. So many people who claimed to support Sanders seem so focused on hindering him. Ask yourself why has Sanders not echoed your claims. Why hasn’t he been a party to any of the laughable failed suits supposedly filed in defense of him. Think critically. I’m no fan of the national Democratic party. I think the state parties should take leadership back. This doesn’t do that. All these false claims do is aid the fascists.
If you want to punish national Democrats. Don’t enable fascists with division. Build your local and state party to be independent of the national party. It’s what we all need to do. And that will make them listen.
The DNC actively worked against his campaign in both primaries. There was ample info in the WikiLeaks drop in 2016.
And in 2020, there was the conspicuous action of every other candidate suddenly dropping out and endorsing Biden. We didn’t get the same inside view as the previous primary, but it’s pretty plain to see that there machinations by the DNC again to push for this.
And we pretty much had a similar move this last election, not allowing for any sort of primary.
I don’t think it can be a serious position to deny that wealthy, powerful interests control the DNC, and therefore actively work against candidates who threaten their wealth and power. It’s not a hidden secret (donors, PACs, politicians getting rich, etc). And of course the same is true with the GOP too.
So help me understand. When Obama faced the exact same pushback and bias against him was he also cheated? Because he got the exact same treatment. The exact same treatment as most other people who ran in a Democratic primary for the last 50 years. I absolutely agree that the Democrats primary rules were ironically not very democratic. But no one got cheated. They all signed up knowing the rules. Better yet unlike all the ones before him. Sanders despite losing one concessions to make the primaries more democratic.
So why was it only cheating or shenanigans when Sanders was involved?
Obama was cheated, but he caught the DNC off guard. They learned their lesson from that and prepared more for Hillary’s coronation that Obama disrupted.
Obama was also an insider, so they didn’t fight back quite as hard. But they used a lot of the same dirty tricks, stoking racism against him and accusing the opposition of sexism.
You’re arguing on a very narrow definition of “cheated.” If you agree that the Democratic primaries were not democratic, then it’s just a matter of semantics. The DNC had rules on their charter to conduct primaries impartially. They did not abide by those rules, and flat out said they didn’t have to. That’s conducting a supposedly impartial primary fraudulently in order to give advantage to their preferred candidate. It’s not criminal fraud, but it is the definition of rigging. They did do it to Obama and he overcame it, they did it to Bernie learning from their mistakes and Bernie couldn’t overcome it.
The primary process was absolutely far too weighed towards national leadership. But it wasn’t “rigged”. Obama winning proved that. No matter how many excuses you make. Hillary and many in the national party were sure pissed about it. And yet they didn’t change the rules.
Yes national leadership had their pick. They always have. But even the courts didn’t find that the party had rigged anything or done anything in violation of the rules. Tropicaldingdong’s own links elsewhere in the threads prove it an disprove his claims. Leaving them just quoting Donald Trump to support their claims. And if Donald Trump is your source of truth you have problems.
It’s like you didn’t even read the post you’re replying to. Not sure what axe you have to grind, but it’s clear that you have a lot of presumptions about what everyone here thinks and some unnecessary hostility to people who are engaging with you in a civil manner.
You seem to basically agree with what others are saying about unequal influence and control, which is precisely the point. It might be legal but I don’t think it’s a controversial view to acknowledge that our laws are rigged in favor of the wealthy against working people.
If Obama had actually meant what he said in his campaign speeches, I think they would have stopped him. But that’s obviously total conjecture on my part. His policies certainly showed he was fine playing playing along with the establishment though.
I tried to point it out in the reply you ignored, but you need to look up what “rigged” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean a guaranteed outcome, it means conducting something fraudulently to give one particular outcome or person an advantage. That’s quite literally what the DNC does, by their own admission, and from your own comments it doesn’t sound like you disagree. You just can’t accept that those actions equate to “rigged.”
The courts didn’t say the DNC hadn’t rigged it. The courts said the DNC hadn’t broken the law, based on the DNC’s argument that it was within their rights to – you guessed it – rig the whole thing.
Why this worries me most is that I think it’s a losing strategy by the DNC. AOC is clearly a preferred candidate for a future election, but if she runs, I fully expect the DNC to do everything they can to sabotage her campaign in favor of a milquetoast politician who won’t upset their donors. And the GOP would win again (presuming we have elections anymore).
Also presuming the DNC decides to bother with primaries.
The DNC colluded to push Clinton/Biden, giving Bernie’s challangers more publicity and promising other candidates positions if they drop out and endorse Clinton/Biden
Contrary to the circles we reside in, most of the US despises any act of “socialism”. It’s ingrained in the culture after 50 years of waging a cold war against an entity that was associated with everything on the left because of propaganda. It will take a long time before enough of the people born before 1990 have died off before people will warm up to it again (I’m in this group too, being born 1982, but I wasn’t politically aware enough care at the time, but some other kids’ parents no doubt instilled this hate of socialism into them growing up. Millennials/Xennials, the generation that was supposedly the most left leaning in recent times, basically started 4chan, and look what it became).
We ARE in an echo chamber. I came to discover this when talking to young folks about Harris/Trump. Despite the enthusiasm I saw here for Harris, it did not translate to the real world at all. We have to come to grips with the fact that the majority of Americans suck.
Nah dude, Bernie was WAY more popular than you’re giving him credit for. That’s revisionist history. He won multiple states in the primaries. That doesn’t happen for a Reddit echo chamber candidate. He even won important states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
He really did shake up the Democratic Party, which is why they panicked and did everything they could to push Bernie out. Both in 2016 and 2020.
Most of the US hates the word socialism, but if you pitch an actual example through a lens of saving money or creating jobs or something, they fucking love it. Just don’t actually say the word and your golden.
Contrary to the circles we reside in, most of the US despises any act of “socialism”. It’s ingrained in the culture after 50 years of waging a cold war against an entity that was associated with everything on the left because of propaganda.
America’s mainstream opinions on “socialism” were not caused by America’s history of arms races, thermonuclear development, and proxy wars across the globe, nor do they persist because of it. Many Americans have experienced a rapid and shocking shift in opinion toward Russia - the great red enemy of the cold war. This is still happening despite Russia making no major political reforms in recent history, no significant revolution in government, and actively trying to reclaim soviet territories.
If this was possible within a single generation, it also should be possible for public perception to change on socialism. There is no need or purpose to wait for people to die - their ideas live on.
No, decades after the cold war ended, the cause of the hatred of socialism in this country persists for one simple reason: Americans have become convinced through a tremendous amount of propaganda that Government is bad.
Not just America’s government as an entity - we could all find some common ground there if it were that simple. No institution in particular, not the Administration, the federal or state legislatures, or the town halls, or the mayor of the small village who’s really just doing it as a part-time gig - no, all of these are but parts of the greater problem - Government itself is seen as bad.
Not the flashy boots on the throats of “radicals”, not the ICE agents storming the hospitals - that’s not governing, that’s just violence. No, what’s “bad” are the mundane, boring, tedious things the Government does because someone has to.
There is this wild knee-jerk reaction to governance itself that dates back to good ol’ Reaganism of course.
“The most terrifying words are… I’m from the federal government, and I’m here to help.” (Reagan, 1986, paraphrased)
Spoken by the man specifically in charge of the federal government.
America was supposed to have been founded for the people, by the people, and with the people in mind. But now the people believe not only that the government isn’t here for them - it can’t be.
They believe we shouldn’t try to make things better through governance because governing can’t be good. it’s always “inefficient”, it’s always “stealing your hard-earned money”. To them it’s million dollar pens in space, and spraying cat piss on drunk rats, and paying for hormones and birth control and school “litter boxes” - in short, to many Americans, any money the Government spends is by definition theft and waste, especially if it’s hard to understand.
Changing their minds on socialism involves first changing their minds on the government. Not the capital A capital G American Government, but the nature and purpose of governance itself.
But on the bright side, I believe our opportunities to change those minds are only growing from this moment. The hateful idealogies, the demagogues, the simple answers - they’re all a net negative on society. But the fact remains that the government is being challenged and ripped apart both internally and externally. Institutions are crumbling as we speak, traditions are being broken, and precedents are being set and shredded left and right.
People have the opportunity to realize that government itself is malleable, and that if it can be changed for the worse so quickly and horribly, then it can also be changed for the better. We have the chance to convince them that we as a society can take all of this power and use it for our personal and collective good, if only the right minds and the right ideas take root.
Must be an interesting corner of Lemmy you found to have seen people who had enthusiasm for Kamala.
Most here we’re as enthused as a kid taking that old school bitter liquid antibiotic.
Must be an interesting corner of Lemmy you found to have seen people who had enthusiasm for Kamala.
People are still carrying water for her.
Okay, maybe not outright enthusiasm. More like relief in the hope we weren’t getting Trump.
Nah, people were pretty hyped for a while after Biden dropped out.
Well of course, now the medicine was that old “bubblegum” flavor instead.
And then she made it clear that she wouldn’t differ from him except to move to his right.
There are plenty of Trump supporters that liked Bernie. If you aren’t hearing them, you’re part of the issue. People are sick of being told they suck.
I mean… gestures around it’s probably time we come to terms with it, no?
Also all the claims Bernie was cheated rely on a single guy whose math doesn’t entirely add up. Sanders likely lost for the same reason he did in 2020 which is as you say the opposition to socialism.
I think about this every time I talk to my “liberal” family and they don’t even realize they’re spouting conservative bullshit.
“I worked hard for my house, I deserve to live in it alone until I die” while their son who didn’t ask for cancer or to not be able to afford his medications is on the verge of homelessness. I guess my hard work and being underpaid my whole life just doesn’t count compared to theirs? I guess the fact that our country mercilessly exploited the rest of the world, preventing them from living such comfortable lives, to be able to achieve such comfort for ourselves, means nothing? Those people in other countries worked hard too and lived in multigenerational housing for, well, generations. But they don’t deserve it somehow, they aren’t American, and we’re the best so we deserve it or some other fucking delusional shit I don’t fucking understand it.
They don’t get it and at this point I’m pretty sure they never fucking will because the poison of Individualism has gotten them and US citizens don’t understand Collectivism or the sacrifices you make for society at all.
All the Boomers are just like Biden. No matter being the source of all our problems, they won’t lift a finger to make a sacrifice at the end, because “they worked hard and they shouldn’t have to.” Sure, when all the queers are being lined up for the firing squad, I’m sure it will mean a lot to them that you just couldn’t lift a finger to prevent it because “you worked hard” and “you deserved a calm end of your life” as if these other people being rounded up to be murdered didn’t deserve that.
Biden could have done a fuckton for us on his way out, but not a single fucking person in charge is going to make a sacrifice for us. Not Biden, not Merchan, not anybody.
My immediate family is largely conservative voters, and they go on about what government should do, and it’s all decently lefty suggestions, but try to point that out to them and they go nuts. Most people just seem very ignorant of politics in general.
Can’t someone just make him follow in his father’s footsteps already?
Mission accomplished: answer not given and as a bonus fox news gets a clip “RFK jr DESTROYED corrupt Sanders”
…I hate this timeline.
Removed by mod
Healthcare workers wanting system reform?
Removed by mod
Imagine thinking healthcare workers didn’t have enough money in 2020 of all years.
What they didn’t have was rest if anything.
Maybe you should do like RFK Jr and check for brain worms, since you forgot the damn pandemic.
Sees the article, sees the claim, sees the rebuttal, sides with brain worm man?
I gotta get off this rock.
Oh my god, imagine being you, thinking you’ve got it all figured out and smugly laying it out in the most laughable way against maybe the most lefty, grassroots senator in Congress. It reads as so mind numbingly dumb. It’s exhausting just to read it.
You “ain’t got no” reasonable perspective here my friend. I don’t know what I would expect from someone who typos their own username though. Whatever that expectation should be, you came up short.
Could they take any other photo of him for the article? They are ridiculing him, making him look like an angry old monkey, completely in the line with what this Corpsefucker Jr wanted to achieve. With Musk suing Waltz for a sieg heil callout at the same time, I believe, it’s a planned crusade against the last two guys who could have got everyone’s respect if not support, and both attacks look nothing like boxing, but more like pissing down from the top of the ladder while having an idiotic laughter and cheering oneself for how it’s top comedy. They may not feel threatened by these two old white dudes with a stellar rep, but they want to hammer everything that’s left on the table and still moving.
And, well, the more infuriating thing than what these inbreds do is that they don’t target Harris, because since the failed elections she is nowhere to be seen after being a VP and nearly a president, and that just shows how bad of the pick she was if even Bush Jr of all people had a media coverage, and she just didn’t.
yet another rich asshole lying to congress with no consequences.
remember when it was SWATting? Now it’s this. The kids. Lookin’ for kicks.
