This post by Jeffrey St Clair, Editor of CounterPunch and author of books on politics and the environment comes from late 2015, when it looked as though Bernie Sanders might win the Democratic nomination. Jeffrey has a way with words, and does not mince any in this takedown of the socialist candidate from the Green Mountain State.
And now, as the silly season for the 2020 vote ramps up, we have 20 or so Democratic candidates, surely with more to come. Trump, however, has but one, ex-Massachusetts Guv’ner Bill Weld, a Republican who in 2016 ran in the Veep slot with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. He’s gonna be pretty lonely.
Speaking of lost causes, though, Bernie’s back and has been the lead contender until… Joe Biden shat his hat into the ring. With his bizarre video announcement last week, Smokin’ Joe eclipsed Bernie as the front runner. (Note that after Biden announced, the numbers for Boy Mayor Pete Buttigieg and crotchety Elizabeth Warren—both more aggressively progressive than Sanders, on the whole—actually went up: In 30 days, Biden up +9; Warren +8; Buttigieg +6; but Beto –7 and Bernie –8, per Quinnipiac poll 4/30/19.)
Joe has a lot of problems, one being that few voters are as passionate about him as the Sandernistas are about Bernie, acolytes who will kindle the Bern up to the point the DNC lays down the law. No matter how the primaries play out, the superdelegate king-makers will no doubt coronate Electable Joe in the end, just as they did Electable Hillary, with equally dismal results.
Back to Bernie. There’s so much the Berners don’t get about him and his claims to be a progressive champion. For one thing—and its a big one—Bernie’s a certified hawk who salutes Israel right or wrong and has only opposed American military interventions when it was safe to do so, or after polls indicated that most Americans had decided that they weren’t worth it. Let’s see what St Clair has to say about him in this embedded post from CounterPunch (11/13/15):
So let’s not abuse ourselves by believing that a Sanders Administration will rein in the US war machine. It will be safe in his hands, not that we will.
