At 83 years old, Sanders is not running for president again. But the stooped and silver-haired democratic socialist has emerged as a leader of the resistance to Donald Trump’s second presidency. In tearing into Trump’s seizure of power and warning about the consequences of firing tens of thousands of government workers, Sanders is bucking the wishes of those who want Democrats to focus on the price of eggs or “roll over and play dead.”
Sanders, who was just elected to his fourth Senate term from Vermont, conceded that this is not the role he expected to play at this stage of his career.
n fact, his team intentionally waited in the early weeks of the Trump presidency to launch what they are now calling his “stop oligarchy tour” to see if a high-profile Democrat would fill the leadership void. Instead, Sanders — who is not a Democrat himself despite allying with Senate Democrats and running twice for the party’s presidential nomination — has people wondering if he’s considering another White House bid.
“This is like presidential campaign rallies, isn’t it? But I’m not running for president, and this is not a campaign,” Sanders told The Associated Press. “You gotta do what you gotta do. The country’s in trouble and I want to play my role.”
We don’t deserve you Bernie, but I’m glad you are so stubborn in your faith in us still. So depressing seeing almost no one younger mirroring your efforts in office.
The truth is that few, if any, Democratic leaders have the capacity to draw such crowds on short notice or organize the related logistics on a national scale. The party’s nascent class of 2028 presidential prospects, a group that includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, have limited national profiles and they have been reluctant to step too far into the national spotlight so far.
These are the best we’ve got? Given these choices, I’m going to hold out to see what Walz decides to do in the next few months…
(Dem senator Chris) Murphy acknowledged that Sanders still has plenty of detractors within the Democratic Party who view him and his progressive policy ideas — replacing private and job-based health insurance with a government-funded “Medicare for All” plan, free public college, and the “Green New Deal” on climate policy — as too radical.
Anyone center to left seems to acknowledge that healthcare and the environment are seriously huge problems bordering on the catastrophic. But nobody is willing to entertain the idea that maybe what we’re doing, ignoring better action that has been called for like for a century now and publicly funding these things? How many decades do we need to watch reform efforts fail before we’re willing to take control and give up on a rigged market economy? Some things like health and the environment need to be fixed, even if it isn’t immediately profitable. That is also ignoring things like healthcare savings and green energy money being immediately profitable anyway…
Last month, veteran political strategist James Carville penned an opinion piece calling for Democrats to “roll over and play dead,” betting that Trump and his party would ultimately suffer a political backlash from voters for going too far.
You sir, need a job far away from liberal politics…
Where the fuck is AOC on that list of possible 2028 nominees, you shitbags? She’s not perfect but she is THE BEST candidate right now (in my opinion).
I really hope Bernie pushes for her. I don’t want another geriatric president and it’s not like the Democrats would give him a chance anyway. But AOC is a Democrat for some reason
Two of my best friends are a gay couple. They tend to fall in the territory of third way through enlightened centrists, and they hate AOC and I can never pin down why. The Tlaib dislike is strong too, yet they like Sanders. I’m not sure why the squad members get flack that Sanders doesn’t. Most other people outside of the new/politics subs I never hear mention AOC or the other further left folk. Mainstream Dem suppression of the further left seems much more effective than that against the Republicans. 😒
Protect Bernie at all cost!
Crowds are nice, but they don’t mean anything without organizing efforts.
How many new voters are they registering? How are they going to make sure those votes get counted?
