• riverSpirit@thelemmy.club
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      3 days ago

      And they always should.

      We are meant to be a democracy, a populist is literally a person who puts citizens issues ahead of others.

      Bernie is a populist, populists are great.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        And for those who are still confused: Bernie and Trump are both populists, but Trump is also a demagogue and that’s what’s a bad thing.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Always have and always will.

      It’s common sense that voters want someone who they think can and will help them.

      Republicans lie about it and win elections. Dem politicians try to convince us populism is bad because it’s not what their donors want.

      A little bit of me dies everytime a “moderate” conflates populism with evil.

      Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of the common people and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite group.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism

      They hate populism because they’re the political elite. They’re the ones already not helping the common American and instead helping the other wealthy people.

      If the Dem party pivots to populism, it means replacing both the elected and non elected leaders of the Dem party. And they’re not going to do what’s best for the country but worst for them personally voluntarily, or they’d be populists already.

      We need to either force them out or start a new party, and four years isn’t as much time as it seems.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Semantics…

          But no.

          We can’t tie it to a person, and Bernie is far to old to be the candidate.

          Tying it to a person is what happened with Obama in 08, so when he left in 2016 there was a vacuum in the party. Hillary and the neoliberal rank and file filled that vacuum, and they were rooting for trump because they needed the worst possible opponent for Hilary to have a chance.

          Bernie has been saying for decades he’s not the answer, the answer is a movement. Not loyalty to a single person who can never last a decade in office.

          As much as I love Bernie, he shouldn’t even run for his own Senate seat again. He doesn’t have to retire, there’s a lot of good work he could do growing the movement. But he’s too old for office and has been for a while.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        A little bit of me dies everytime a “moderate” conflates populism with evil.

        conflate sure, but they’re not mutually exclusive.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Obviously not.

          But populists fucking win elections.

          No one is saying the Dems need to run an evil populist. Or someone that lies about being a populist, like trump.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            I’m more concerned that a populist Dem is a unicorn. The closest I’ve ever seen is Sanders or AOC and they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

            Anyone with a solid conscience and mass appeal that we actually know wouldn’t want the job.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              . The closest I’ve ever seen is Sanders or AOC and they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

              What?

              Bernie could actually get republican voters and people who think the current Dem party is too far right.

              Withe division along party lines being so deep, progressives are probably the most popular politicians in America right now, everyone else just most of their own party likes them. They’re capped at 1/3 approval because of that

              People continuingly act like 1/3 of the country just doesn’t vote.

              We saw in 08 with Obama they’ll show up for a Dem running a populist campaign, and for whatever reason that’s the last time we’ve tried it in 16 years.

              Neoliberalism isn’t popular enough to win elections. And all it’s ever accomplished was driving Republicans to ever increasing extremes.

              • rumba@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                Bernie could actually get republican voters

                nah, not buying that one. Never seen ANY inclination for them to call him anything but a dirty socialist.

                People continuingly act like 1/3 of the country just doesn’t vote.

                do you have any data that suggests overwise?

                We saw in 08 with Obama they’ll show up for a Dem running a populist campaign,

                63.6% turnout. Less white votes, more minority votes than 2000 or even 2004

                Neoliberalism isn’t popular enough to win elections

                This we can ardently agree on.

                edit: spaces for formatting

                • work is slow@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  They call all Democrats dirty socialists already. If you start running somebody with popular policies it’ll be harder to boogie man them away.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

              100% propaganda pushed by the capitalist (and therefore anti-populist) mass media.