Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.
“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview.
The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.
“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”
Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.
I won’t disagree with that. That doesn’t mean helping Trump get elected should win you some sort of good wise citizen award.
The problem is that if you let any political party “take you hostage”, even for the best reasons, then you’re letting the “terrorists” win (please note the double-quotes; its figuratively speaking, not literally). There are better alternatives to Biden who are not Trump available to run, but the Democratic party establishment won’t allow that.
Our vote is a sacred thing. Fellow citizens took bayonets to the chest, and watched their body parts fly apart in different directions on foreign beaches, to protect our right to express our free will via voting. I’m not going to let my/any party manipulate that to their advantage. (There’s some historical quote about everybody being damned that I would quote, but can’t remember the actual quote at the moment.)
So you’re working hard on getting better voting systems in place? Supporting progressive candidates and trying to change all the unfair systems that currently make it impossible for them to get a fair shake? Trying to eliminate the establishment Democrats and replacing them with people who will make things better for the working class, so people won’t be driven into the arms of even worse Republican candidates?
Because if you were just sitting back waiting for things to magically become better, and promising to vote for a better candidate in the unlikely event that the current system produces one, that would be terribly irresponsible. And very unlikely to succeed.
(I’m not saying you’re not doing those things. I don’t know. I also know I’m not doing them either; I’m becoming more and more guilty about my lack of any real action in the face of the truly horrifying things that might be coming to us this year and next if the election goes the wrong way.)
So, I believe you reply is something of a divergence from what we were talking about, but I thought I would respond to it anyways, even though it is derailing from the subject at hand (being forced/guilt-tripped into voting a certain way against our own free will).
Yes, actually. I run the Congress app on my phone, I know the name of my senators and my representative, and I watch how they vote.
I try to be an educated voter by watching videos/shows that aren’t exactly fluff entertainment (daily PBS news, Sunday morning news shows, all debates, etc.).
When it comes time to vote I actually research people running for smaller offices like judges, etc.
I take my responsibility as a citizen seriously.
I try to support good candidates, not candidates from any one particular party.
Yes, I do so by supporting and voting for politicians that fight for those changes (like Bernie, etc.).
Well, I’m too old to run for office myself, I’m retired.
But I do make comments on public internet forms, trying to sway people’s opinion in the direction towards more positive change, and deal with people who wish to respond back to that in a negative way. Those responses can wear you down after a while.
I’ve also been to a protest before.
Also now that I’m retired I’m considering doing some volunteer work for candidates that I may think are deserving of my time.
They’re small things, but I actually take the time to do them,
Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
FWIW, the divergence I guess stemmed from me saying: Yes, absolutely the bulk of the Democratic party is corrupt. I don’t see much of a way it would ever get better other than to try to improve the existing Democratic party. I don’t see it so much as, the establishment Democrats holding the voters hostage (although in a sense they are), as much as: As bad as the situation is, helping the Republicans is also going to make things worse, so spending the effort putting real pressure on the Democrats to do better seems more productive than just waiting until election day and then not voting for them.
And yeah, I agree with a lot of your sentiments about wanting to help. Like I say, aside from voting and talking on the internet, I haven’t been doing squat. I’m starting to feel pretty bad about that and that I should be doing something.
No the divergence was that your whole previous comment didn’t mention the subject of Biden running a second time when the Democratic party clearly doesn’t want to vote for him a second time, and how that will affect the vote outcome, and who would be responsible for a loss to Trump.
Instead you replied challenging me/people in general about how active we are in the voting process and what we do to improve the system, our responsibilities.
Well, it truly is the Democratic Party’s responsibility to put up someone that people would want to vote for, so if they don’t vote, its not the voters fault, its the party’s fault.
Overall, I used to think the same way you do, but the problem is that that technique of pressuring via guilt gets reused over and over and over again over the years as a control mechanism. So at some point you just have to push back against it, no matter what the cost, or else you’ll never be able to choose your own votes. You can only take so many “hits for the team” before you have to do something about it.
Well for a start be sure to use the Congress app (or equivalent web site) and track/pay attention to how your elected officials vote on things, and hold them accountable (by contacting their office and letting them know, and if that doesn’t change things, by changing your vote) for how they vote.
Do research (takes me about twoish hours per election) on people who are on the ballot for those small offices (comptroller, judge, etc.), and make sure you vote in the ‘right’ ones (aka the ones that fit your preferred world view).
Also, try volunteering from time to time, for people who are running that you think fit what you want to get done in Washington/state office.
And finally, consider running for an office yourself, try it on for size, see how the sausage gets made, etc.
Metaphorically speaking, you got to tend to the Democracy garden, or else the flowers/plants will die.