This was less in my mind in 2016, but by 2020, I viewed Bernie as the last chance for anything good to happen politically in my lifetime. He was never perfect as you said, but god damn it would have been nice, wouldn't it - imagine Bernie not sabotaging the 2018 talks between North and South Korea, not tearing up the Iran deal, assuring Russia that there were no plans to let Ukraine into NATO, not moving the US embassy in Israel and not spearheading the abraham accords and increasing the tensions in the levant in a way that may or may not have directly lead to operation al aqsa flood. Hell, he might have even followed through on Obama's old promises of closing Gitmo and normalizing relations with Cuba.
I dunno. Maybe I'm delusional and he would have ended up doing exactly all the same shit Trump and Biden did.
I think it's a relatively open question still how much one president can do. I think at this point few people doubt the CIA's role in JFK getting offed. I'm not so convinced that the CIA/FBI fucked Nixon over, but there's certainly a lot of fuckery around Watergate which can't be ignored. And neither of those presidents were any actual threat to US intelligence agenices ie "deep state." Maybe JFK was going to be an annoyance to them. Maybe they didn't like Nixon feeling too big for his britches and having too much agency. But Nixon and Kennedy were both ardent anti- communists, no question. Kennedy didn't give a shit about overthrowing Castro, of course he was ok with that it it came to be, he just didn't want his pretty face all over it...
So anyway, point is, just two times, and I'm sure there are plenty more (Putin actually referred to being told yes and then the answer changing to no later after apparent discussion with CIA, etc. just the other day in the Tucker thing), that we can kinda analyze with some fog removed from the events, it seems like presidents have agency to do what they want until internal actors decide they don't. Those CIA dudes with 30 year careers aren't going to exactly like Bernie getting rid of Gitmo and moving towards normalizing Cuban relations. For all of their little petty fucked up reasons that is absolutely unacceptable.
I tend to avoid conspiracy theories, but sometimes in history there are just conspiracies, not theories, and I do honestly think the president holds limited power ultimately. You either go along to get along or hey who knows when some rogue ex-Soviet defector might pop your head.
I think Bernie would've been a real test of that though because he did genuinely have positions he developed over the years. If he did absolutely nothing about Gitmo and all the other things that would probably be some sort of evidence. If he got Dallasd after doing something... I guess we'd definitely know going forward 👀
Much as I'm loathe to admit it, Obama was right when he pulled back the curtain and talked about The Blob as being the immense American government apparatus that will always prevent actual change. I doubt Obama would have made big changes, but he did talk about how anything that went against the Blob, in this particular case I think he was talking about universal healthcare, would be shut down by all sides
I think you're right in that Bernie would absolutely have been limited by the apparatus around him, no matter how much he tried to change it
Ireland continues to be based.
This was less in my mind in 2016, but by 2020, I viewed Bernie as the last chance for anything good to happen politically in my lifetime. He was never perfect as you said, but god damn it would have been nice, wouldn't it - imagine Bernie not sabotaging the 2018 talks between North and South Korea, not tearing up the Iran deal, assuring Russia that there were no plans to let Ukraine into NATO, not moving the US embassy in Israel and not spearheading the abraham accords and increasing the tensions in the levant in a way that may or may not have directly lead to operation al aqsa flood. Hell, he might have even followed through on Obama's old promises of closing Gitmo and normalizing relations with Cuba.
I dunno. Maybe I'm delusional and he would have ended up doing exactly all the same shit Trump and Biden did.
I think it's a relatively open question still how much one president can do. I think at this point few people doubt the CIA's role in JFK getting offed. I'm not so convinced that the CIA/FBI fucked Nixon over, but there's certainly a lot of fuckery around Watergate which can't be ignored. And neither of those presidents were any actual threat to US intelligence agenices ie "deep state." Maybe JFK was going to be an annoyance to them. Maybe they didn't like Nixon feeling too big for his britches and having too much agency. But Nixon and Kennedy were both ardent anti- communists, no question. Kennedy didn't give a shit about overthrowing Castro, of course he was ok with that it it came to be, he just didn't want his pretty face all over it...
So anyway, point is, just two times, and I'm sure there are plenty more (Putin actually referred to being told yes and then the answer changing to no later after apparent discussion with CIA, etc. just the other day in the Tucker thing), that we can kinda analyze with some fog removed from the events, it seems like presidents have agency to do what they want until internal actors decide they don't. Those CIA dudes with 30 year careers aren't going to exactly like Bernie getting rid of Gitmo and moving towards normalizing Cuban relations. For all of their little petty fucked up reasons that is absolutely unacceptable.
I tend to avoid conspiracy theories, but sometimes in history there are just conspiracies, not theories, and I do honestly think the president holds limited power ultimately. You either go along to get along or hey who knows when some rogue ex-Soviet defector might pop your head.
I think Bernie would've been a real test of that though because he did genuinely have positions he developed over the years. If he did absolutely nothing about Gitmo and all the other things that would probably be some sort of evidence. If he got Dallasd after doing something... I guess we'd definitely know going forward 👀
Much as I'm loathe to admit it, Obama was right when he pulled back the curtain and talked about The Blob as being the immense American government apparatus that will always prevent actual change. I doubt Obama would have made big changes, but he did talk about how anything that went against the Blob, in this particular case I think he was talking about universal healthcare, would be shut down by all sides
I think you're right in that Bernie would absolutely have been limited by the apparatus around him, no matter how much he tried to change it