The most obvious possibility is AOC. In that case I am sure she'll move even further right and get totally ratfucked by the party regardless. That's the most jokerified option, I think. At the very least, her obvious ratfucking will push many more people to the left like the Bernie campaigns did.
But the worst possibility is some rando Democratic apparatchik we've never heard of like Mayo Pete showing up. They take up all the aesthetics of Bernie's campaigns, they receive the glowing endorsements of Bernie and the squad, but they seemingly refuse to outright promise anything we would call "good", and they suspiciously receive no material push-back whatsoever from the Democratic party establishment other than some clearly bad faith grumblings about how spooky and radical this person is. Win or lose, they completely suck the energy out of leftist movements in the imperial core for a further decade.
I think Bernie scared the establishment dems too much. He actually said things that had popular support. They can't allow that to continue. So any "successor" will probably just be astroturfed in the cringiest way possible (You thought pokemon go to the polls was bad, get ready for skibidi support AOC!)
I think Bernie scared the establishment dems too much.
This is why I think Bernie actually had a far better chance of winning the 2016 primary than he did the totally doomed 2020 primary. (That said, I think it's very unlikely he'd have went on to become president after either primary.)
Nationally speaking, he was a no one before his 2016 campaign. He arrived so late to the primary process that until then, Hillary Clinton was the presumed victor in a similar way incumbent presidents are presumed the de facto victors in their own primaries. He did receive an unexpected amount of fanfare at his announcement, but for a while afterwards, the party essentially expected him to be a far more subdued 2020 Mike Gravel type figure who's goal is to make it into the debates, raise some domestic policy issues to help move public opinion, and drop out sometime around the first few primary contests. Probably because that was most likely Bernie's actual goal at the time.
But actually those specific issues were what every remotely left learning person struggling in this country was waiting to hear in a candidate, and his campaign exploded in popularity shortly before the voting. Hillary Clinton was the DNC's only option to contest him. They were caught off guard, and had no 2020 style shenanigans prepared to force another candidate ahead of him as a buffer. Ratfucking the Iowa caucus was their only option. If Bernie won Iowa, nothing would have stopped the momentum going forward.
That was the last Iowa caucus to have obfuscated actual vote counts. We have no idea what they were. All that we have is the Iowa Democratic party's official "state delegate equivalent" numbers. According to that, Bernie lost by a narrow margin. Months later at the convention, the DNC Bernie delegates won a vote that forced Iowa to release true vote counts in caucuses going forward.
And what happened four years later in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses? Bernie won the most votes as per the previously hidden raw vote counts. But surprise, he lost the actual caucus, once again narrowly receiving less "state delegate equivalents" than his opponent, Mayo Pete this time. This fucking bullshit was immediately obvious to everyone. Within minutes of the caucus closing, everyone knew what a corrupt shit show it was when the results were severely delayed. Imagine the wild shit the Democratic party must've been doing for decades back when the caucus process was essentially a black box, theirs free to manipulate.
Normal primary elections are much harder to rig than that. It can be done, but I don't think the Democratic party had the time remaining to put in the necessary legwork. If that Iowa ratfuck failed, it was over for Hillary Clinton. I don't think they would have made use of the super delegates still having the option to choose their candidate and thereby ignore the outcome of the contests. It was just too brazen a move, they'd have been right to fear it would cause the party to implode. The Democratic establishment would have found it preferable to sabotage Bernie's national campaign as inconspicuously as possible.
They will never let it get that close again.
Yeah, Bernie was a potentially huge force in American politics around that time. A local politician from around here even went over there to support his campaign, and used that support as a proud badge of honour in their own election campaign. People liked Bernie, not just in the US. A lot of the rest of the world looks on in horror at the way the US is run and we would love to see a government there that cares about the people.
I think the whole Clinton thing is important to remember, it was far more important that Bernie lose than Clinton win.
The DNC using the pandemic as an excuse to suspend primary elections and just declare a winner in 2020 certainly didn't help either.
But rember, vote and never do literally anything else. Even if last time the people telling you to vote canceled the election because they explicitly said your vote doesn't matter we've picked our horse.
You think the dems will ever figure out how much of a massive self own that is?
Lol no because the statement is meaningless and they already know that
I think AOC will most likely fill that role, but it will functionally be closer to how you imagine it to go with Buttigieg. She's a full on DNC shill, but can still sheepdog just enough of the old Bernie coalition to be valuable. She'll be trotted out as the "radical far left candidate" and it'll be fine if she wins cause they know she'll only be "the most progressive president since Biden" and will sign off on bombing everything they want.
Mayo Pete couldn't even get regular libs excited let alone attract the peoole they need sheepdogged. I'm sure they'll try to keep making him a thing, but i don't see it working
The thought of Mayo Pete perennially running for president for the rest of my life...
The Buttigeig/Beto campaign set a new record this election cycle by somehow only receiving 8 votes in a national election.
The thought of watching Mayo Pete perennial fail for the rest of my life...
Bernie was at least alone in the wilderness for the 80s 90s and 00s on a lot of stuff AOC started lecturing people to not criticize lib leadership in her first term.
Not to defend any of bernies actions for the past few years but a big reason Bernie got such a following is there were videos of him saying the same stuff back in the 80s. He got whittled down and ground out by the DNC but he was relatively progressive for a time with consistent messaging that resonated with people.
AOC seems to be doing a speed run of Pelosi's legacy and you can already make a compilation of her saying something progressive and then weepily explaining why she had to vote for the opposite of that along with the rest of the parry.
Not only is there not anybody even close to bernies previously stated beliefs, people are gonna be less likely to enthusiastically support them after getting burned last time around.
Mayo Pete
The CIA has a strong track record of being politically active in AES countries, I don't see what could go wrong
What, you're not thrilled by Zionist Newsmax boomer or AIDS Faith-Healing Tiktok boomer?
Even libs should cast a hairy eyeball on anyone who came up through McKinsey.
Jeff Merkley is my sleeper prediction. He has some similar beats to 2016 Bernie: no one knows about him, is left of the majority of dems, has a relatively safe seat in Oregon, history of regularly voting against the majority of the senate for things like military budgets, is a socdem. He tried to run in 2020 but wasn't able to convince the Oregon state government to allow him to run for senate and president at the same time.
Though I have my doubts that he has the energy or charisma to rally up the support. Otherwise, I see Pritzker as fitting the role.
The second is basically Obama minus the enthusiasm of being the first Black president, so I see that as the most likely model. Hope and Change!
My gut reaction says Fetterman but im just basing that on vibes.
I don't even think Bernie could be the successor to Bernie going forward. 2016 an 2020 did a lot to turn young Americans onto leftist (and left-ish) politics, but in the same move they definitively turned that group off from electoralism, and then the man himself drove the final nails into the coffin of his own movement by refusing to meaningfully oppose the Democratic establishment.
