For what it's worth, here is the infamous Warren/Sanders meeting as recounted in "Lucky," the just-released account of Biden's narrow win over Trump.Keen readers will note that, as the Warren camp later privately admitted, Sanders never actually said a woman couldn't win. pic.twitter.com/farDHbuW7b— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) March 4, 2021
"Bernie should have been meaner" isn't a good takeaway from 2020. With the Warren bullshit we got a taste of how eager the mainstream was to jump on him for stuff like that, and one of his big selling points was his image as a nice old grandpa who really gave a shit.
Mean Bernie would have appealed to leftists who were already supporting him. It wouldn't have appealed to people who were lukewarm on him but who had someone else as their #1 choice.
Some of the tactics that appeal to chuds aren't going to appeal to Democrats.
Trump gained a lot of support from open racism, for instance. But I don't think Bernie would have benefited from rhetoric like "Mexico is flooding us with murderers and rapists."
Of course I wouldn't ever say that a left movement should appeal to bigotry in any form. The anger I think that needs to be channeled is an economic populist one. Something that Trump did in fact channel alongside his anti-republican elite rhetoric (while of course never doing anything about it). One of Trump's successes was getting formerly apolitical (nonvoting) people to vote for him. And the cohort of Trump voters who voted for Obama at least once cannot be ignored either. Same with the reactionary working class segment in England and its Brexit vote, the working class is fucking angry since the fallout of 08 and the left needs to give it a productive outlet for that anger, ie towards a response that improves their material conditions and is based on class solidarity across race, gender, etc. If a mass left movement wants any success it has to engage people who are apathetic for rightly seeing Democrats and Republicans alike as an unresponsive elite.
And besides we can't base strategy off the assumption that a left movement can game its rhetoric in such a way to avoid a backlash. Bernie's 2020 campaign was about as non threatening to capitalist hegemony as possible for something that could be broadly considered leftist and yet the media still went all out against it. Look at how Trump used mainstream media's hatred of him to energize his base. A lot of people recognize the corruption of the MSM. Yes it'll piss of PMC libs but their support was tenuous and limited anyway.
I'm also not sure you can broadly categorize Bernie's image as the nice old man. I think the image of him as cantankerous old man is just as if not more commonly understood.
i'm more cynical than that and don't believe there's anything he could have done to gain more support than he did since he was kneecapped from the beginning
being meaner could have at least put some fear in the right people
"Bernie should have been meaner" isn't a good takeaway from 2020. With the Warren bullshit we got a taste of how eager the mainstream was to jump on him for stuff like that, and one of his big selling points was his image as a nice old grandpa who really gave a shit.
Mean Bernie would have appealed to leftists who were already supporting him. It wouldn't have appealed to people who were lukewarm on him but who had someone else as their #1 choice.
I mean doesn't Trump's success on some level show that anger is immensely appealing for a large chunk of this country?
Some of the tactics that appeal to chuds aren't going to appeal to Democrats.
Trump gained a lot of support from open racism, for instance. But I don't think Bernie would have benefited from rhetoric like "Mexico is flooding us with murderers and rapists."
Of course I wouldn't ever say that a left movement should appeal to bigotry in any form. The anger I think that needs to be channeled is an economic populist one. Something that Trump did in fact channel alongside his anti-republican elite rhetoric (while of course never doing anything about it). One of Trump's successes was getting formerly apolitical (nonvoting) people to vote for him. And the cohort of Trump voters who voted for Obama at least once cannot be ignored either. Same with the reactionary working class segment in England and its Brexit vote, the working class is fucking angry since the fallout of 08 and the left needs to give it a productive outlet for that anger, ie towards a response that improves their material conditions and is based on class solidarity across race, gender, etc. If a mass left movement wants any success it has to engage people who are apathetic for rightly seeing Democrats and Republicans alike as an unresponsive elite.
And besides we can't base strategy off the assumption that a left movement can game its rhetoric in such a way to avoid a backlash. Bernie's 2020 campaign was about as non threatening to capitalist hegemony as possible for something that could be broadly considered leftist and yet the media still went all out against it. Look at how Trump used mainstream media's hatred of him to energize his base. A lot of people recognize the corruption of the MSM. Yes it'll piss of PMC libs but their support was tenuous and limited anyway.
I'm also not sure you can broadly categorize Bernie's image as the nice old man. I think the image of him as cantankerous old man is just as if not more commonly understood.
Fair points all around.
i'm more cynical than that and don't believe there's anything he could have done to gain more support than he did since he was kneecapped from the beginning
being meaner could have at least put some fear in the right people
If he was toast from the beginning, nothing he could have said would have put fear in the right people.
eh, you're probably right