Memo to Cenk: take a chill pill, bro! The ball is in his court! I know this is the shooting match. All you can do is report on when he does things right and and when he does things wrong.
Personal Bernie anecdote: I myself got deregistered in NY State in the 2016 Dem Primary (something NPR did some <sarcasm>hard-hitting investigative reporting</sarcasm> on and said they found no funny business…) I went to the polls with a timestamped receipt of registration. I was told I would have to vote by affidavit because “I was not in the book”. Only later did I find out that unless it’s a runoff, that’s a placebo vote. Note to NY State voters: vote early, and if they ever do that to you, run over to the State courthouse with your receipt of registration and get an “emergency ballot”.
So the point of my sharing that anecdote is: after the NY Clinton Dems did that, in my opinion he should have gone on an interview show LATER THAT WEEK, pointed out that was done, and he could have said if they were going to continue to engage in dirty pool like that, he couldn’t say what he would do at the Convention. If he had done that, voters in subsequent primaries (Pennsylvania, California, etc.) clearly would have gone: “Woah! He’s serious!! He’s really going to go for this…”, and turned out in droves. The point of the deregistration was to get a shutout in NY, so people in those subsequent primaries would not bother showing up. [Being that NY State is a lot of “machine Dems”, my thesis is NOT that he would have necessarily won in NY State; but had he been able to put in a better showing, it would have impacted primaries in subsequent States…]
He didn’t speak up about it. At the time, that was most depressing, In my book he’s a super fantastic legislator, but I don’t think he’s into the street fighting needed for a presidential run or to be president. But given his track record of trustworthiness and the loyalty of his followers, without a shit-ton of money he’s the only one who could effectively organize such an Independent working class alliance as I suspect he has figured out needs to be done now [as opposed to the corporate owners of the Dem Party not allowing any serious working class issues to be addressed, and if they lose they go: “No problem -see you in 4 years!”]
Now: is it possible he might blow organizing this Independent alliance too? Possibly! There will be nothing you or I can do, other than politely point out [AGAIN] whenever he makes a BFM. We can only hope his trusted aides get feedback from this site and others and get him to act on it. He will have to organize a gatekeeping committee that will say when a candidate is addressing a short list of working class issues, or they are either countering or neglecting them. That will be sort of thankless, unless he pulls it off. He will be pissing a lot of people off when he doesn’t shoehorn in ALL of their pet concerns.
FYI: Bomb threats against House Dems today. Many Congress members have previously left Congress because of doxxing, hammer attacks, etc. We will need at least 50 [Independent] Representatives to run in 2026. If we can pull off getting 12 seated, with a split Congress, even with a few Dem early retirees, that could be a gamechanger and a great setup for 2028.
PS Remember the Beatles lyric, “But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anybody anyhow!” When the Repubs/Trump/the MAGAs do something right OR EVEN meeting a low bar of being non-insane, it’s reasonable to call a spade a spade. But dialoging with Don Jr.? Musk?? These guys are in on the fake populist grift. I gotta imagine it bothers Bernie when you are talking to such types who, although they might sign off on a good policy or two (<joke>or even three…</joke>), at the end of the day they are clearly down with continuing to feed a black hole of capital concentration in America. When they do something right, just say: they did something the Dems should have done. That’s an honest assessment.
As I have said before: EVERY ONE of Trump’s ventures EVENTUALLY runs up against external reality. He thinks magical thinking will get him through it; the most recent example? Covid; magical thinking did not fix that! [and by the way: that WAS a Chinese virus; if somebody wants to debate that, I can open up a different topic and do a smoking gun dump. After that happened, China should have gotten a strong hint that they need to sign a biohazardous materials treaty! But instead, the powers that be pander to the CCP when they are reckless…]
I am expecting a cocaine candy high on Wall Street for 1-2 years; then he will hit the wall, like he has in every one of his businesses that are built on a foundation of narcissism. Will they hit the wall before the midterms?? No one can be sure. But they won’t be able to keep it up for four years, and either they will have to go FULL banana republic (as opposed to just Kangaroo Court right now…) or, if there are still some strong people left standing, those responsible will need to be run out on a rail. You want to be positioned for that day; you don’t want to be remembered as the guy who was engaging them. Yeah, I get what you’re trying to do: if you dialog with their leaders, you will get the trust of [working class] MAGAs who eventually will get betrayed; then we lead them over. Mmmm…when that day comes, I think they might only identify you as akin to their present leadership! Just stick to the truth: when they do good working class policy, say so and point out the Dems should have done it. Given how patently obvious their agenda of feeding the capital concentration blackhole is, there will be plenty of opportunities in the months ahead to point out when the Repubs do horrible working class policies…
