which US presidential election candidate are you

Retirement Home Rumble: Preliminary

Real Life Famous Person

Only one can make it in!

*100 in our hearts

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) defended his endorsement of President Biden's 2024 re-election campaign Sunday after being criticized by third-party presidential candidate Cornel West.

Driving The News: Sanders was asked on NBC News' "Meet the Press" whether he thinks there should be "a robust discussion on this on the left if there were a competitive primary."

• Sanders responded that there "has to be a unification of progressive people," given that former President Trump could potentially be the Republican presidential candidate — whom he described as "an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person."

• He told NBC's Chuck Todd that progressives needed to be united to "make sure that women control their own body, that we deal with climate change, that we represent the needs of the working class of this country, and take on the billionaire class."

Meanwhile, Sanders responded on CNN Sunday to West's remarks that the Vermont Senator was backing Biden because he's "fearful of neo-fascism of Trump."

• "Where I disagree with my good friend Cornel West is, I think in these really, very difficult times where there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States of America," Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union."

• "I think we've got to bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump or whoever the Republican nominee will be [and] support Biden."

Go Deeper: Biden to run against MAGA in 2024, not just Trump

Do you think Biden would have beaten Trump had he run in 2016? I know Biden stepped aside because because of his son, but it also seems likely he stepped aside for Clinton.

Yes, I do think that Biden would have beaten Trump in 2016. I don't know how Biden would have handled a campaign at that time with the death of his son having taken place much more recently, but if he could have emotionally handled the rigors of a full-on Presidential campaign at that time, I think he would have beaten Trump in the general election.

The question to me is whether or not Biden could have won the Democratic nomination in 2016 if he had run against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Obviously, Biden was younger at the time than he is now and still a much better retail campaigner than Hillary ever was, but I don't know if a Biden campaign in 2016 would have had the same energy as the Sanders campaign that year -- either from the grassroots or from the top-down. It would have been a much different campaign than 2020, as well, because that one took place during the pandemic and Biden was able to run against an historically unpopular incumbent in the midst of botching the worst public health crisis that every voter in America had ever lived through.

The other big question if Biden had run in 2016 is the role of Barack Obama. In 2016, Biden was the incumbent Vice President, finishing his second term of a partnership with President Obama that ended up being one of the closest personal and political relationships that a President and Vice President ever had. But it is no secret that President Obama did not believe that then-Vice President Biden was the best choice to succeed him. Biden's emotional well-being after the death of his son in May 2015 certainly worried Obama, but in books and reporting since that time, it's been apparent that Obama believed that Hillary Clinton made more sense as his successor in 2016 than Biden for a number of reasons. That ultimately resulted in some hurt feelings on the Biden side at the time when Obama seemed to be urging Biden to step aside in 2016 while the Vice President was still considering a potential run. It never impacted Biden's loyalty to the Obama Administration or truly got personal, but it was especially troubling to Biden because he still had not made a final decision about a potential 2016 campaign and one of Beau Biden's dying wishes was that his father would run for President. Obama never directly discouraged Biden from running in 2016; he thought that Biden earned the right to make his own decision about the race, but he was worried about Biden's emotional state in the wake of Beau's recent death, he worried that Biden wasn't the right candidate to defeat Hillary or Bernie for the nomination, and he worried that a potential Biden loss -- either in the primaries or the general election -- would tarnish Biden's overall political legacy and possibly come across as a repudiation of the Obama Administration eight years in the White House.

Of course, Trump's victory over Hillary in 2016 gave Obama's successor the opportunity to immediately start reversing many of Obama's accomplishments and reset the hope and change represented by Obama's successful 2008 campaign. And the irony is that the crucial, traditionally-Democratic blue-collar voters that Hillary Clinton's campaign tended to overlook in 2016 are the same voters that Biden has spent a significant portion of his political career representing and connecting with. So in 2016, Trump won battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that Obama had won in both 2008 and 2012. Without those states in 2016, Trump wouldn't have defeated Hillary Clinton, and when Biden did run against Trump in 2020, his victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (Trump once again won Ohio and Iowa) were crucial in the Electoral College.

Honestly based on my understanding of the US government and electoral politics I think the reason voting is ineffective is because even if you get a progressive into some office or another, that's only one progressive. Republicans don't suppress votes because all it takes is one good guy to fix the country, they suppress votes because you need a lot of good guys to make meaningful change, and without voter suppression that's actually a feasible thing to do over a long enough period of time

am once again negatively polarizing myself against a historical event because people don't know what they're talking about (sorry to the ides of march this time)

So I've been thinking a lot about the Ukraine conflict with Russia and have been keeping up with articles on it. As many know, China has joined Russia, essentially, as an ally. And it's looking like North Korea will join them as well. And while I completely disagree with everything they've been doing, especially their human rights violations, I can't help but understand and even agree with a statement from someone within one of their regimes said:

"Everybody knows full well that the U.S. uses human rights to settle scores with governments not to their liking."

And...where's the lie? I wish they would have taken it further to mention the human rights violations the U.S. itself has made against its own citizens under the Trump Administration, but they probably don't seem like violations to them considering all the horrible shit they do to their citizens. And while these violations don't happen like they did under Trump, the Biden Administration is still falling short of what it promised. We're halfway through this term and what change have we really made? Look at how much damage they were able to inflict during their 4 year stint and we haven't been able to really repair ANY of it. We still feel the effects of what Trump has done to us and we probably will for many years to come at this rate. I'm terrified that after having Trump as president, then going to Biden, won't do anything but push people back to Trump. I feel like the only way to prevent that is to walk back a lot of the things he did. And don't get me wrong, Biden has done a lot of good while he's been in office. But he hasn't done everything he's promised and I feel like he could do more in other ways. This country is reeling from what Trump has done to us. From insurrection to the overturning of Roe v. Wade., we will feel this for years and years. And Biden is still quiet on so many subjects that his words and support could make a difference on. It hurts to come upon articles or hear news that he hasn't offered any support towards certain situations after everything we went through and after all of the faith we put in him. Biden was always a likeable man since he became more known under the Obama Administration, but I wish it would have been Bernie Sanders. He was the man for this job. He was the man that would have made a big, BIG difference and I'm sad that Democrats were forced to choose Biden simply because the DNC chose him. They backed the wrong horse. I just hope it doesn't cost us all the 2024 election.

Young voters in the US, since Biden is ass and won't listen to us let's all vote for Bernie Sanders instead of Trump. Neither of those hoes are going to get votes. Give them all to Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders for president 2024 🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅

WE HAVE THE POWER

While the richest 1% have never had it so good, what is the reality for the working class? 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. 57% of our people cannot afford a $1,000 emergency. 41% of our people are rent-burdened. We need an economy that works for all.

Bernie Sanders

I wanna live in the timeline where Bernie Sanders won Presidency in 2016.

Bernie Sanders lays down the stakes in clear and simple terms. If you’re frustrated about student loans, or Gaza, or healthcare, or housing, and thinking of sitting out this election or that your vote doesn’t matter, you need to watch this.

Bernie Sanders interview starts at 33:50 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9-aNsg-yOE&t=2030s

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has now voiced his strong opposition toward Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden's debt-ceiling deal.

On Saturday night, McCarthy and Biden announced they had finally reached an agreement on raising the debt ceiling until 2025 in legislation called the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the legislation includes about $1.5 trillion in spending cuts through new work requirements for federal programs like SNAP. It also codifies the end of the student-loan payment pause and increases military spending.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized the bill due to the compromises Biden and McCarthy ended up having to make, with both Democrats and Republicans already saying they will vote against the legislation. Sanders is the latest to come out against the bill, explaining in a lengthy statement why he cannot "in good conscience" support to the legislation.

"The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling is that it could have been much worse," Sanders said in the statement.

"Deficit reduction cannot just be about cutting programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly, and the poor depend upon. It must be about demanding that the billionaire class and profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes, reining in out-of-control military spending, reducing the price of prescription drugs, and ending billions of dollars in corporate welfare that goes to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests," Sanders said.

"The fact of the matter is that this bill is totally unnecessary," he continued. "The President has the authority and the ability to eliminate the debt ceiling today by invoking the 14th Amendment. I look forward to the day when he exercises this authority and puts an end, once and for all, to the outrageous actions of the extreme right-wing to hold our entire economy hostage in order to get what they want."

Sanders mentioned the work requirements on SNAP and the elimination of the student-loan payment pause as primary reasons why he cannot support the bill, even with the US set to default on its debt as early as June 5. The House will be voting on the legislation on Wednesday evening, and it's unclear at this point if enough lawmakers are on board to pass it through the first chamber.

Still, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are urging their colleagues to pass the bill in the Senate.

"President Biden and Speaker McCarthy's agreement will protect the economy and eliminate the threat of a catastrophic default. I support this bipartisan agreement. Nobody's getting all they want—but it takes default off the table and protects key investments we've made," Schumer wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

McConnell also wrote that McCarthy "and House Republicans secured a crucial first step toward bringing Washington Democrats' reckless spending to heel. Their unity forced President Biden to do his job. And soon, it will be the Senate's turn to pass this important agreement."

Do you think Bernie Sanders would have been able to beat Trump in either 2016 or 2020?

I do think Bernie Sanders would have defeated Trump in 2020 if he had been the Democratic nominee. I'm less confident about how he would fared in a general election in 2016.