Ah Bernie, what could have been...

I've always felt that's just pragmatism from Bernie,

If you read his book "It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism" it becomes very very obvious that this is the case. From quoting very radical anti-capitalists to tongue and cheek (somewhat) insider jokes such as naming the chapter on his time in mayoral politics "Socialism in one City", it shows he's definitely way more ideologically aligned with socialism than people give him credit for.

Thanks for write-ups, there are certainly some things I have to read up on

1. When people in the modern day call someone a social democrat, they generally refer to the modern definition. The modern social democrat aims to reform capitalism to be more fair, as opposed to democratic socialists, who want to achieve socialism.
2. Social liberals like FDR are rather similar to modern social democrats. They have a different lineage, but in terms of policy the main distinguishing factor is a distaste for state-owned enterprises.
3. While I do not discount the possibility that he is intentionally moderating the positions he espouses publicly, he does not want to do away with private ownership, which is the goal of socialism. That being said, he goes much further than most social democrats in how much he wants to nationalize, how much he wants to incentivize coops, and how he wants 20% of major companies to be owned by the employees.

I really appreciate this write up. As when I saw this post I started questioning my own understanding of FDR. Which aligns with yours. That his intention was to find a middle ground between the working class and the capitalists. Whereas Bernie is much more about reforming capitalism.

He wasn't even a social democrat. At the time, social democrats were democratic socialists, the shift away from reformist socialism happened around the 80s (some social democratic parties still hang onto reformist socialism, at least in theory).

He was a smart liberal who realized that in order to save capitalism from collapsing again, some regulations are necessary. In Europe, similar policy was often pushed by social democrats, which sometimes leads to confusion. But actual social democrats at the time went (or at least wanted to go) further, like nationalization and socialization of major industry, worker representation at companies, and increasing worker and union power in general.

Social democrats stated endgoal was a socialist society. FDR's endgoal was to protect and maintain capitalism.

Edit: Also, Bernie is definitely a reformist socialist, I will never understand why people think otherwise. He literally mentions Eugen Debbs, one of the most influencial socialists in American history, as his role model and hero every chance he can.. And he praises the nordic model because the nordic model was literally pushed by reformist democratic socialists.. Here is Olaf Palme, one of the most important figures when it comes to the nordic model and prime minister of Sweden (until he was murdered), explaining why he is a democratic socialist:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7i2Ws1X5DSA

Just imagine a conservative politican, calling themselves a fascist, keeping a picture of Mussolini on their desk, saying he is their political role model. Would you claim that he isn't really a fascist? It's not even as if Bernie Sanders was dog whistling, he couldn't be any clearer about his believes.. Yet somehow, so many American leftists seem to sonehow doubt his intentions? Why? Because he isn't radical enough? Because he isn't throwing molotov coctails at the police? What does he have to gain from falsely calling himself a socialist??

The man's presidental campaign was giving 20% of major corporations to it's employees and having about half of the board of directors be elected by workers, among other stuff..

if you don't even want to acknowledge his values and his ideology simply because he is playing the politics game and is a reformist, send him to Europe, we would love a genuine leftist like him with so much charisma. I don't think you appreciate him..

Imagine dedicating your life to fight for a better life, involve yourself in the civil rights movement, work in various socialist groups, calling yourself a socialist and calling for major industry to be socialised, being constantly attacked by right wingers for your socialist believes, etc, only for dudes on the internet denying that you are a "real socialist"..

Socialists want the workers to own the means of production.

Capitalism/liberalism wants capitalists to own it (though the workers can be the capitalists in question). Social democracy is a form of liberalism that seeks to improve quality of life and economic outputs through the creation of a well regulated welfare state (typically).

Other than that, it depends. The two groups mostly agree that poor people shouldn't starve, that living wages should be a thing, and democracy and human rights matter, and one of the best ways to accomplish this all is the empowerment of worker unions. Everything else gets complicated.

FDR was definitely not a democratic socialist. He also wasn't what modern views would consider a social democrat, but if it wasn't for America still being segregated he probably would have counted as one easily enough. For the time? Probably. Some Greek Social Democrats wanted to conquer Turkey and expel the Muslims...

Hey, nothing wrong with being agist in this situation, let's be honest. Nobody - not Biden, not Bernie, not Trump - will be as cognitively-sharp when they are 80 as they were when they were 50, 40, 30. We wouldn't want an 80-year-old lifeguard or firefighter, right?

And until an 18-year-old can be president, we're already agist in one direction.

That we think putting geriatrics in the White House to run one of the most stressful jobs that is on-call 24/7 is a good idea... I mean it's absurd. Just look how much Obama aged in 8 years. Forget the fact that the general risk of all-cause mortality is far greater, that's just another risk-factor for running the country.

So yeah unfortunately I agree... Bernie's opportunity was missed. When AOC runs one day, I will campaign as hard as possible for her victory.

She's a Democrat. If she doesn't fall in line she doesn't keep her job. You've been conned.

Never forget Bernie's legacy...

https://youtu.be/ZlZaVtCT5HI

Like we are living the benefit of compromise

Oh fuck off. Who's this "we"? Glad to hear your life is going well bud. Good for you.

presidential party primary

There was an autocorrect there, but if that doesn't clear it up:

A primary isn't binding.

That was the DNCs legal argument for why if they rigged it, that would be legal.

The entire primary process is merely a survey.

I'll explain it for you, the top-level commenter is unhinged and prone to use conspiratorial excuses for why their preferred policies are not enacted instead of coming to the realization that they are not widely popular enough to carry the day.

You can think of it like nepotism in the DNC. Bernie was the more electable candidate. The candidate the liberals and the left preferred. They went with Hillary anyway and they underestimated Trump's electability in the actual presidential race. Essentially giving Trump the presidency in 2016.

You can watch all of their surprised Pikachu faces during Hillary's concession speech. They had a huge glass ceiling they were going to shatter all of this stuff. And it all fizzled out.

Have Bernie Sanders as their public enemy #1

Not-an-American, but what I heard was that BOTH DNC and RNC do not choose the more "popular" candidate. The parties choose the candidate that their "donors" actually want. In RNC I think they straight-up just rig the process and push their choice.

But in the case of the DNC I believe the DNC "promises" to choose the candidate that is the most popular. BUT DNC "donors" have what is known as "super-delegates" or some bullshit ( Extra Votes for Money ? ) Soooooo Hillary went around ALL the states "buying" up all the super-delegate votes........ so in-effect Bernie lost even before the voting had even started! And on top of all that I think that so many candidates ran at the same time that it split most of Bernies votes down the middle which might have been the strategy engineered by DWS and the DNC.

Those are not the only problems with the DNC..... I believe that Hillary and DWS and DNC ran political ads PROMOTING Drumpf because he would be "easier" for Hillary to beat. So effectively the DNC and Hillary were campaigning for Drumpf! !!!!

I think 'Murica has a lot more serious problems and a lot more roadblocks but breaking the fundamentals of democracy by rigging votes and installing puppets seems almost comical and farcical if it wasnt so damaging and dangerous.

Not going to argue with you, but super deligates are why Hillary was the candidate and super deligates are bullshit and the definition of everyone is = but some are more = than others.

I always found it a comforting/uplifting thought. Like it proves humanity has taken some of the good forks in the path and so is capable of doing so now and in the future, too

Absolutely. I just don't think we should use him as a symbol of social democracy, because we can do much better. We need better than FDR, not just for leftwing politics, but leftwing social issues.

Red Lining itself was definitely established well before the New Deal, and the practice had spread across the US by the end of the 1920s

People don't remember how awful Wilson was

It would've been more accurate for me to say that it continued institutional racism, and denied black people from benefiting equally from the New Deal. It led to further economic disparities, and Democrats overall should've used the opportunity to chip away at institutional racism.

Actually just to wrench your caveat, Andrew Jackson was a major figure in the voting rights battle of the day, the right of non property owners to vote.

If it weren't for the Jackson admin, we wouldn't have the language we used to expand voting rights even further when those fights came to their crescendoes, and this country would still be entirely governed as a landowner oligarchy instead of just significantly like it is now.

That sounds sarcastic and cynical but there is a big difference.

Oh I'm not denying that at all. I'm just saying that FDR is a flawed human and we shouldn't lionize him as a symbol of social Democrats.

We get what we deserve unfortunately. If we had 100% turnout and more of us considered running for office ourselves, we would see huge improvements.

I've thought about doing local politics in retirement, and maybe see where it goes. I don't think it's my primary calling -- but then again, perhaps that's the exact issue I'm pointing out.

Did somebody say George Wallace?

Yeah unironically Bernie is further left than FDR when you look at it holistically. FDR may have been further left economically (which he also had to be pushed on a bit), but Bernie is left all around.

I think at this point in his career, the Senate is probably best for him. We need powerful progressive senators to pass progressive legislation. The Inflation Reduction Act could only go as far as it did because of Bernie's influence and cooperation with Biden.

Which is something important I want to highlight -- Clinton scorned Bernie, while Biden welcomed him. Biden was friendly to him in the Senate, and that set them up for a successful cooperative future. Lemmy could learn a lot from that. We're stronger when we ally together.

Making people happier is bad, actually!

/s

Nah this isn't authoritarian or Tankie at all. It is a valid point that economically left-wing policy was very successful in the past (and it's just a meme anyway, it's tongue in cheek).

Now there's a lot of discussion we can have about why left-wing economics aren't as popular among Americans anymore -- I don't think FDR's policies could win an election today necessarily. But I think they can in the future. Reagan made us a deeply conservative nation and we're only just coming out of that now.

Well written informative comment, nice!

Thanks. I recognise the name, but I don't recognise his face. I was leaning towards "Bernie" being Bernie Sanders, but I wasn't sure.

I appreciate the clarity.

They could have also reformed it to require physical presence and actually filibustering, instead of being possible via email from the tropics. Then again, with the average age and health of Congress, that would likely put a significant limit on its effectiveness as a tactic (I don't believe for a second that McConnell has the physical endurance to actually filibuster even a single bill).

Democrats pretend they can’t just change the rule.

And even more, they pretend like Republicans won't change the rule. If parliamentary democracy required a supermajority to do anything, every government would fall.

Texas's Governor Abbott is in a wheelchair, and I don't see much criticism, but I also don't know how many people know he is

I am just guessing that had it been due to exclusively the ideology of a democratic socialist, that there would have been more people to choose from.

They claim Hillary lost because she went a little left and it is the fault of... left wing voters? Hmm.

I said Hilary went an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit left with the map room to fight climate change. That's what she did. And she lost. Thanks protest non voters!

Did we have President Gore? No we did not. We can talk all day about this or that, but we did not have President Gore. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!

Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left

In a close election, and when running against an incumbent, Dems go to the center. Because that's where the voters are.

You're the first person I've ever heard say Biden leaned left.

It's not like it's hard to be more Progressive than Obama

I said itsy tiny little bit left with the map room. How many adjectives do you need? No one is saying she was far left, again see adjectives. That's what she ran on and bam she lost the election. Thanks protest no voters!

Its forever going to be "not right now" for you, so we're not waiting anymore, its only going to happen if we make it right now.

Take that one however far center or right you want to, the point is that's what he had to do to find votes (after successive Dem losses).

This just isn't true. There is a wealth of scholarly writing on the subject from both political science and statistics approaches. Clinton wins with or without Perot.

Obama won and the party immediately began shifting right. Eight years of pulling away from progressive policy.

Guess how many years Obama had a Dem House of Representatives and Dem Senate? 2 years. Not 8. Only 2. That's when we got the ACA though.

Contrary to how many people talk the president is not a King. The president does not pass laws, Congress does. And Dems need control of all 3 (presidency, house of reps, and Senate) to pass much of anything. So when the lose control, like they lost control for 6 years of Obama's presidency, they have to reach across the aisle. Do you remember what happened? The GOP shut down the government under Obama.

Obama had 1 victory and then 3 losses. 1 victory for 2 years and then 3 losses for 6 of his years.

You want them to not reach across the aisle? Then give Dems victories in all 3 of house of reps, Senate, and presidency.

(Btw guess how much the Dems have had all 3. They have had it for 4 years out of the last 24 years. That's right. They basically never have it. Want to include Bill Clinton? Then it's 6 years of the last 32 years. What to go back further? Then it's 6 years of the last 44 years. Read that again: 6 years out of the last 44 fucking years. And if you want filibuster proof majority, them it's 4 MONTHS of the last 44 years. Not 4 years, 4 MONTHS of the last 44 years. You need to readjust what you think are victories.)

They've had control of all three (house of representatives, Senate, and presidency) for 4 years of the last 24 years. The first 2 years under Obama, then the first 2 years under Biden.

You need all three to actually pass anything. Dems especially because they want to pass progressive things and GOP is more that happy to block it. And they can block with only 1 of any of those 3, which the GOP has had for 20 of the last 24 years.

The president is not a king. Congress (house of representatives and the Senate) passes laws.

*If you want to go further back, then it's 6 years of the last 32 years. Want even more? Then it's 6 years of the last 44 years.

Changing the winning candidate at the eleventh hour for a nobody is definitely the worst thing Democrats could do.

Who would they even pick that the majority of Americans have heard of?

What I see a ton of on Lemmy is the supposed logical voter. Who's waiting for the logical policy, and the logical platform, and the logical position. And they will logically wait for it, and until then they will logically not vote, in logical protest, to send a logical message. Because they are the be all of logic.

And what I'm saying is that if you want to be productive and effective in moving the window left, you accomplish that by electing Dems. Consistently and overwhelmingly. Because every time they lose they go to the center to find votes.