To the (pretty significant, AFAICT) extent that billionaires want to preserve the incredibly imbalanced atate of wealth in this country and use their influence to do so, yes, billionaires are the enemy.
Laid-off coal miners might be assholes too, but their assholism doesn’t have consequences beyond their circle of friends.
If it matters many billionaires have pledged to give away all their money to charity, or at least half of it. List here:
Gates and Buffet are going to essentially give everything to charity.
I’ve met John Sall on the list at a party at his house. His house is 10,000 square feet but nothing fancy about it it’s the same as my place, just way bigger. He’s a big donor to Dems. He had a picture with his daughter and Obama which is a perk for big donors.
And helping elect Trump. That is a consequence. Billionaires only have a fraction of the voting block bitter Trumpster coal miners have.
That’s better than the Koch family or the Walton family or quite a few others, but even if it’s a significant fraction of U.S. billionaires, it’s still their choices rather than ours. The money should be paying workers better right now, making college and health care and retirement affordable for everyone right now, rather than being donated to charity at some unknown point in the future.
Again, that’s nice, but again, the influence of big donors, and the necessity of raising money by spending most afternoons on the phone with them and a lot of evenings at fundraising events with them, skews the priorities of Democratic politicians towards the priorities of the rich.
A reasonable if potentially debatable observation regarding process and quite a bit of a different position than your previous brushstroke demonization of a “them” categorically -
Billionaires get a much much louder voice on a per capita basis. No question.
The level of wealth and thus power inequality in this country is an increasingly larger and larger problem. 100% agreed. Including by some billionaires.
But sorry I cannot consider Warren Buffet an enemy of the people. Even Steyer and Bloomberg do not get thrown into the enemy camp based on billionaire = enemy. They may not be great candidates in my mind, and there is something wrong with the fact that being that wealthy alone gets you in a consideration tier by virtue of how money amplifies your voice, but … enemy? No.
…and so it begins.
Minnesota early in-person voting started yesterday. We just won’t get the results till Super Tuesday. Minnesota tends toward high turnout overall and high early voting rates, though. Voters are allowed to go back and change their votes if something changes their mind.
IA may be the first in the nation to report results. Minnesota is kind of giving the notion that they go first the finger while staying just inside what is allowed by the DNC.
The entire “us versus them,” politics-of-resentment approach that has characterized Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 campaigns (in my opinion) is foolish. Granted, it does generate votes from a certain percentage of the electorate, because many humans respond enthusiastically to that sort of tribalism. As is often observed, Sanders voters have a lot in common with Trump voters. Rah, rah, Us! Down with Them! Lock Them Up! (etc)
I prefer an approach that acknowledges that humans respond to incentives, rather than one that claims that some humans (poor ones) are inherently virtuous, while other humans (rich ones) are inherently evil.
The good-poor-versus-evil-rich approach also leads to some absurdities, such as Sanders’ need to change his well-known “millionaires and billionaires” references, once his own millionaire-status became known. Now it’s just “billionaires.” To those of us who have listened to Sanders for years, the change is obvious—and doesn’t redound to Sanders’ credit.
A particular billionaire may be the enemy of democracy and human rights. And another billionaire may spend hugely to promote democracy and human rights. You can’t predict which is which solely on the basis of their net worth.
I agree fully with the Sanders camp that the current level of income and asset inequality, and the system that ensures that those gaps will increase, is extremely bad for this nation (as well as being bad for the world in general). I’m fully on board with policies that will change that untenable situation. It needs changing and it must change–but that can happen only if we acknowledge actual human psychology, rather than clinging to foolish ideas such as ‘poor = virtuous and rich = evil.’
Vilifying people based on their bank account totals is stupid. It’s not a winning electoral strategy for the general election.
It rather changes what I said if you elide out all the “to the extent that” stuff.
I can pick stuff from your posts out of context too, and make it look like you said something very different from what you really said.
But I have no intention of playing that game. This is the Dope.
Some of the billionaires who have pledged to donate 50% or more of their wealth have already made large donations before they die. For example Gates foundation has donated $50 billion already. And they still have $50 bil left.
Here is what they donated to:
Foundation Fact Sheet (At A Glance) | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Wow.
Stay classy, Bernie. (Reuters)
It’s necessary to read the full article to understand what is happening. But I say again: Wow.
Guess the gloves are off now if they were not already
But this isn’t “the gloves are off.” This is engaging in the same sort of lying bullshit that TrumpCo does. To deliberately twist Biden’s words to a meaning that’s the exact opposite of what he was actually saying is garbage propaganda at its finest.
He did the same thing in 2016. I’m not surprised. Only sad and disappointed.
Sanders is clearly in the pay of the GOP and the kremlin. There is no other explanation. he is going to make trump president again. Bernie has gone bonkers.
You know, I never cared if Bernie won in a fair fight. Not in 2016, not in 2020. I’d have voted for him if that had been the case.
But employing these low rent, nasty tactics is beneath any Democratic candidate. It should be beneath any Republican candidate too, but my expectations for that side of the aisle are so low that the gutter would be a step up.
I was on the fence over who was responsible for the dust-up between Warren and Sanders, but not anymore. Bernie’s leopard spots haven’t changed since 2016.
I just sent Biden another $50.
There is nothing to be gained from backing down. This doesn’t just apply to Sanders. It applies to everyone.
He’s trying to play the game. Don’t know if he can win or not, but I can’t fault him for playing to win.
By lying? The end justifies the means? May as well be a Trump Republican, then.
He shouldn’t have lied. But if he’s going to lie, it’s better to not back down than to admit to it. In two days, NOBODY IS GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS. He can either have it ON THE RECORD that he admitted to lying - or not, and wait for everyone to move on to another subject. Nothing to be gained from backing down!!
Oh, I’m going to be talking about it. I’m going to make sure everyone in my sphere is aware of it.
I hope Bernie pays a price for stooping this low.
Meh. I dislike Biden enough that a misleading video about him doesn’t really bother me.
Especially when it appears to me that Biden really has been all over the place on spending for SS and other social programs.
https://mobile.twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1218703343230410754
Biden’s not quite my least favorite of the Democrats, but he’s almost there. I’d vastly prefer Bernie to him.
Jeez, Team Bernie, wasn’t there enough material to attack Biden on the merits, that you had to make up shit like this?
Besides being totally dishonest, it’s incredibly stupid and unnecessary.
I was getting to a point where I was thinking that if Warren can’t come back and win this thing, then Bernie would be my second choice. Fuck that shit. I’d still rather have him than Buttigieg, Gabbard, or the billionaires, but that’s about as much as I can say for him right now.
It almost physically hurts me to say this, but Biden’s now my second choice. I say this still gritting my teeth and knowing the Democratic Party would probably be walking into a trap with Joe, but even still.