I said they would try to smear Bernie as a communist. Bernie is not a communist, and never has been. Calling him a communist would be a smear. Carville and Trump have called Bernie a communist – they have attempted to smear Bernie.
No, James. You’re not a Communist. You’re a pointless wonk with a big mouth. You are, quite literally, the ugly face of soulless, technocratic neoliberalism.
I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Communism but at least it’s an ethos.
He’s worse than wrong. He’s a liar. I mean, Trump’s such a dumb shit that I can just about believe that he really thinks Bernie really is a Communist. Carville doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt on that.
They don’t have to use the word. They just have to play the tapes. It’s very hard to argue with yourself.
Bernie has never identified as a communist, and has explicitly rejected that label (and of course they’re going to use that word - they’ve been doing so for years!). And those tapes aren’t new (and I don’t think they’re nearly as damning as you seem to). Bernie has been well known as a self identified socialist for 4 years now. I don’t think it’s that scary any more. We’ll see.
And considering all the communists, authoritarians, and white supremacists Trump has praised just in the last 3 years, I’m skeptical that a 30 something year old video of Bernie that’s been well known and well spread for 4 years will really be all that influential.
He didn’t even win the nomination in 2016 with democrats so that’s not the best argument. Now he’s going for swing voters and independents in parts of the country where socialist and communist are synonymous and about as negative as calling someone a pedophile. So agree to disagree.
Bernie seems like he might be a communist. I don’t think he’d admit it because it would damage his extremely high electability on his very popular policies of first World health care for USA and less power for ultra rich (more money than can be earnt in lifetime of vampire).
But go Bernie. Hopefully secret commie
He is a socialist. You want the election to hinge on an intelligent and nuanced conversation about the ideological differences between socialism and communism? In America? Good luck with that.
That’s not going to happen no matter what. This will be a clash of feelings, as it always is. I think Bernie brings the best chance of a feelings based victory. I don’t think socialism is scary any more.
I would argue that the only ones buying into “socialism is bad. Mmmkay” are the die hard Trump supporters. Most independents and dems already know the differences.
I’m almost positive you are incorrect. I daresay, most voters couldn’t name you one difference between the two. Nor do they care to really learn.
Sure, they may like their police force, city parks, state parks, public libraries, fire rescue, public schools, publicly-funded roads, safe-to-eat-at restaurants, medicare, etc., but that, to most people, ain’t socialism.
I think you couldn’t be more wrong.
This was from 4 days ago. Socialism is still the biggest liability in American politics. More than being atheist or Muslim.
At 45% among independents saying they would vote for a socialist; I don’t think that qualifies as “more wrong”. That’s with in the margin of error or close to it.
And after the primaries, I’d be currious to see an updated poll on this subject.
Ok you could be more wrong but not by much. The poll clearly shows being a socialist is the biggest political liability in American politics. And that’s using his own term.
Helicopter avatar warning against socialism, nice
L: I’m talking about his own words coming back to bury him in 30 second increments on tv.
A: are you saying they will try to smear Bernie as a communist?
L: It’s hard to characterize someone’s own words as a smear. Is the tape of Bloomberg a smear?
A: I never said it was a smear. I’m not sure what you’re asking me about related to anything I’ve said.
…propaganda relies on a certain amount of “buy-in” from people in order for it to work. Arguing that many Americans aren’t going to have an intelligent and nuanced conversation about the ideological differences between socialism and communism is an entirely fair point to make.
But this?
This is entirely a different thing. This is buying into the propaganda. This is propagating the propaganda. You don’t fight propaganda by buying into the propaganda. Its entirely fair to argue that many will conflate socialism with communism. But that isn’t what you did here. You know that Bernie isn’t a communist no matter how much solidarity he allegedly has with communist governments and systems. It isn’t even close to the same thing.
You know that. I know that. But the majority of voters will only hear “Socialist” and “Communist” and that’s more than enough to send him crashing down. And you must realize that many–maybe a plurality–of US voters already think that Canada, Denmark, and Finland are Communist states.