# True? "Democrats would rather have fascism than Bernie Sanders' populism"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2024, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953 "2024-11-29T21:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/21 "2024-11-30T15:05:36Z")
Sure…but who are they losing to? What message are the dems losing to? Trump! Which is insanity…and people chose that. Also, last I looked, republicans have complete control of the government. All three branches. And the last election wasn’t all that close. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/22 "2024-11-30T15:08:48Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Trying to enact Bernie Sanders’ agenda is a good way to keep Republicans in power for a long time. Sanders was not in the last election and republicans have complete control of the government. If things go perfectly for liberals from now it will take decades…literal decades…to unwind the awfulness Trump will inflict on this country. And that is a best case. And you think Sanders would have made that worse? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/23 "2024-11-30T15:25:49Z")
I think it’s quite possible the Republicans will screw up badly enough to allow Democrats to score heavily in the 2026 midterm elections. But not if they embrace Sanderism. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/24 "2024-11-30T15:31:55Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > And the last election wasn’t all that close. The popular vote margin is currently 1.55 percent – and that may be final. Comparing this to [swing state popular vote margins](https://www.cookpolitical.com/vote-tracker/2024/electoral-college), the electoral college advantage of the GOP was, at most, 0.2 percent. This is close enough that, in my recollection of past elections, commentators would say that if the election had been a couple days later or earlier, the result would have been different. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/25 "2024-11-30T15:51:40Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Sure…but who are they losing to? What message are the dems losing to? Trump! Which is insanity…and people chose that. Right. And as I’ve said elsewhere, it’s disappointing that some are claiming the lesson here is that Democrats moved too far left. They couldn’t have tried more to move to the center and court supposed “Nikki Haley republicans” while not even humoring progressives with a turn at the mic. I guess they wrongly calculated that this would invalidate all the tired old republican attacks in voters’ minds. None of this is to say that a Sanders ticket would necessarily win, but the reality is, it’s untested. We have no idea how a progressive (or progressive-curious) candidate would do, only that in isolation their policy proposals poll well. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/26 "2024-11-30T16:05:09Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > None of this is to say that a Sanders ticket would necessarily win, but the reality is, it’s untested. We have no idea how a progressive (or progressive-curious) candidate would do, only that in isolation their policy proposals poll well. Right. Although, while we cannot know if a progressive message works we do know that the neoliberal message (ala Clinton/Biden/Harris) does not work. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/27 "2024-11-30T21:13:19Z")
Is there any evidence that a significant number of Democrats voted for trump? And I will bet that if you asked voters, 99% of them would say that they are not voting for fascism. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2024, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/28 "2024-11-30T23:58:40Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Neoliberlalism is consertavisim light. Basically centrist democrats who probably would be deemed conservative in the 1970/80s. > > No doubt you will argue that but we have the elections that are the final word. Neoliberalism is a loser…big time. > > Is Sanders worse? Hard to say but we know the alternative loses. Neoliberals lost to the fascists, but Bernie-style populism lost to the neoliberals. So if that’s the standard being used it doesn’t look good for Bernie. Also, you misunderstand me; I _agree_ that the Democrats are conservatives. The Republicans are reactionary/fascist/theocratic/plutocratic party, the Democrats are the conservative/slightly less plutocratic party, and the _actual_ progressives (not even the radicals) are marginalized. _My_ actual politics would mostly fit into the moderate left. I just don’t think Bernie ever had a realistic chance of going anywhere, not in the present political environment. ---
**Author:** ![Ash\_trav511](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@Ash\_trav511](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ash_trav511)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/29 "2024-12-01T12:38:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Is there any evidence that a significant number of Democrats voted for trump? Can’t say if its a significant nummber or not but I do know a few lifelong Democrats who voted Trump. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/30 "2024-12-01T14:37:30Z")
Both trump and Bernie ran as populists, though. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/31 "2024-12-01T21:26:49Z")
> [@Ash\_trav511](#): > > Can’t say if its a significant nummber or not but I do know a few lifelong Democrats who voted Trump. So, then- Democrats would NOT rather have fascism than Sanders. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Both trump and Bernie ran as populists, though. True, but a Right Wing Populist is a different animal than a Socialist Populist. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/32 "2024-12-01T22:24:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Neoliberals lost to the fascists, but Bernie-style populism lost to the neoliberals. So if that’s the standard being used it doesn’t look good for Bernie. Yes but consider who Sanders lost to and who Clinton and Harris lost to. They are not close to equivalent in character. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/33 "2024-12-01T22:54:30Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Yes but consider who Sanders lost to and who Clinton and Harris lost to. They are not close to equivalent in character. Yeah, and if somebody finds _Trump_ of all people appealing I rather doubt they’d ever vote for Bernie. Let’s face it, Trump, Biden and Sanders all all far more similar to each other (and far better people in every way) than they are to Trump. Trump being anything other than a joke candidate shows that there’s something _deeply_ wrong with our culture that switching around Democrats is going to have a limited ability to deal with. There’s no Democratic version of Trump (fortunately). Sanders certainly isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/34 "2024-12-01T23:19:40Z")
I’d say support for fascism is a lot higher on the hard left than it is among hard core Democrats. Jill Stein won 0.4% of the popular vote this year (as of ~Nov 7th). Cornel West was not on the ballot in most states but he won 0.2% in Virginia. Pot, meet kettle. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2024, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/35 "2024-12-01T23:35:40Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The American people fundamentally mostly want the economic conditions of their lives to improve. A party that credibly represented that position would easily win US elections. Both candidates ran on some version of that. Harris ran on real economic policies she could implement. They were concrete, but limited and not addressing the needs of everyone. Trump ran on lies. They were broad and included all. Lies won. The biggest issue was blaming the post covid economic recovery problems on Biden and democratic policies, and thinking republican policies under Trump would have avoided those problems. Credibly representing economic improvement is the challenge. Because “socialism bad”. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > Tax the rich, admit and attack wealth disparity, increased prosperity for the working class (though they would call it the “middle class” as no one ever wants to actually acknowledge the working class in US politics), pro union – Um, that sounds a lot like what I heard as Harris’s platform. > [@echoreply](#): > > Looking past the most immediate example, Americans have long been willing to hurt themselves if it also hurts the object of their racist views. Most of the MAGA message is “racism, fuck yeah!” As long as it hurts those people more, it sells. > > This is a trend that is illogical, but appears again and again as working-class vote anti-union, anti-safety-net, anti-healthcare, and so on. I don’t think that is true. Identity politics is larger than one issue. The Republicans are also playing identity politics. They have gotten urban working class to identify with rural working class and connected pejoratives against rural wc to the urban identity. They have played the white christian people to feel attacked by the left, not helped by the left. The economy reached a high point under Trump before covid. The why’s of that are unexamined, just like the cause of post covid inflation is unexamined. They see the effects, and the effects look like Trump was better. The details don’t matter to them. I would also argue the majority are playing a zero sum game, thinking that helping others hurts them. They aren’t looking at how it could help everyone, because they feel like they get the short end of that stick. > [@Horatius](#): > > With regards to the question in the title, it presupposes that Democrats “Know in their heart” that Bernie would have won, and decided to go with the worse candidate, even knowing that they might be handing the win to Trump. That’s fundamentally nonsense. They went with a candidate they thought could win. Truth. Maybe a left populist could have gotten steam going if the Dems ran a real primary. Most likely it would have ended up with someone similar. And I think and Dem candidate would have been saddled with the covid economic woes anyway. Party in power, even if the candidate were more disconnected from Biden’s policies. I don’t know that a real left candidate would win, but maybe it’s time the Dems try it. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/36 "2024-12-02T00:27:34Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > I don’t know that a real left candidate would win, but maybe it’s time the Dems try it. Not the U.S., but the 2019 United Kingdom general election, in which Jeremy Corbyn lost to Boris Johnson, was a sort of test. The other sort of test is U.S. congressional elections. Why is it that the few real left members of congress only come from localities known for tending leftward? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/37 "2024-12-02T00:41:31Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Why is it that the few real left members of congress only come from localities known for tending leftward? Gerrymandering would be my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/38 "2024-12-02T00:59:28Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > The economy reached a high point under Trump before covid Well it reached a peak before covid, but the economy is doing better now, by basically every metric including inflation-adjusted salaries. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/39 "2024-12-02T01:03:03Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Jill Stein won 0.4% of the popular vote this year (as of ~Nov 7th). Cornel West was not on the ballot in most states but he won 0.2% in Virginia. …I’m not sure what this means. Neither Stein or West would be considered “hard left” and/or fascist. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953/40 "2024-12-02T01:06:43Z")
Hard left by US standards, not OECD or world standards. And a vote for them in 2024 was a vote for fascism. Supporters of Stein or West in 2024 prefered fascism over a Harris victory, which explains the bloviating in the OP’s vid. It’s all projection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-democrats-would-rather-have-fascism-than-bernie-sanders-populism/1010953.md?page=3)