He might not have represented a fundamental threat to these power structures because they really are fucking entrenched (something we presumably agree on). Yet the agenda laid out in his 2016 platform went against the interests of the donor class to a larger degree than any other major party candidate in something like a generation, if not more. He was at least a threat to the interests of the donor class, even if he might not have been an immediate threat to their systemic power.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 20 2023 12:46pm

His 2016 platform wasn't even as against the interests of donors as Bernie.

You're also mistaking campaign promises for what he can actually be expected to do. Only an idiot thought Trump was going to follow through with any of that stuff he said when he got in office. He was and is totally inept.

The mistake you're making is taking things at face value because you took them at face value in 2016 when you started paying attention. You should be able to change your view on that by now. Trump was never a threat, but he was a destabilizing force simply because he didn't follow civility politics.

He was never an actual threat to them, as he's one of them. His signature tax bill was a massive handout to the donor class. His campaign words were just that: words, which pulled the wool over the eyes of slavering idiots everywhere who followed him.

I never claimed otherwise.


But we're supposed to believe that America would be a fundamentally different place if only Bernie had won in 2016?





The tax bill is his major legislative legacy because all the other stuff got stopped dead in its track either due to Trump's ineptitude or because of resistance from the swamp. The first major policies he pursued after being sworn were killing TPP, issuing the (erroneously-labeled) "muslim ban", withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and starting a twitter flamewar with Kim Jong Un. It wasn't until the fall of 2017, after the Charlottesville debacle, the departure of Steve Bannon from his administration, as well as the efforts to repeal Obamacare going up in flames, that the tax bill came up and was eventually passed.

And back in the day, there were many articles on Politico etc. about how the Republican donor class had put an ultimatum on the Trump admin and Congressional Republicans, to the gist of "you better get your shit together and pass this damn tax bill or we'll never support any of you ever again". I'm not saying that Trump had any problem with passing a tax cut that benefitted his family and buddies, but it's not like this bill was his top priority.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 20 2023 05:50pm

Why are you fabricating claims to whatabout

Did you root for Bernie back in 2016? Did you think him becoming president would turn the US into a notably better place? Or did you think that "only an idiot could believe that Bernie will follow through with any of the stuff he said"?

America would not be "a fundamentally different place". As good as Bernie was, and as much as he would fight for policies, he is not a one man army. The system just doesn't work that way. But Bernie would have made a pretty big difference compared to today on things such as supreme court picks and appointments to things like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Bernie would have actually pushed for things that threaten entrenched power in a way Trump was never going to do. This isn't just a matter of Trump being incompetent, although he was very incompetent. He was a member of the billionaire class. He isn't going to threaten his own money.

That's the difference. Listen to Trump's rhetoric in 2016 and it's populist but pretty vacuous. He just said "I'll get you healthcare", but never said how he'd do it or what he'd do to accomplish it. It should have been obvious to pretty much everybody that it was pandering.

Bernie, on the other hand, could specifically list policies he was in favor of that were solutions to clearly defined issues. You can disagree with those policies, but Bernie had specific things he was actively pushing for.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Apr 21 2023 12:57pm