The same way you consider elections to be real in your country. Sanders had huge public support and championed policies that were popular with vast majority of Americans. Yet, the candidate that represents the oligarchs is now the president.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bernie Sanders never had massive public support. He had enthusiastic support from a minority. In 2016, he benefited from many primary voters not particularly liking Clinton and the feeling that the primary was more of a coronation than a contest. Fast forward to 2020 and Joe Biden got around double the votes that Sanders did. There was a brief period of time where the more mainstream candidates were splitting that vote giving Sanders a phantom lead, but that disappeared the moment the other mainstream candidates dropped out. And that's just in the Democratic primary. In a larger election with centrist and right leaning voters, politicians like him have no chance of being elected unless the political climate changes significantly. That's not coming from some oligarchy boogieman. That's the genuine beliefs of the proletarian making their way into the ballot box.

In terms of individual policies, polling on those are (1) notoriously tricky to poll and (2) don't necessarily translate well to elections. Take government-provided health care. If you ask if the government should be responsible for providing health care, you will usually get a healthy majority. But if you tweak it to also ask about increasing taxes, that majority disappears. Never mind that government-provided health care be the same thing, just with the money taking a different route.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Vast majority of people want things like affordable healthcare, loan forgiveness, higher pay, and better social security. Every single poll shows this. The notion that you have to raise taxes on people with low income is just a fiction. The taxes Sanders proposed were taxes on high income earners that would've affected a tiny rich minority.

Meanwhile, things like public healthcare aren't a theoretical question. There is tangible evidence from plenty of other countries, including Canada right next door. US has far worse outcomes and people in US pay far more per capita. The fact that this is a debate in US shows just how much public discourse has been subverted by special interests.

The reality is that the ideas that Sanders championed are sensible, have been implemented with great success in many western countries, and have broad support from US public. Yet, despite that, people of US got more of the same. Yet, you think you live in a democracy while people in Cuba who have a government working in their interest live in a dictatorship. This is your brain on American propaganda.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm not arguing against Bernie Sanders and his ideas. I'm pointing out that him not getting elected is, for better or for worse, exactly what the citizens of the US want.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And I'm pointing out that the only candidate that had broadly popular ideas had no path to victory in your supposedly democratic system. Your current president sits at 38% approval rating and has dipped as low as 36% earlier. Calling this a democracy is a farce.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

You keep saying that Bernie Sanders is wildly popular and should have won. Please cite a poll that clearly demonstrates that Bernie Sanders has majority support among citizens as a whole and would win in a free and fair election.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

please cite a poll

Is the popular vote enough for you? He won it in multiple states and then the superdelegates decided to pick Hillary instead. How is that democracy?

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago

No, Hillary won the majority of both the pledged delegates (selected by party rank-and-file) and plain vote tally. Yes she had already secured the backing of the majority of unpledged delegates (aka superdelegates), but in the end that made no difference. Those unpledged delegates would have been very reluctant to essentially override the will of their voters, even if they felt like it was political suicide in the general election. Also, in the Democratic primary candidates don't "win" states. Delegates are assigned through proportional representation.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

I keep saying that Sanders was the only candidate that was promoting policies that had mass support from the public. In a democracy, a candidate that proposes policies that are most popular should win. If you still can't understand this then you fundamentally do not understand the concept of democracy. Have a good day.