Almost every time I watch a Bernie Sanders speech or video, like the one above, I think, oh, that could be part of his 2020 announcement. Well... we won't have to wait much longer. I don't think anyone will be surprised to know that Bernie is getting close to announcing. And Saturday, Politico reported that his announcement video has been recorded.
It is unclear when, or even whether, the Sanders video will be released. It’s possible that Sanders could launch a 2020 campaign with an exploratory committee and then formally declare his candidacy later, a route other presidential candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have taken.Sarah Ford, a spokeswoman for Sanders, did not respond to a request for comment about the video.Tim Tagaris and Robin Curran, two 2016 alumni who helped power Sanders’ successful small-dollar fundraising program, have agreed to join any second presidential campaign.The Sanders team has also been in talks with Means of Production, the filmmaking company that created Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s viral campaign video during the midterm election, about a major 2020 role.Meanwhile, the group founded by Sanders has been readying its members in case he runs. Our Revolution revealed its plans this weekend for the second phase of its campaign to draft Sanders into the presidential race. In a fundraising email sent to supporters, Our Revolution political director David Duhalde asked for donations to help fund phone-banking, door-knocking, volunteer trainings, and other outreach strategies.“We’re organizing every day so that if and when Bernie announces,” he said, “our members and our groups can hit the ground running.”
Chris has that right-- and by now you surely know what he'll fight for and who he'll fight for-- unlike the squad of would-be candidates running around like chickens without heads apologizing for their shitty records (particularly Biden, Gillibrand and Harris)-- and that he can be trusted, again, unlike the apologizers who did so much damage and want a second chance-- second chances are good... but as president??Last night, Digby reminded her readers that "Democrats win when they embrace the future with optimism and energy. All the Democratic presidents of my lifetime won on that basis. From JFK to Carter to Clinton to Obama, it was always about aspiration for progress not a retreat to the past." That leaves out Biden-- "Mr. Return to Normalcy." In fact, an awful lot of candidates-- on all levels-- are running with the idea of just making things like they were before Trump. That won't work, The way things were before Trump is exactly what saddled us with Trump. Embracing the future with optimism and energy-- and a solid program-- is way more attractive,Ro Khanna was a Bernie-endorser in 2016, when heavy pressure was being put on everyone to back Hillary, the inevitable next president. He and Bernie worked closely on the out-of-Yemen legislation and today Ro told me that "Bernie has a vision to transform our foreign policy to be based on human rights and restraint and our economic policy to focus on communities and workers left out. We need his leadership and voice at this time of record income disparity and polarization."Randy Bryce was another Bernie supporter back in 2016. He's just as enthusiastic today as he was back then. "Sen. Sanders was one of the first electeds (federal level) to meet with me after we got into the race for Congress," he told me today. "Not only did he offer solid advice, but he made it to the district to help out more than just about anyone else. (4 events in 3 days) He’s the one who made us think about what we could have if we valued working people before it was popular. It’s great to see so many of the things we thought of as a fantasy to actually become mainstream and something many who have already announced are advocating. We need more who will put workers first. I look forward to welcoming anyone who is willing to walk a picket line." Wisconsin state Senator Chris Larson was the guy who first introduced me to Randy Bryce, long before anyone outside the Wisconsin labor and veterans' movements had heard the word "IronStache." Chris gets why Bernie isn't just another run-of-the-mill politician. "In an age," he told me this morning, "where heroes are being shattered by resurgent histories and accusations of political mal-intent, Bernie may be one of the last politicians whom can be held up as someone who has been setting the tone for social justice, for our environment, and for economic equality for decades. Trump can only win a second term by maligning his opponents until enough doubt exists in enough of the electorate that they stay home. Bernie is one has shown he can handle that kind of heat and shift right back to what really matters in the world, all while keeping the people with him. We have a lot of great candidates outlining visions for the future of our country. Bernie, like Elizabeth Warren, is one who will never forget to fight for the little guy because it's all he's ever fought for."I have this thing about having one great president in my lifetime. FDR was long gone before I came along and there hasn't been a truly great president since. Some OK ones, mostly mediocre ones, some really, really bad ones-- and, of course this illegitimate thing in the White House. I think Newton's Third Law (of physics) applies well to human and societal interaction. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," he wrote. That would mean that after Trump, America is due for its greatest president ever. Combining the thoughts of Isaac Newton, Digby and Chris Hayes... I see two possibilities: Elizabeth Warren or Bernie. Put in a dash of Ro Khanna, Chris Larson and Randy Bryce, and it's easy enough how to figure out who to vote for. The DownWithTyranny ActBlue thermometer on the right, as a matter of fact... well, if you agree with me, please consider a $20.20 contribution to someone who's going to be as great as Trump is insignificant and unfit. And to the candidates who will support his programs in Congress. Eva Putzova is the progressive Democrat running in Arizona's massive 1st congressional district. The incumbent is Tom O'Halleran, an "ex"-Republican who calls himself a Blue Dog Democrat but tends to vote with the GOP on crucial issues. Eva, an activist and former member of the Flagstaff City Council is thrilled about Bernie's 2020 run. "In late March of 2016 at one of his campaign stops," she told me, "then presidential candidate Bernie Sanders announced the launch of Flagstaff's citizen initiative that successfully raised the local minimum wage to $15 and got rid of the exploitative tipped wage that keeps too many women, people of color, and immigrants living in poverty. That symbolic gesture inspired many to join our efforts against inequality at the local level. Senator Sanders's candidacy in the 2020 presidential cycle will inspire a broad-based grassroots action, energize young voters, and activate courage that we need to combat climate change and build a resilient economy that works for everybody. The political discourse we will see in the coming months will be much more constructive and focused because of his presence in the Democratic Party primaries."Eva and Bernie in FlagstaffLike Eva, Mike Siegel, a progressive congressional candidate in central Texas, admires Bernie and what he stands for, especially his "deep and longstanding commitment to addressing the root causes of inequality and injustice in the United States. We need courageous leadership in this moment, when our democratic institutions are under attack and when the economic system is increasingly rigged to favor the 1%. Here in Texas, Bernie’s 2016 campaign inspired the creation of dozens of enduring grassroots organizations that continue to fight for structural, progressive change at the local, state and national levels. I am hopeful that his 2020 campaign will provide another boost to movements for social justice here and across the nation."As for "centrists"... there's nothing there. Nor should there be sat this point. What's the centrist policy on Climate Change? Well save Florida. But only starting with Orlando; everything south of Orlando... move-- fast. Historically, "the centrists" are the people who may agree that something is wrong and needs fixing but the solutions are way too hard, impossible, impractical. Let's try a bandaid and see if that works. Had centrists been in charge guess what would be missing from American history. Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, minimum wages, public education, women's suffrage, emancipation of the slaves, the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10)... in fact, there would be no American history because we'd still be a British colony!Last July, Sarah Jones penned an essay for the New Republic, There Is No Silent Centrist Majority, her point being that "the base of the Democratic Party is much further to the left than moderates recognize." The Democratic establishment aggressively promotes conservative Democrats, who are referred to as "centrists" and "moderates," and they all sit around talking to each other are persuading themselves that the grassroots of the party is someone as white, old, rich and clueless as they are. They think everyone is like Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Blue Dog who was trained by Rahm Emanuel to be just like him. Pelosi just picked her to be the chair of the DCCC. She picked all right-of-center Democrats to run it and the recruitment committee, particularly, looks like it was chosen to fail. The co-chairs are Pete Aguilar (this coke freak), Val Demings and Don McEachin. All New Dems. Who do you think they're going to recruit?Jones quoted Bustos for her essay: "If you look throughout the heartland, there’s a silent majority who just wants normalcy, just wants to see that people are going to go out to Washington and fight for them in a civil way and get something done. There’s a lot of people that just don’t really like protests and don’t like yelling and screaming." They would have been the third of the country who refused to take sides in the War of Independence. "Party leaders might be centrist, but the base is not," wrote Jones.
In 2016, Democratic voters nearly rejected centrism outright, as the primary campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders proved more popular than expected. Nudged partly by Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s platform in 2016 veered further left than her platform eight years earlier. But on paper, her candidacy represented everything that Third Way Democrats seem to want. She had extensive political experience and a strong donor base. Her policies were detailed. She largely rejected Sanders’s platform, articulated a clear, incremental policy vision, and professed a belief in American greatness at the same time. And then she lost.Today, it’s clear that Sanders is not the outlier he used to be. Many Democrats now agree with at least a few of his marquee policies, like Medicare for All and a higher minimum wage. But some Democrats, notably those at Opportunity 2020 last week, still insist that the politically smart path is a message of civility and capitalist reform, not outrage and economic redistribution. “The party is not going to go in the direction of Sanders-style socialism, because it’s not winning on the issues and it doesn’t win politically except in a very, very limited number of places,” Third Way President Jonathan Cowan told Time. “It’s going to go in the direction that won it two presidencies-- the last two, two-term Democratic presidents were mainstream Democrats-- and what is going to get the House back.”As reported by Buzzfeed, “Third Way’s own polling indicates that ‘46% of voters said the government’s focus should be on ‘policies that spread opportunity to more people and places,’ compared to 25% who said ‘policies that address income inequality.’” If centrists think that result proves that there’s popular support for moderate politics, they’re likely mistaken; it’s not clear how “policies that spread opportunity” differ from “policies that address income inequality” in a meaningful sense, especially to voters. In reality, a number of policies once relegated to the leftist fringe have suddenly gained widespread approval among Democrats, and centrist policies don’t seem to enjoy nearly the same levels of popularity.In fact, national polling suggests that there is public support for an institutional move to the left. Polls consistently show that two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans support raising taxes on the rich. Nearly half of Americans support a federal jobs guarantee, according to a Rasmussen poll in May. And a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in March found that 59 percent of Americans support Medicare for All; around 75 percent support the public option, which would have been part of the Affordable Care Act if it weren’t for moderates like then–Senator Joe Lieberman. Among Democrats specifically, support for these and other policies is even higher....The argument that Third Way centrism is more viable than Sanders’s platform rests largely on one premise: that some silent majority of voters prefer moderate politics. This is why moderates are pinning their hopes on Joe Biden as a possible 2020 presidential candidate. The former senator and vice president “has near-universal name identification, a personality and biography that makes him attractive to some 2016 Trump voters, and an issues profile that won’t drive progressives off the ledge,” New York’s Ed Kilgore notes.
Herb Jones, endorsed by Blue America, is running for the Virginia state Senate seat held by the racist Majority Leader. This afternoon, he told me why he's a Bernie-supporter. "I love Bernie. I love Bernie because he is genuine in what he says and does. He is the essence of America. Bernie will fight for Medicare for All, progressive, marginal tax rates, regulated adult use of cannabis, and other common sense policies..."
