Bernie vs Tulsi: How to Identify Controlled Opposition Part 2
Bernie has stunted the progressive movement, and his weakness should be treated as a case study
The DNC’s actions have prompted headlines such as,“Are Tom Perez and the DNC preparing for a battle against Bernie Sanders and the left?” and “To rig primary against Bernie, DNC chair Tom Perez nominates regime-change agents, Israel lobbyists, and Wall Street consultants”, which Tom Perez would deny. Yet Bernie had not laid a verbal finger on Perez, or the DNC throughout the campaign. He couldn’t even stand up to slimy betrayal by allies and surrogates.
@NoMoreWars2 corrected his second to last statement, telling him to “fix your typo!” and replace “doomed” with “OWNED”, implying that Sanders’ campaign’s refusal to swing back combined with the defense of Bernie’s own attackers is a result of him being “controlled opposition”.
@Cameron8digi would also reply in the thread:
Yep he’s out there this week talking Russiagate and tweeting against trump when trump tells us the dnc are rigging the election on him.
cameron🌺 (@cameron8digi) January 19, 2020
But yes, He has disappointed us many times now. Sometimes I hope, and then always disappointed.
After Politico published a headline that read “DNC members discuss rules change to stop Sanders at convention” , Tom Perez would tweet the headline, commenting,
He would of course be slammed with a slew of replies, one of which read as is:
You literally just changed your rules today to let a billionaire on the debate stage, you hacks.
Nicole Alexander Fisher (@_nalexander) January 31, 2020
Referring to a petition that Tulsi Gabbard created and posted on her campaign’s website that demanded Tom Perez’s resignation, Alex Rubinstein would tweet,
To showcase what happens when you allow, or even defend, corruption in your own part, and only call it out on the other side— look at the career of Hillary’s campaign manager in 2016, John Podesta, a reprehensible figure notorious for corruption exposed through “the Podesta leaks” published by Wikileaks, as well as some other, even more disturbing, accusations that are still relevant, especially considering the Epstein debacle that followed — and Ghislaine Maxwell’s recent arrest. Podesta’s career should be over. But instead, he is still welcome within the political community. It has been brought to attention that John Podesta will be serving on the 2020 DNC’s Rules Committee for the convention …
If that does not enrage you, then you have not been exposed to the Podesta leaks — which proved beyond a doubt the case for corruption in regards to the DNC establishment co-conspiring with Clinton Inc. to ensure Clinton secured the nomination over Sanders.
Referring to Podesta, who is in Clinton’s inner circle, being selected for a committee at the DNC convention, @Fiorella_Im would tweet,
Jill Stein, provoked by the obscene corruption of the DNC, would pull no punches by tweeting,
Desperate DNC members consider rule change to let superdelegates vote on 1st ballot to stop Sanders. If the DNC rigs another election against its voters, it’ll be asking for biggest #DemExit yet by those who want an actually democratic party. #DNCRigging https://t.co/3JkXoVLYHe
Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) February 1, 2020
But despite the DNC’s undeniable corruption, Sanders refuses to hold them accountable, choosing to tow the establishment’s line instead and blame Russia for 2016 and the consequences of the DNC’s shortcomings.
Bernie would release a statement condemning Russian interference in 2020, urging Big Tech companies to combat this interference — which would provoke comments such as Donna’s below:
Marc Caputo tweeted out that
Bernie Sanders could've trafficked in conspiracy theories in his Caucus Night speech. He could've said how suspicious it was for the vote tallies to not be posted. He could’ve said the spiking of the Iowa Poll was unfair to him.
But he didn’t. And that’s to his credit.
Robert Barnes snapped back, retorting that “It’s how they know they can steal it from him without consequence”….. Bernie could have stirred the pot and “trafficked in conspiracy theories” that concern anomalies in the “democratic process” the DNC is overseer too, but instead he was a good boy and didn’t tug on the leash that the DNC has on him.
Undoubtedly surprising to some, while predicted by many, this tweet has aged as well as fine wine:
I can't help feeling that people didn't learn any lessons from 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, or 2016, and when 2020 does the same thing to them again they're going to be as shocked and horrified as if it was the first time.
Suzie Dawson (@Suzi3D) January 17, 2020
(Berners: are you prepared for him to kiss the ring again?)
But Bernie seemed to be more focused on the DNC beating Trump rather than himself beating the DNC and securing the nomination so that he himself could be in a position to beat Trump.
Sanders conceded to the establishment that gave us Trump, in the name of beating Trump. Albiet, conceding implies he was putting up much of a fight to begin with. To be fair, in the context of having inserted that last tweet, Tulsi Gabbard did sign the same pledge as Sanders, promising to support the eventual DNC nominee. However, a crucial difference to point out is that she was not making statements like this at anytime during her campaign, especially not during the climax of the primary like the statement above. At least Gabbard was acting like she wanted to win. She didn't take attacks and smears without firing back. She not only defended herself, but arguably fought harder to defend Bernie and his base than Bernie did himself.
Bernie’s already-scrutinized tweets did not age well, considering the Iowa caucus debacle, which the DNC chairman, Perez, said “should never have happened” — although the shenanigans were still ongoing at the time he said that. This would lead to Gabbard demanding Perez’s resignation- while Bernie was silent, whose campaign had far more to lose- saying that “It’s both because of what we’ve seen happen in Iowa, but also over the last several months the growing skepticism that I hear from Democratic voters”.
Happening now: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard calls on @DNC Chair Tom Perez to resign.
Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) February 9, 2020
"It's both because of what we've seen happen in Iowa, but also over the last several months the growing skepticism that I hear from Democratic voters," Gabbard says on @WMUR9.
The first contest of primary season that sets the stage for the entire primary process, the Iowa Caucus, which the DNC in their own words had for three years been preparing for, was obviously corrupted — and it would not be a stretch to say rigged.
Hell, the company that created the app that handled the votes, Shadow, had conspicuous ties to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, being created by the wife of a senior political strategist of Buttigieg’s campaign. As reported by AP news, “Resumes posted on the online business networking site LinkedIn show the company’s top executives all worked in the Clinton campaign’s digital operation in 2016.”
This would include-
- The CEO, Niemira, who was Clinton’s director of product
- James Hickey, Shadow’s chief operating officer, was an engineering manager at Hillary for America.
- Krista Davis, the chief technical officer and chief software architect at Shadow, who was a backend engineer for the Clinton campaign.
The #IowaCaucus debacle is an urgent reminder that Americans need to demand elections we can trust. Now.
Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) February 4, 2020
That means:
-#HandMarkedPaperBallots voters can verify
-Secure paper trail
-#RiskLimitingAudits
-Accommodations for accessibility
-#RankedChoiceVoting
-End voter suppression
Green Greenwald would sarcastically tweet about the Iowa caucus:
With the incomplete results released, Sanders has more votes than Buttigieg but Buttigieg has more delegates.
Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 4, 2020
I have a feeling that the people who spent the last 4 years complaining about how unfair & undemocratic such outcomes are won’t be quite as angry about this.
In a clever reference to Shadow, the company who produced the voting software previously mentioned, @Primonutmeg would joke,
I don’t know about you, but the past 24 hours have really rid me of any silly suspicions that the Democratic nomination process is corrupt, or that Pete Buttigieg has ties to “shadowy” figures.
PRIMO NUTMEG (@PRIMONUTMEG) February 5, 2020
A great thread by @mugrimm on twitter would lay the foundations of the shadowy ties. The thread the two tweets below are apart of would continue if one is interested to read it by clicking here
The Iowa caucus debacle would spur another round of Tulsi supporters using the hashtag #Tulsiwasright, as well as Bernie supporters giving her credit where its due.
Tulsi Gabbard was literally ahead of many things .
Grumpy Birdie Sanders 🕊🍀 (@grumpybirdieS) February 4, 2020
- she proposed the no more presidential wars act far before Iran conflict .
-she proposed secure America’s elections act for paper ballots before this fuckery .
And everyone literally shunned her all because politics .
In regards to @KyleKulinski of Secular talk tweeting the following
Bre Miche would tweet,
Immediately after Iowa, Tulsi would double down on the issue of electoral reform,
In NH, Tulsi proposes a set of national reforms in the wake of yesterday’s “debacle” in Iowa: Open primaries, same-day voter registration, get rid of *all* super delegates, and ranked choice voting pic.twitter.com/10KATfxkJd
Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 4, 2020
Now while I personally think we should look to blockchain to make our elections more secure, Gabbard’s proposals have been by far the best out of all the 2020 DND primary candidates.
Meanwhile Bernie was pretending the electoral discrepencies never happened, and would focus on Russia and Trump. Even at the 8th democratic debate, mere days after the Iowa caucus, he would meekly fail to bring to attention the serious allegations that were favorable for him to mention as he was debating his opponents.
Currie Dobson would tweet after the 8th debate:
This debate reminds me that Trump is going to win a second term. How depressing. Why do the democrats have to suck ass so bad? Bernie being nice to Biden and Warren makes me want to gag. Is he going to mention the DNC cheating him in Iowa? Super weak.
Currie Dobson (@Ventuckyspaz) February 8, 2020
Two days after the Iowa caucus, Bernie would tweet in relation to Trumps impeachment case,
> “A president who is allowed to show contempt for Congress and its oversight duties.
A trial without a single witness.
I am disturbed by the precedent this sham process sets for this country.
This is not a good day for our democracy, the Constitution, or the American people.”
This would earn many frustrated remarks from progressives. For example, Shawna Burley would mirror his tweet with some minor adjustments
Progressive soap box would also quote Bernies tweet, saying:
Fuck impeachment. Talk about priorities. They're cheating you and your supporters... again. I was wrong. Bernie Sanders is America's Jeremy Corbyn. He does appear to be too weak to do the job. Thre cheating won't stop. Once out of caucus states, it'll get ignored and you'd lose https://t.co/aPFPhaKXhT
ProgressiveSoapbox (@theProgSoapbox) February 5, 2020
Having thoroughly acknowledged Bernie’s timidity in truly challenging the DNC, and their corruption, it should be stated that the main reason why Tulsi supporters owe no apologizes, why the shaming by Bernie supporters is a smear, apart from the difference in attitude/fight/approach to “challenging the establishment”, is because they do have some radically important differences in platform and policy, and we should feel free to vote for the candidate that best reflects our own views.
So let’s identify and compare some of them.
— -
Due to a limit on length on Steemit, the contrast between Bernie and Gabbard’s policies will have to be a separate part. This part was meant to demonstrate the difference between Tulsi and Bernie in their approaches to “challenging the establishment”, and how the manner in which they ran their campaign, rather than the substance of the differences between them on important issues. Even though the primary is over, identifying and acknowledging the differences between their actions, legislative careers, and platforms is crucial for the future, and future elections.
Bernie Sanders should be a blue print for what not to look for in a candidate, and a reminder to keep a critical eye even on our favorite political candidates to look for neglection or of issues, or blind spots or stains on their platform - and this includes everyone no exceptions, even Gabbard supporters. No one is perfect, and the idea is to elect the person who best reflects our views...but when you settle on a candidate.....that doesn't mean to put on rose colored glasses and ignore any and all criticism of them.If anything, we should know more than others about our own candidate, and we should strive to know their flaws and weaknesses in order to push them into better positions, rather than pretending that they are perfect and those flaws don't exist.
The real problem is when candidates themselves are resistant to legitimate criticism, and their supporters defend their flaws, positions, and actions that deserve a degree of criticism. When populists like Sanders consistently appease the corporate democrats and even assist them in their efforts and agenda, foreign policy and domestic, and vote with them 98% of the time, even helping campaign for some of the worst of them, followers should suspend their preconceived notions and question whether Sanders was truly working against the establishment or not. What if he was working with them, as Chris Hedges and Paul Street suggested?
"As Hedges explained in a recent interview on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Sanders’ candidacy lends undeserved credibility to the thoroughly corporatized Democratic Party. Sanders has pledged that he will support the corporatist military hawk Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general presidential election. Sanders stirs up legitimate progressive energy and popular anger and then 'funnels it back into a dead political system,” Hedges observes. Sanders fails to confront the American Empire and military state, and, Hedges adds, has unforgivably “abandoned the Palestinians and given carte blanche to Israel.' "
Regarding the quote of Hedges directly above, it is worth noting that Gabbard's views on Isreal/Palestine is probably one of her weakest points, and while its worth pushing her on that issue going into the future, the point being made is that Sanders foreign policy is full of blunders and support for interventionism. This will be discussed shortly ahead.
I love bernie, but most of his supporters pay little attention to his foreign policy. Only touting the few times he gets it right (Iraq/Iran) but ignoring the many times he gets it wrong.
Cory Scott 🌺 (@coryascott) February 16, 2020
As president, he has way more power over foreign policy than domestic
The problem is when these same "populists" on leashes cant bring themselves to stand up for themselves, their supporters, or their movement, and go on to partake in smear campaigns against their own campaigns - such as Russiagate. The problem with "populists" that consistently bow to the ruling establishment and fail to challenge them headon is that they, wittingly or unwittingly, effectively act as "controlled opposition": they stagnate, dampen, and ultimately hurt the populist political movements that they are supposed to represent and champion.
Now lets get on to the issues...in the next part. You can find the next part by going to my profile, following me, and look for the next article posted after this one.