r/Enough_Sanders_Spam • u/CinnamonMoney • 6d ago
Article AOC, Sanders erase Biden as progressive movement moves on
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/24/2025/aoc-sanders-erase-biden-as-progressive-movement-moves-onDENVER, Colo. — Now we know what they really thought.
On Friday afternoon, at the biggest rally of his political career, Sen. Bernie Sanders encouraged some 32,000 people here to organize against “oligarchy,” dismantle the private campaign finance system, and maybe run for office themselves.
He never ran as a Democrat — and they wouldn’t need to, either. The party hadn’t earned it.
“For the last 30 or 40 years, Democrats have turned their backs on the working class of this country,” said Sanders.
The Vermont independent shared the stage with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called for “a Democratic Party that fights harder for us.” They were introduced by Jimmy Williams, the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, who denounced Democrats for not raising the minimum wage or expanding Social Security when they held the House, Senate, and White House.
“For the Democratic Party to ever win back the majority, they have to represent the working class and not the corporate class,” said Williams.
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u/QultyThrowaway Biden Crime Family North 🇨🇦 6d ago
They're stupid because it makes them look even weaker if they pretend Biden never supported any progressive ideas. Bernie has been big for over a decade now and has made no progress whatsoever. How is that a flex? Maybe his 87 year old ass can try another primary and probably end up massively losing support since the last one (again). If they were smart they'd mention Biden's progress and maybe try to hitch their wagon with Tim Walz. But of course they won't because then they couldn't pretend to be the sole saviours anymore.
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u/CanadianPanda76 6d ago edited 6d ago
Bernie is stubborn, he has a very narrow view of the world and how things should be.
Of course Biden is a failure because you get no progress, when you vote "moderate". Acknowledging his accomplishments means he has to admit he's wrong or change his strategy.
Its like his "emotion support narrative" the man would lose his mind if he had to adapt it.
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u/FormerBernieBro2020 6d ago
Has any other POTUS been betrayed by their allies more than Joe Biden?
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u/johndelvec3 Tan Suit Enjoyer 6d ago
The Democrats did not abandon the working class. President Biden is the only president to ever stand on a picket line. He bailed out the pensions for teamsters. You know what that got us? Their dipshit union president soft endorsing Trump and Teamsters voting Republican. Now the UAW is celebrating Trump's tariffs.
Dems didn't abandon the working class, the working class just want to be able to hate other people openly and abandoned the Dems
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u/rjrgjj 6d ago
We should write an op-ed suggesting AOC move to Vermont to inherit Bernie’s seat, make it go viral, and then relentlessly promote the idea everywhere to force Bernie to address it while consistently pointing out his age, just to see what happens.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
😹😹 we need people to ask him if this is last stint as a senator. Guaranteed he won’t say yes & he intends to be the second hundred year old senator in American history
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u/CoachBensTendon 👊🇺🇸🔥 6d ago
Who was the first? Thurmond?
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
Yeup. I should mention he might be third if Chuck Grassley wins Iowa again in 2028 & finishes his term out.
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u/FCKABRNLSUTN2 6d ago
I’m starting to think US senator is literally the best job in the world. Perhaps even better than ex president.
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u/Traditional-Koala279 6d ago
The working class is such a meaningless term
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u/jml510 Our preznit is a nit-wit. 6d ago
And most of the time when leftists and MAGAs use it, it only includes White people (though they won't explicitly admit it). They don't want to acknowledge how Black working class voters, for example, still overwhelmingly stick with Dems instead of going over to them.
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u/United_Efficiency330 6d ago
Most "progressives" are electorally and emotionally stuck in the 1930s and 1940s. They see the suburbs as Republican fortresses and operate on the notion that if Democrats dropped social issues and became exclusively a left populist party, they'd win back the rural populists of yore who stopped voting Democratic decades ago for social reasons. Which is fine except most of rural America isn't left wing economically anymore.
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u/proboscalypse 6d ago
Because civil rights means left wing economics wouldn't exclusively benefit them anymore.
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u/ElkFrequent3070 6d ago
Newsflash: The “working class” (and we all know who Bernie refers to when he uses that moniker) either sat their lazy, privileged, delusional asses at home or they voted for Trump. Let’s not kid ourselves.
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u/SaveMeFromTheIdiots 6d ago
Fuck all of ‘em. Can’t wait til Bernie croaks.
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u/jml510 Our preznit is a nit-wit. 6d ago edited 6d ago
I don't normally look forward to people's demises, but some people test me. There are certain ones like him, Agent-47, Putin, and Musk who would make the world a better and more normal place once they leave.
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u/Studds_ 6d ago
One’s got the diet & exercise habits of that gamer guy on South Park’s WoW episode, the other’s got a ketamine addiction. I don’t know how either are still alive
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u/SaveMeFromTheIdiots 5d ago
Prescription medication. We never saw the orange horror clown’s medical records.
I’m convinced Lone Skum uses fentanyl test strips on his stash, or has “tasters.”
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u/Devils_Advocate-69 6d ago
They’re already preparing the next election spoiler. Do they actually think there will ever be a socialist administration?
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u/DontBeAUsefulIdiot 6d ago
We're in a post fact/post truth world and AOC/Sanders have found their audience where telling people what they want to hear is more important than getting a grip on reality.
Your average American is soundly an idiot and unfortunately, everyone in the country and the world is going to pay dearly for the stupidity and depravity of the median American voter.
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u/godlike_hikikomori 6d ago
I wish Paul Wellstone is still alive to teach his sorry ass on the proper way that Progressive grassroots politics should actually be done. Had he not died in that plane crash, it's likely Bernie would not see the traction he has been experiencing ever since the mid 2010s.
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u/United_Efficiency330 6d ago
That plus the Cold War ending. We now have two generations of voters who didn't grow up in the Cold War. As a result, they're more likely to associate the word "socialist" with Western Europe than with the USSR. Never mind that it's a politically deadly word with Gen X and older.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
The blunt talk barely made ripples in Washington, where Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are often covered as problems for their party. But as they reboot their movement, progressives who traded loyalty to Joe Biden for big policy victories — from the Green New Deal to clemency for Leonard Peltier — are breaking ranks with the Democratic Party and its feeble brand. Sanders is stepping up efforts to recruit Democratic and independent candidates, and Ocasio-Cortez is taking a larger role in responding to the Trump administration.
And unencumbered from their 2024 task — to make a progressive case for Biden, and then, for Kamala Harris — they are no longer selling his presidency as a success.
When he secured the 2020 Democratic nomination, Biden made a deal with Sanders and other progressives, giving them a role in drafting the party platform and incorporating their ideas into his campaign and administration. To progressives’ surprise, he often responded to their direct actions; climate activists protested with Ocasio-Cortez for a New Deal-style “climate conservation corps,” and he created one by executive order.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
The erasure started before Biden left office, with Sanders crediting Trump’s victory to “Democratic leadership” that defended the “status quo” and lost working class votes. Sanders and other progressives had taken another tone during the campaign, defending Biden and his record. (So had Williams: IAPUT endorsed Biden, then Harris, in the 2024 election, and he praised “Union Joe” as the best president for labor in generations.)
“We came out of that economic downturn a lot faster than anyone dream we would have, and you can thank President Biden for that,” Sanders told a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on June 28 — the day after the disastrous CNN debate with Trump that unraveled Biden’s campaign and damaged Democrats’ argument that voters could overlook his age. “Biden’s policies, by and large, are for the working class of this country, and we’ve got to appreciate that.”
In conversations on Monday, progressive strategists said that there was no upside to mentioning Biden at all, even when defending programs he funded or created. In Denver, Ocasio-Cortez spoke more positively of the Democrats than Sanders did, praising the state’s senators and Democratic members of Congress by name for opposing the GOP’s spending packages.
“I want you to look at every level of office around you, and support Democrats who actually fight, because those are the ones that can win against Republicans,” she said.
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u/magicallynot 6d ago
Is this all to set up another Bernie run in 2028...if he lives that long?
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
Really have no idea. Feel like he loves the attention like Trump.
I fully expect him to run for senator’s office again in 2030. The cynical part of me is thinking that besides being concerned about the “oligarchy,” he is strategizing to be a kingmaker during the 2027/8 primaries
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u/KatieCashew 6d ago
Hard to imagine him as a kingmaker since he refuses to promote anyone but himself. He got mad about being asked if AOC should run for the senate and refused to endorse her for it, and he's touring with her. I can't think of anyone he'd try to push for president.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
After the ‘26 midterms, the primaries will dominate the media ecosystem fairly quickly. Chuck Schumer isn’t up for reelection until 2028, and AOC hasn’t announced a run yet so I can see why he wouldn’t bother making things awkward for himself so early on.
I don’t think he would ever pass the torch ceremonially because that’s not his nature. I agree with you on his narcissism. I think being a kingmaker is aligned with that.
Once the hats are thrown in the ring, people will start to find ways to differentiate themselves from each other in the primary. It’s inevitable that candidates will, or already have, seek his endorsement in a trade for some elements of policies that Bernie can spearhead from the Senate.
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u/LiquidSnape Walks slow and cheap eggs 6d ago
do these progressives know that to get those “working class” voters back will require stronger stances on stuff like immigration and tariffs?
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
Faiz Shakir, a close adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who ran his 2020 presidential campaign, told Axios: "I disagree with the Democrats who live in the framework that we just need cheap goods from China and Mexico, and their message is: 'Washing machines and avocados are going to get more expensive.'"
Shakir said he believed Trump was implementing tariffs poorly, but added: "There's a desire for tariffs for a reason. Voters hear that Trump is making these corporations pay a price for shipping jobs overseas."
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
Asked if there was anything Trump had done right, Sanders replied: “Yeah. I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger.”
He went on: “Nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate, and I happen to think we need comprehensive immigration reform, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for people to be coming across the border illegally, so we’ve got to work now on comprehensive immigration reform.”
Challenged by Karl to explain why illegal immigration had “exploded under Biden” but “nothing was really done until his last year in office”, Sanders replied: “Yes. Should have done better. No argument.”
Sanders implicitly criticised Trump’s attempt to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants – a process that has already begun with flights of deported immigrants to Panama, El Salvador and Colombia. He warned that a mass exodus of undocumented workers could devastate the US economy.
“The idea that Trump has … he says he wants to deport 20 million people who are in this country who are undocumented,” Sanders said. “Well, you do that, you destroy the country, because I got news for you – Trump’s billionaire friends are not going to pick the crops in California that feed us. They’re not going to work in meat packing houses. That’s what undocumented people are doing.”
He said the situation called for “a variety of programs”, including “guest worker” schemes. But he said it should be ultimately tackled through “comprehensive immigration reform” (not like we had any of those so called reforms killed by Trump & not yet reintroduced under his leadership!)
Sanders’s guarded endorsement of Trump’s stance represents a significant hardening of his past position. His 2020 presidential campaign platform called for the breaking up of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as well as US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies as well as pausing deportations pending an audit.
his policies are contradictory, nonsensical and his memory is faulty & inaccurate /
From January
As Sanders sees it, the "main function" of guest worker programs like H-1B is "to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad."
"The cheaper the labor they hire," charges Sanders, "the more money the billionaires make."
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u/VerminVundabar 6d ago
I clicked the link and saw the byline said Dave Weigel and was like:
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
I posted his reporting and cut out his opinion.
Not a fan of Semafor/ben smith but I will admit Ben Smith stood up for Obama when the NYT tried to slander him. Don’t know much about Dave Wiegel
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u/thetruechevyy1996 6d ago
Didn’t Biden help the working class? I know he wasn’t the most popular but I thought he did pretty good. He never seemed to get credit for any good but blamed for Russia and Ukraine and inflation even though he did more to stop inflation.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
If you asked Bernie eight months ago, he’d have answered yes.
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u/thetruechevyy1996 6d ago
So why the change is what I don’t get. All the progress Biden made gone? Just go back to everyone is bad and ignore Trump trying to dismantle the government and pissing on our closest allies woth his stupid tariff war
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u/CanadianPanda76 6d ago
All of that requires voting lol.
Dismantling the private finance system requires the backing of Supreme Court. Again which requires voting.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
I rewatched parts of the Hilary Clinton - Bernie debates now that I am not a teenager. And she brings this up immediately:
She’s like, “Bernie wants to dismantle the banks, and when asked about it — he can’t tell you how he would do that. His campaign is a repudiation of the Dodd-Frank Act and truly Obama’s whole tenure.”
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u/United_Efficiency330 6d ago
Too many "progressives" learned the wrong lesson from 2008, unfortunately.
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u/CinnamonMoney 6d ago
They still don’t think Obama is special
He nominated a republican senator for defense secretary and the majority of said senator’s former colleagues didn’t vote for him lol.
I swear Obama made it look too easy with how unflappable he was to all the bullshxt he dealt with
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u/2manyfelines 6d ago
Fools
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u/proboscalypse 6d ago
Snakes, more like.
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u/2manyfelines 6d ago
I’m not sure they either of them know how damaging they are. I think they are blinded by their own narcissistic self aggrandizement.
Remember how Pelosi tried to give AOC the starting blocks to a committee assignment, but she instead went on TV to talk about how she had been “given” no meaningful work? To me, she sounded like a teenager who only wanted to do what would get her on television.
Just like Bernie! Me, me, me!
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u/proboscalypse 6d ago
Either they don't know or know but are too narcissistic to care.
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u/2manyfelines 6d ago
All politicians are narcissists. The problem with these two is that they are exactly like Trump. They only care about what gets them noticed.
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u/proboscalypse 6d ago
All politicians are narcissists.
That's something some above-it-all toolbox would give as an excuse for their refusal to vote.
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u/2manyfelines 6d ago
For fuck’s sake, you don’t know me,
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u/proboscalypse 6d ago
I'm saying it sounds like something one of those fucks would say, not that you are one.
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u/johndelvec3 Tan Suit Enjoyer 6d ago
The Democrats did not abandon the working class. President Biden is the only president to ever stand on a picket line. He bailed out the pensions for teamsters. You know what that got us? Their dipshit union president soft endorsing Trump and Teamsters voting Republican. Now the UAW is celebrating Trump's tariffs on the auto industry.
Dems didn't abandon the working class, the working class just want to be able to hate other people openly and abandoned the Dems