• OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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    5 hours ago

    What??? We literally saw democracy play out. You can’t even use the excuse that he lost the popular vote, he won every type of democratic way we have.

    You know what wasn’t democracy? Installing candidates into primaries over democratically popular candidates. Hillary in 2016, Biden in 2020 and Kamala in 2024. In every single one of these primaries, they did everything they could to shut down anyone popular who showed any sign of having a backbone, even though they killed democracy as it happened.

    What we saw was a backlash to a stifling of democracy. Democracy won last night.

    • pingveno@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      If you’re referencing Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, he wasn’t “democratically popular” in either race. That simply is not supported by polling or election results. He was well behind Clinton by all metrics. Then in 2020, he was briefly “winning” because several similar candidates were splitting the center-left lane. The moment the center-left lane narrowed, Sanders’ lead evaporated.

      It’s SOP for candidates to more or less clear the field for an incumbent president. This is partially because of a perceived effect from a strong primary challenger weakening an incumbent. So Democrats were just doing what both parties have been doing for the last half century.

      The change from Biden was in response to clear reactions from the US electorate. The electorate saw Biden’s debate performance and was not impressed. There wasn’t time to run a process, so Kamala was the obvious choice given a non-ideal situation. But the electorate got what it wanted in terms of an option that wasn’t elderly.

      • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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        27 minutes ago

        I am not sure you remember but the media reaction to Bernie doing well initially was major outlets like CNN reacting with fear, loathing, and uncertainty. And it impacted rhe course of an election. You had anchors yelling about how Sanders will result in public executions in central park during the primary.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        2 hours ago

        Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other. In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.

        And sure but with some of the worst polling numbers Biden, did not need to or should have thought he had incumbent advantage. Mud had a better approval rating.

        And the change was from that and a protest vote of 100,000 voters voting against Biden in a primary that had no other option that’s was being ignored until the rich donors realized the polling wasnt gonna get better after the debate proved he was not fit for office.

        There was time but the argument was made that it would be difficult and all the donations already made could be immediately given to Harris as she was already on the ticket, thus letting the money flow (which the DNC outspent Trump 2:1)

        They got what they wanted which was a younger centrist willing to do Biden-esque policy without question that they thought would be easy with identity politics and being “not Trump” which is viewed as the main issue and not what issues he represents as a fix for.
        Mostly being a willingness to change from status quo.

        Which is exactly what hasn’t been allowed in races as shown before.

        • pingveno@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other.

          I’m not sure how to parse what you’re saying. As far as DNC rules are concerned, they “call” it once all primary races are held.

          In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.

          The Democratic primary uses proportional representation, so candidates don’t win states, they win delegates. Hillary Clinton got 55% of the popular vote, Bernie Sanders got 43%. There are no two ways to slice it, Bernie lost that election by the rules of a democratic election by a sizeable margin. Meanwhile, Hillary was dealing with getting hacked and Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi. And you’re forgetting the often adoring coverage that was played to audiences on the left about Sanders.

          The selling point for Kamala wasn’t anything in particular about her. She’s the VP and was the only obvious choice. There was no appetite for a contested convention, which was the alternative. It was always going to be an uphill battle, so in a sense she’s also a sacrificial lamb.

      • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        He wasn’t “democratically popular” because the Dems suppressed all support he had. All those news medias that have been hounding on trump being the worst thing since Hitler? Yeah, they used that same power to stifle anyone who had an iota of a chance to get votes