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Bernie Sanders says opposing Joe Biden is ‘irresponsible’
https://apnews.com/a1bfb62e37fe34e09ff123a58a1329fa
Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that it would be “irresponsible” for his loyalists not to support Joe Biden, warning that progressives who “sit on their hands” in the months ahead would simply enable President Trump’s reelection.
And lest there be any question, the 78-year-old Vermont senator confirmed that “it’s probably a very fair assumption” that he would not run for president again. He added, with a laugh: “One can’t predict the future.”
Sanders, who suspended his presidential bid last week, spoke at length during an interview with the Associated Press about his decision to endorse Biden, his political future and the urgent need to unify the Democratic Party. He railed against the Republican president but also offered pointed criticism at his own supporters who have so far resisted his vow to do whatever it takes to help Biden win the presidency.
He seemed to distance himself from his campaign’s former national press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, when asked about her recent statement on social media refusing to endorse Biden.
“She is my former press secretary — not on the payroll,” Sanders noted. A spokesman later clarified that all campaign staffers were no longer on the payroll as of Tuesday, though they will get a severance check in May.
Sanders said his supporters have a simple choice now that Biden has emerged as the presumptive nominee: “Do we be as active as we can in electing Joe Biden and doing everything we can to move Joe and his campaign in a more progressive direction? Or do we choose to sit it out and allow the most dangerous president in modern American history to get reelected?”
He continued: “I believe that it’s irresponsible for anybody to say, ‘Well, I disagree with Joe Biden — I disagree with Joe Biden! — and therefore I’m not going to be involved.’”
Sanders said he would not actively campaign or spend money on advertising in the primary contests that are still on the calendar in the coming months. But he still encouraged Democrats in those states to vote for him, hoping to amass as many delegates as possible for leverage to shape the party platform and the direction of Biden’s campaign.
He also vowed to continue fighting for progressive priorities such as his signature “Medicare for all” as a senator, even though Biden has refused to embrace the government-backed single-payer healthcare system.
“If people want to vote for me, we’d appreciate it,” Sanders said of the roughly 20 primary contests that remain where his name will appear on the ballot. He later added, “I think you’re going to see significant movement on the part of the Biden campaign into a more progressive direction on a whole lot of issues.”
Sanders did not outline any specific plans to begin helping Biden in earnest, though he noted that he held dozens of rallies for former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago and would be at least as active for Biden. In the short term, he said, he’s essentially “incarcerated” in his home because of coronavirus social distancing guidelines and did not know when he would return to the campaign trail.
Sanders brushed away questions about why he was willing to back Biden so much sooner than he did Clinton, whom he did not endorse until June 2016. He said recent conversations with former President Obama did not influence his decision. It came down to simple math, he said.
In 2016, Sanders said, he had a mathematical path to the nomination all the way until the California primary, which was held on the last day of voting in June. That simply wasn’t the case this year.
“What would be the sense of staying in, of spending a whole lot of money, of attacking the vice president, giving fodder for Trump — what’s the sense of doing that when you can’t win?” he asked.
“I will do everything I can to help elect Joe,” Sanders continued. “We had a contentious campaign. We disagree on issues. But my job now is to not only rally my supporters, but to do everything I can to bring the party together to see that [Trump] is not elected president.”
But most progressives apparently do feel that anyone outside their small club are “evil”. And I genuinely believe that is what turned off many a moderate Dem. voter who thought Biden was too old and would have preferred Sanders. But the “you play by my rules or I take my ball and go home ” crowd didn’t help Sanders in the end. And that’s too bad in my opinion.
Do you envision that kind of statement as an effort to bring progressive voters into the fold and reason them into voting for Biden?
Cause…that approach is not going to work.
You’re bashing.
I don’t care if its bashing or not. To the intelligent progressive he or she shouldn’t care either. If one truly cares about the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised the very worst they can do in November is to allow 4 more years of the idiot baby in the WH who wants nothing more than to be a dictator something he’s been his entire adult life.
BTW: I ain’t “bashing”. Just saying what Sanders has said about “irresponsibility”. If that’s bashing so be it.
As a rule, you don’t persuade people through bashing them. Right?
Regardless how you excuse it.
….
But most progressives apparently do feel that anyone outside their small club are “evil”. And I genuinely believe that is what turned off many a moderate Dem. voter who thought Biden was too old and would have preferred Sanders. But the “you play by my rules or I take my ball and go home ” crowd didn’t help Sanders in the end. And that’s too bad in my opinion.
Do you envision that kind of statement as an effort to bring progressive voters into the fold and reason them into voting for Biden?
Cause…that approach is not going to work.
You’re bashing.
As a rule, you don’t persuade people through bashing them. Right?
Regardless how you excuse it.
….
Thx for the lecture. I’m not here to convince anyone. This small board of progressives won’t matter. I’m simply venting and addressing precisely what Sanders was when he said it would be “irresponsible” for his supporters to not support Biden. If that’s bashing-so be it.
I do believe that any intelligent and fair mined progressive would agree, is that the very worst thing for the disenfranchised, for the poor, the sick, for minorities, for the environment, for the rights of women, for the income inequality, for civil rights across the board, would be another 4 years of the dictator in the WH. Armed with that belief, to sit out an election of this magnitude would indeed be “irresponsible”.
I also don’t agree that any adult with a fair mind, progressive or not, would sit out an election of this importance because they felt “bashed” on a message board.
Elizabeth Warren’s take on the subject:
Opinion: Elizabeth Warren just told progressives what they need to hear about Joe Biden
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), shown in March, endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president Wednesday. (Amanda Sabga / AFP/Getty Images)
By JON HEALEYDEPUTY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
APRIL 15, 20207:30 AM
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden came with none of the fanfare that accompanied Sen. Bernie Sanders’ move Monday to do the same. Nor were there any pledges by the two candidates to craft policy together, as Biden will do with Sanders.When your campaign stumbles as badly as Warren’s did — she even finished third in her home state primary behind Biden and Sanders — you don’t have much negotiating leverage.
Yet the video Warren tweeted on Wednesday may prove more helpful to Biden than the 12-minute endorsement video that President Obama delivered Tuesday. Not just because it’s shorter, but because it’s emotional and affecting, and it puts the focus where it needs to be.
Elizabeth Warren
✔
@ewarren
In this moment of crisis, it’s more important than ever that the next president restores Americans’ faith in good, effective government—and I’ve seen Joe Biden help our nation rebuild. Today, I’m proud to endorse @JoeBiden as President of the United States.Embedded video
79.9K
6:00 AM – Apr 15, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
29.5K people are talking about thisSanders and Warren attracted the support of progressives in part because they advocated dramatic change in the country’s policies, priorities and direction. But Warren’s campaign, much more than Sanders’, was also about governing. She had detailed plans for everything she proposed because she was just as concerned about the implementation as about the ideas.
One of the central messages of her Biden endorsement is that this election is about governing. Unlike President Trump, who was uniquely unprepared among American presidents for the crisis he now confronts, Biden has a lifetime of experience in public service and specific experience helping to steer the United States out of a deep recession: the 2008-09 meltdown triggered by the subprime mortgage collapse.
“I saw him up close, doing the work, getting in the weeds,” says Warren, who helped the Obama administration design and set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during that period, and can you imagine anyone describing the current, white-paper-averse occupant of the White House as “getting in the weeds”? Or depicting Trump, as Warren said of Biden, as someone “never forgetting who we were all there to serve”?
The other central message, conveyed more subtly, is that the specifics of policy — the details that animate Warren — don’t matter in the general election.
She offered some assurance to her supporters that Biden, who’s considerably more moderate in his politics than Warren, isn’t rigid or ideological, saying, “he’s shown throughout this campaign that when you come up with new facts or a good argument, he’s not too afraid or too proud to be persuaded.” She didn’t mention it, but a case in point is how he has come around to Warren’s view that federal bankruptcy law is too hostile to ordinary debtors and needs to be changed.
But really, the election in November won’t be a referendum on Trumpism vs. whatever platform Biden puts forward, despite the manifest and crucial policy differences between the two. It will be about character. Americans are seeing the president’s character on display every day in his coronavirus briefings, and it’s not a pretty sight.
That’s why Warren emphasized Biden’s long track record of service and his old-school ability to relate to people in hardship, born out of the tragedies in Biden’s own family. This is the point that needs to be heard by the #BernieOrBust crowd and the progressives who claim to see no difference between Trump and Biden. The former vice president has his flaws, as my friend Melissa Batchelor Warnke catalogued despairingly recently. But they pale in comparison to those of our current chief executive, who asserts “total authority” over monumental decisions while denying any responsibility.
The president crystallized the character gap on Tuesday with one unprecedented and breathtakingly self-serving act. No one can argue that there’s no difference between a politician famous for his empathy and one who holds up relief checks the Treasury is sending to struggling Americans so his name can be printed on them.
OPINIONENTER THE FRAY
But most progressives apparently do feel that anyone outside their small club are “evil”. And I genuinely believe that is what turned off many a moderate Dem. voter who thought Biden was too old and would have preferred Sanders. But the “you play by my rules or I take my ball and go home ” crowd didn’t help Sanders in the end. And that’s too bad in my opinion.
Do you envision that kind of statement as an effort to bring progressive voters into the fold and reason them into voting for Biden?
Cause…that approach is not going to work.
You’re bashing.
As a rule, you don’t persuade people through bashing them. Right?
Regardless how you excuse it.
….
Thx for the lecture. I’m not here to convince anyone. This small board of progressives won’t matter. I’m simply venting and addressing precisely what Sanders was when he said it would be “irresponsible” for his supporters to not support Biden. If that’s bashing-so be it.
I do believe that any intelligent and fair mined progressive would agree, is that the very worst thing for the disenfranchised, for the poor, the sick, for minorities, for the environment, for the rights of women, for the income inequality, for civil rights across the board, would be another 4 years of the dictator in the WH. Armed with that belief, to sit out an election of this magnitude would indeed be “irresponsible”.
I also don’t agree that any adult with a fair mind, progressive or not, would sit out an election of this importance because they felt “bashed” on a message board.
No I don’t agree with all those things and in fact I think you’re being way too optimistic about what Biden is. Biden is the status quo, but a few notches worse. He is no aid or help to the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, minorities, or the rights of women, and especially not income inequality, or civil rights across the board. He is against things that would make substantial progress in all those areas and he is not for anything that would genuinely represent progress in any of those areas. IMO.
Either way, the phrase “the lesser of 2 evils” is a time-honored, old idiomatic saying (in fact it goes back to the 14th century) which does not literally indict anyone as “evil,” any more than the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” literally refers to actual rocks or literally hard places. “The lesser” phrase just means the choice between 2 undesirable alternatives, which of course always means undesirable in the eyes of the one using the phrase.
Added by edit: I guess that’s just me speaking for myself. My colleagues are perfectly fine with the literal use of “evil.
Either way there’s no unity on this among progressives. WV and I disagreed before on whether to vote for Green or for Clinton. I don’t know about this time but either way, I am not sure it pays to generalize about progressives.
So we’re stuck with a choice between a serial sexual predator, and one who possibly did this once — which is obviously once too often. But it’s not just the person in the White House, when all is said and done. We get their ideology too, their agenda, their personnel choices, their party, its ideology, its agenda, etc.
To me, it’s an easy choice, if forced to choose between the two (rotten choices) and just those two: the Dems. IMO, if it’s a binary thing only, no leftist should need more than two seconds to decide.
Well, I don’t think Biden is a serial predator, but I have no reason to doubt this woman’s claim, and I think you might be letting him off a little easy. Biden has long been alleged to be “handsy” and to touch women inappropriately.
I myself will most likely vote for Biden, because, as you say, if I have to choose between two rapists, I’ll choose the slightly less objectionable rapist. But I’m not sure it’s fair to say any leftist should be able to make this choice easily. The woman who Biden is accused of assaulting did some work for Bernie’s campaign, so I’m assuming she’s at least something of a leftist. Should she feel compelled to vote for her rapist over Trump? Should any woman, regardless of political affiliation, feel compelled to vote for a rapist?
I no longer buy into the “a vote for ‘x’ is a vote for ‘y’” precept. People need to be able to vote their conscience, and not feel pressured to vote for someone they object to, and if someone’s conscience won’t let them vote for a rapist, even if that rapist shares the same political views, then I’m ok with that.
Joe Biden a rapist ? Right. I’m sure Sanders has so little class he would support a rapist. Elizabeth Warren ? Oh, she doesn’t care either -she too would support a rapist. And all the rest of those candidates who support Biden. Obama, Harris, Yang, Buttigieg, Klobuchar. Clearly, they all have no morals since they are supporting a rapist. Then again maybe they too are all sexual predators so it doesn’t bother them in the least. Then again maybe they don’t even know about this “allegation”, huh ?
I believe it is this precise reason why so many undecided people turned away from Sanders-not so much because of Bernie’s policies but because of the vitriol spread by his supporters-which sadly taints a good man. A true progressive to me has always been a champion of the rights of an individual. Calling a person a rapist based on a “claim” only without knowing the claimant and or anything about that person other than they work for someone who you share political common ground with is more than simply distasteful. And I strongly suspect that if the tables were reversed with Sanders being the accused there would be no such fervor.
Most moderate democrats I know harbor no ill will toward Sanders, Stein, Warren, or for that matter any other progressives. Based on the language from progressives -I do know a few-plus media accounts, I can’t say the same in terms of how they relate to “other” democrats. The rapist claim is simply one example. It smacks of Willie Horton all over again. Maybe the far left and far right do share something.
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