BERNIE SANDERS VERSUS JOE BIDEN AS A CURE FOR THE DONALD TRUMP VIRUS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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BERNIE SANDERS VERSUS JOE BIDEN AS A CURE FOR THE DONALD TRUMP VIRUS

Now that Bernie Sanders is losing in the primaries he’s showing his true colors. We're beginning to see, just like with most politicians, that it's all about him, not the country. Let's be real. While we all want to believe that our latest object of political affection is different, it's not patriotism or the need to do us a favor that motivates most politicians, it's ambition and self-interest, and Bernie is revealing himself to be no different. So as a person who has admired Bernie for decades and supported him in 2016, I'm greatly disappointed with his behavior. And being a person who tends not to become fanatical over any politician, I have no problem in doing a complete reassessment of who he actually is based on the new evidence, and what I see, I'm not the least bit happy with.
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I don't think Joe Biden would be throwing a tantrum like Bernie is if he were losing the primaries. If Biden lost, he'd simply walk away and then return to support the team, because that's his nature, and his ego is not involved. That alone speaks volumes about the relative character of the two candidates, and it perfectly explains something that I've wondered about quite a bit in the past - why does Bernie draw so many fanatics? Now I know - because Bernie is fanatical himself. 

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It was some of his more fanatical supporters that caused me to recognize that fact about Bernie. Why does he draw such people, so many "Bernie bros"? Many of them are the flipside of a large portion of Trump supporters, mindless zombies. So in spite of my previous support and continuing admiration of many of Bernie’s political ideals, I’ve always felt uneasy over being aligned with such fanatics, because I consider all manner of fanaticism based on mindless emotion rather than objective thought, and such people render themselves susceptible to being herded like cattle. That's why even though I'm very spiritual and a firm believer in God, I'm totally against ALL religions, because God gave us a mind, but it was man who gave us religion, in order make us easier to manipulate. 

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Bernie tends to believe that only his vision of reality counts, and whether or not he can be successful in promoting that vision is secondary. From Bernie’s perspective, it’s only fighting the good fight that counts, and the good fight is an end in itself. That's fanaticism. That's why he's been so isolated over the years in congress, and so ineffective. He’s a “pie in the sky” kind of guy. But life doesn’t work that way - it’s fighting the WINNING fight that counts. Life is not about all or nothing; life is about achieving your goals incrementally and gradually moving towards your ultimate objective. If Bernie hasn’t learned that simple lesson in life at his age, he’s not equipped to be president. That's the way Trump thinks. So while, unlike Trump, Bernie's heart may be in the right place, his mind is lagging far behind.
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As Sen. Elizabeth Warren pointed out, “This crisis demands more than a senator who has good ideas”, but Bernie’s “30-year track record shows he consistently calls for things he fails to get done and consistently opposes things he nevertheless fails to stop.” According to Congress.gov, in Bernie’s 30 years in congress he has been the lead sponsor in 422 bills, and only three of them have become law – and of them, two was to name post offices. So what is there to be so fanatical about? 

A primary example of the problem I have with some of Bernie's supporters is highlighted by those who say, “Bernie or Bust”. That alone is the height of hypocrisy and betrays the built-in bullshit of their philosophy. While they claim that they’re dedicated to moving society forward out of one side of their mouth, they’re also saying that if we don’t allow them to force their will down our throats, they're prepared to sit back and allow an aspiring dictator to win the election as punishment out of the other. That clearly demonstrates that their top priority is not the betterment of society, but to be dictators themselves – and Bernie obviously feels the same way, since he’s determined to stay in the race and continue to divide the Democratic effort in spite of the fact that he has next to no chance of winning the nomination. He's a professional foot-stomper and spoiler. That's why he has no fans in congress. 
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That should cause any thinking person to ask themselves whether Bernie is sincere in his pursuit of change, or is it just an attention-getting ploy to set himself apart?  It’s very important to look beyond what people say, and watch what they do, and it's equally important to maintain an objective state of mind and not allow yourself to become fanatical over any politician, regardless of who it is. It's a tendency to think like Bernie by many Black people that's served to hold the Black community down. We can only move forward through careful and efficient thinking, not through blind anger and raw emotion. That kind of behavior only serves to turn off potential allies. That's how Bernie lost me.
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So I have  a simple response to Sanders supporters who claim that Joe Biden is a loser - if Biden is a loser, no Democrat can win. While until now, I've always admired Bernie (although, again, I’m currently rethinking that), I’m a realist, and his socialist tag means that I would have to place my bet on the fact that undereducated Americans - who have been brainwashed all of their lives by the corporate establishment to believe that socialism and communism are one - will have the intelligence to overcome that brainwashing, and I'm not willing to make that bet.
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Anyone who has spent any time at all online have undoubtedly come across

people who consider the most scornful thing they can call you is not a murderer, or a rapist, but a Marxist. Many of these low-information people hate anyone tagged as a socialist with the passion of a religious conviction,  even though many of them don't even know what a Democratic socialist is. So my life experience has taught me to never bet on the intelligence of such people. If the American people were intelligent, we wouldn't currently have an idiot married to an illegal stripper and porn model living in the White House.
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So this election is not about who's philosophy is most progressive, but who would be the best candidate to get Trump out of office. And in that regard, Hillary Clinton clearly demonstrated in 2016 that it doesn't matter how many enthusiastic fans you have in the big cities; what’s more significant is how many enemies you have in the boonies. The system was setup that way with the creation of the electoral college to protect the slave states. That's why in spite of the fact that Hillary won 3 million more votes, she still lost to Trump. The result of that election tells me one thing - Bernie is far too much of a gamble to bet on in an election that can determine whether or not America remains a democracy. He's even been a loser in congress for decades, and now he's a loser in the primaries. So the bottom line is, how badly do we want Trump out of office? If we fail to accomplish that, all of our other issues are meaningless, regardless of how high-falutin our ideals.
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But in spite of the fact that Bernie doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the nomination, instead of coming to help support the effort to get rid of a man who is so corrupt and delusional that he approached a firm in Germany trying to buy the EXCLUSIVE rights to a cure for a world pandemic, Bernie is stomping his feet and complaining that he's the victim of voter suppression. How is that helping the people? That's fanaticism and an overwhelming interest in self. I previously supported Bernie, but during this national emergency (Trump), Bernie needs to take his ass home and pout in private - THAT'S what's in the interest of the American people. If Bernie can't see that, everything else he's spewing is just political rhetoric designed to promote his own interests. Demagogues aren't new in American politics, and we've got to learn to spot them.
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Thus, while Joe Biden may not be as progressive as many of us would like to see in a candidate, for just that reason, he is undoubtedly the most acceptable candidate to the largest number of people – including disillusioned Trump voters who would never vote for a socialist. That’s why Trump is so afraid of him that he got himself impeached trying to smear him, and that alone speaks volumes. Trump knows the source of his biggest threat. That's why he's all but campaigning for Bernie. So no matter how tantalizing Bernie's vision of "pie in the sky" and free unicorn rides are to the imagination, if we want Trump out of office, we’re going to have rely on clear thinking and common sense, not the pursuit of unfulfillable promises and emotional fanaticism.

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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