#Also to all liberals and neoliberals reading this: either change or die

[they-call-me-hippie]

"Those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil"

Hanna Arendt, "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship"

[fantastic-nonsense]

@sanctusapparatus: I've seen people say Kamala was a more progressive candidate than Bernie or Warren, on the virtue that she's black. I've seen people say that voting for a member of [INSERT GROUP HERE] is the right thing to do, regardless of what positions they actual hold. Sorry for jumping to conclusions, but this wouldn't have been the first time I've seen someone say identity>policy when picking your candidate. 

Also, I mean, Warren seems to basically be Obama 2.0: Make a lot of vaguely progressive promises that you back away from at varying speeds approaching and after the election while working really hard to keep the neoliberal exploitation train on track. She basically dropped m4a the moment it posed any kind of difficulty, and I can't imagine anything else she's promised will fare better. She's basically the definition of a make-no-waves establishment appeasing centrist

1) I never said identity>policy. I said I was upset that we had the most diverse slate of Dem primary candidates ever and it looks like we’re going to end up with two 80-year-old white men yelling at each other. That says nothing about their policies or who I actually agreed with. It was a statement based on the fact that I’m tired of pretending like EITHER Biden OR Bernie is the best person to carry the flag of the Democratic Party forward when they’re fucking 80 years old and could die at any time (looking at you Bernie) or end up with a serious mental health decline (Biden). Like...both of you retire. Go home. There are better people suited on both the moderate and the liberal side of the Dems to take on Trump than either of you. That was the point of the post.

2) You’re dead wrong about Warren, which you would realize if you actually researched what she’s achieved and done for Americans. Like, this characterization of Warren as a centrist is laughable. Warren had the national platform for talking about progressive issues before Bernie was a genuine player in the general public consciousness.

I really wish people would stop erasing history here. People forget that Warren was the Darling of the Left in the pre-Trump era (and frankly, in many respects she still is). Bernie was just another senator making good speeches at the time. The Run Warren Run campaign wasn't a thing for nothing, you know, and there were literally op-eds written to console Warren fans when that effort failed. People have wanted Warren to run for a lot longer than they have wanted Bernie to run. In many ways, Bernie is following in the footsteps of Liz, not the other way around. I know a lot of people are too young or didn’t read the news before Trump, but like....do your research before saying nonsense like this.

Don’t believe me? Fine...maybe believe some pre-2015 news articles?

Roosevelt Institute, September 2011: "How Elizabeth Warren Put Bankruptcy on the Progressive Map"

New York Magazine, November 2011: "A Saint With Sharp Elbows: Elizabeth Warren"

The New York Times, November 2011: "Heaven is a Place Called Elizabeth Warren"

The Washington Post, September 2012: "Elizabeth Warren, Populist Leader"

The Daily Beast, December 2013: "What Obama Can Learn from Elizabeth Warren"

Mother Jones, April 2014: "Elizabeth Warren: Democratic Kingmaker?"

NYBooks, May 2014: "Elizabeth Warren's Movement"

The Nation, September 2014: "Meet the 'Elizabeth Warren wing' of the Democratic Party"

The New Yorker, November 2014: "Elizabeth Warren Wins the Midterms"

Politico, November 2014: "Reid Taps Warren as Envoy to Liberals"

The Progressive, December 2014: "Young Women Love Elizabeth Warren"

The Guardian, March 2015: "Progressives ponder 2016 fallback plan: Elizabeth Warren for vice-president"

Vox, May 2015: "Why Hillary Clinton Needs Elizabeth Warren"

Time, July 2015: "How Elizabeth Warren's Populist Fury is Remaking Democratic Politics"

On M4A, she didn’t backtrack on Medicare for All “the second it got tough.” Instead, she literally sat down and worked out a plan for how to get there and how to pay for it. She provided a workable and viable solution to get us there within four years, the exact same timeframe as Bernie's bill. I'm so tired of people saying she backtracked on universal healthcare just because she came out with a plan to actually get it done and pay for it.

Just because she has a different path to getting to a universal healthcare system than Bernie does not mean that she 'shifted her stance' nor does it make her "not serious" about getting there. It's called a policy disagreement; it happens all the time. Just because someone has a different idea about how to get to the same end goal does not mean that they shifted their stance on the actual end goal. To put it in crude terms: taking a bus, taking the train, and driving your car are all valid means of transportation. It doesn't make any of them inherently worse options. They are simply different ways of achieving the same goal: getting you from Point A to Point B. Wanting to get to "Point B" has not changed, nor the timeframe you wish to arrive there; only how you get there.

Ultimately, healthcare legislation is passed by Congress, not the President. Bernie has to get a majority of House Reps and Senators on board with his plan for it to pass, which they have shown no real desire to do (multiple Dem senators have already stated they will not vote for Bernie’s M4A bill and are not campaigning on universal healthcare; if we can’t get Dems on board, we’re sure as hell not going to be able to get Republicans on board). Warren's transition plan is infinitely easier to pass, is actually popular in the court of public opinion, deals with many of the major pitfalls of an immediate transition, and helps ease the fears of moderates (whose votes you will need to enact anything of significance) that we can do this, we can create a universal healthcare system, without significant economic damage. She has not been wishy-washy nor has she backtracked; she has come out with her own policy proposal that is workable, fully fundable, and able to be passed while sticking to her guns that she wants to achieve universal healthcare. And that's far more than I can say for Bernie.

So no: I'm not going to let people forget that Elizabeth Warren was the face of the Populist Left nearly a decade before Bernie Sanders gained national attention. I'm not going to pretend that the modern progressive revival started with Bernie Sanders. Please acknowledge her contributions to the revival of the Progressive Movement in American politics, because without her and her popularity Bernie would never have been a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2016. She is not a centrist and never has been; she just knows how to play nice with centrists to get the progressive agenda passed (which...again, is something Bernie does not seem to understand how to do).