This just in from our friends at the “liberal media” bastion of the New York Times. Bernie Sanders is a “Far Left” candidate who is speaking to the “Far Left”. News for Bernie supporters — we’re “Voters On The Edge”. That’s right, it’s all in the title on the home page story —
“In Iowa Voters On The Edge May Set Tone For Primaries”
Yes, apparently “the Far Left” is driving Bernie’s rise-— For some reason I can’t select blockquote text from the NYT site. I won’t even touch that because it may be an issue with my computer, however, I will hopefully quote by site the following:
“The policies of Barack Obama have added accelerant to the fire, with the far left unhappy he didn’t go far enough ...”
But you know what? I’m inverse cherry picking this article looking for a quote when the whole article says over and over again “fringe,fringe,fringe,fringe,fringe,fringe,fringe”. And, in all fairness they are talking both left and right and they are wrong on both parts.
I will quickly dismiss the contention that Trump is a fringe candidate with the idea that he’s not. He’s the embodiment of everything that for years the Republican brand has built in their people with dog whistles and couched sentiments. We all know it — Trump is saying what their party has been espousing and for us we’re scared out of our minds and saddened that their own machine has built a non-fringe entity that espouses a world view that is on display at their debates that we have a hard time fathoming. Messed up/screwed up/sad/hard to believe? Pick any one and you have a winner. Fringe? Sorry — um, no, not fringe.
Back to our side.
Bernie is NOT fringe and it wasn’t “The Far Left” that was unhappy with Obama’s policies.
Let’s just check the facts:
Single Payer Health Care? — 81% of Democrats.
Actually, it’s late. I open it up to you guys to go full bore finding links to prove me wrong that any single one of the following is a “Fringe” concept:
- Ending Tax Breaks For Oil Companies.
- Ending offshore tax shelters that allow corporations to effectively not pay taxes.
- Ending tax breaks that actually give incentives for companies to move jobs over seas.
- Raising the Minimum Wage to $15/hr.
- Removing the cap on Social Security which radically reduces the tax burden for the wealthy.
- Adding a small tax to stock purchases like everything else that we buy that isn’t food.
The list goes on and on and on and on. Bernie isn’t the fringe. I throw it out more to you — Which one of Bernie’s concepts IS fringe?
And, to be a bit open — I will put it there myself. I think that free college for everyone may push the envelope on fringe. OK? I said it. I love the concept. I like Bernie’s plan for getting there but maybe I can allow it to be thrown on the “Fringe” pile.
With that cleared out, Thousands of people showing up in freezing cold weather, thousands of people showing up everywhere that Bernie shows up. This isn’t a fringe. This is mainstream America.
It’s the half of mainstream America that hasn’t been convinced that our current President is a secret muslim and that climate change is a hoax — because guess what NYT? That half is real, scary and not the fringe either — and our “not fringe” needs to take control, be represented and push out the real fringe.
And the real fringe are the people making believe that allowing the oligarchy that is currently hanging on for their dear lives is actually the mainstream or normal — and it’s not — on either side.
And I end with this — WAKEUP media — or stop lying to yourself. You don’t have fringe candidates expressing “far out” ideas. This is the world that has been created with you as a significant driver of how it happened.
Last note — I am in no way making a false equivalence between the legitimacy of the concepts of Sanders supporters and Trump supporters being somehow valid. The power of Trump comes from a propagandized universe that actually has no bearing on facts versus the power of Sanders being based on a better understanding of the real causes of populist problems, however, denying either one of the ideals as being “fringe” at this moment in time is the simply invalid and dangerous conclusion.