...is apparently who the Demo-rats would most prefer as the candidate to end up in the White House come 2021, based on betting markets. (He's about 18 or 19 percentage points ahead of the next candidate as of today.) That's: (1) 79 years old; (2) an avowed socialist; (3) who recently had a heart attack. This combination should tell you something about just how off-the-rails this party has become. They don't appear interested much these days in listening to reason.
He and the party don't seem all that interested in a serious discussion about how globalization - the greater spreading out of capital flows from the first-world to the poorer world - is a key driver of greater economic inequality in the USA (the capital goes, the returns come to those still in residence); instead, increasingly, they (e.g., AOC) prefer to attribute this trend to some inherent dynamic in capitalism toward greater inequality (universally or globally, full-stop).
He says that no one really knows how much his bigger-govt schemes might cost, so he won't even bother to provide projections. He recently tweeted, "Abortion is healthcare." Anyone who listened carefully to the last 2020 Demo-ratic debate could notice that his proposals and style are pie-in-the-sky; how do he and his supporters expect his pretty-transformative proposals to get past a GOP-majority Senate, for one thing?
As a piece yesterday in the WSJ points out, Sanders was in favor of nationalization of industry in the 1970s, and defended Ortega and Cuba in the 1980s. He's now more of a staunchly "progressive" 'New Dealer' and/or Scandinavian welfarist type with an agenda of generous economic 'rights' (education, housing, healthcare, etc.) and lessening the influence of money in politics. But if the one not-bullshitty piece of evidence of racism on Trump's part - his company's housing policies from nearly 50 years ago (for which it/he didn't admit wrongdoing, etc.) - can be held against him today, so can Bernie's hardcore-socialist politics from 40 years ago. If. Right?
But even take out the socialism part, however one defines 'socialism,' as though that's not troubling enough. There's still the heart-attack-having 79-year-old part. What are these people thinking? They want to get rid of the "corrupt, racist, trillion-dollar-deficit-making, etc." president so badly that they can't accept any other outcome with a semblance of equanimity or proportion, and yet this is the alternative they most prefer to present to the swing voters of PA, MI, and WI?
And why can't they come up with a seriously viable candidate who isn't over 70 or under 40? (I think Plato might have something to say about putting people under 40 in charge of things political; do these politically-oriented lightweights care?)
[Addendum: to get some idea of how clueless these people can be, lefty Robert Reich asks why America is so divided now, and then proceeds to explain: "Part of the answer is Trump himself. The Great Divider knows how to pit native-born Americans against immigrants, the working class against the poor, whites against blacks and Latinos...". Can it be that part of the division is attributable to people like Reich insisting on dubiously, one-sidedly framing things this way, without any sense of irony, and that those on the right are sick and tired of it?]
[Addendum 2/21: I'm somewhat amazed that, all my attention-paying so far notwithstanding, I've not seen Bernie being called to explain his supposed ideological transition from hardcore communist to 'Denmawk'-style social democracy. How lazy/incompetent do his debate opponents and the media have to be for this not to have happened yet? You'd think we'd all like to have an explanation, lest we possibly end up handing over the nuclear codes to a crypto-commie or something? Am I the crazy one here?]
[Addendum 2/22: It should be noted that from polling averages the definitely-leftist Sanders + Warren numbers come to about 40%, while the more moderate Biden + Pete + Klobuchar + Bloomberg numbers come to about 50%. This raises the good question as to why on earth a not-very-convincing plurality of support should vault someone into a nomination - not altogether dissimilar from how Trump managed to get the '16 GOP nomination in the face of quality competition from at least 5 other candidates. IIRC he didn't poll much above 35% until all but a few other candidates dropped out. Still, he did win the general election by appealing to enough swing voters, and there is much talk of a contested '20 Demo-rat convention. The betting markets (now putting Sanders at nearly 50% and about 30 points above the next candidate) don't seem too deterred.]
