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Bernie Sanders already had one major go-round in the Democrat primaries in the 2016 campaign, so he should know what works and what doesn’t, right? Well, no.
Despite not actually being a Democrat, Grandpa Bernie has helped successfully market socialism to young leftists and opened the doors to candidates like Elizabeth Warren. However, Hillary Clinton can’t be blamed for Bernie’s campaign fails this time around. So here are the Top 5 Bernie Sanders Campaign Fails of 2019.
1) Voting rights for felons
Bernie Sanders has the ability to blindly set trends that other campaigns felt that they needed to equal or one-up. One of these early examples was when Bernie announced that he wanted convicted felons to be able to vote (presumably for him) from behind bars.
"If you're a citizen of this country, you have the right to vote. And I will oppose all efforts to try to deny Americans the right to participate in our democracy."
– Sen. Bernie Sanders on allowing incarcerated felons the right to vote.https://t.co/gLvgTJvPxW pic.twitter.com/AFAwJL0P3U
— CNN (@CNN) April 30, 2019
Kamala Harris, like a mindless lemming, followed him right off that cliff, and she paid the bigger political price for it because she immediately did one of her patented flip-flops. Bernie never backtracked his position, which helped him in the short term. But put him in a general election, and it is an instant campaign ad that will absolutely hurt Bernie in the long term.
2) Higher taxes for all
This is probably what is keeping Bernie from overtaking Joe Biden. Bernie gets credit for honesty, but promising a tax hike didn’t work for Michael Dukakis, and it won’t work for Sanders, either. In acknowledging that Medicare For All will cost a shitload of money that the government does not have, Bernie simply says everyone’s taxes will go up. Your first $29,000 will be exempt.
Wait, you say. Bernie wants the minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour, which means that a minimum wage worker putting in 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks, would get $31,200 before taxes. Ohhhhhhhh. Congratulations, minimum wage workers! You’re now rich enough to qualify for a tax increase! Now, Bernie would claim that Medicare For All would offset any tax increases because, in theory, medical costs no longer come out of the worker’s pocket. Well, not out of your pocket, but out of your paycheck before it ever gets to your pocket. Convenient, right? You’ll never even get to miss that raise!
3) Minimum Wage Campaign Woes
Speaking of the minimum wage, Bernie ran into some problems when it was discovered that his campaign wasn’t living up to his own hype. When the news broke that the campaign wasn’t paying its workers the $15 an hour they were promised, the campaign then cut hours to make sure that everyone remaining would get $15 per hour.
One of the biggest supporters of a $15 minimum wage, @BernieSanders, is cutting his campaign staff's hours to pay a $15 minimum wage. This is a real world example of what happens when you raise the minimum wage artificially.https://t.co/FwtIlVJspc
— Badger Institute (@badgerinstitute) July 22, 2019
Who could have predicted that raising wages would result in employers having to cut hours? Hmmmm. But don’t worry, because big companies like Walmart and McDonald’s are TOTALLY going to cut profit and pay workers more when Bernie is president!
4) Bernie the Millionaire
So, why couldn’t Bernie Sanders pay his own campaign staffers more? After all, he is a millionaire himself! Take notes, everyone – if you write a best-selling book about how to take other people’s money, YOU TOO can become a millionaire! It also helps to have lived off the public for the last 40 years in government, and then run for president in order to raise your profile, in order to sell books. Wait, you mean the socialist made money in the capitalist system, and owns three houses as well??? Why, it’s amazing how well being a cranky old socialist pays!
5) Bernie, Friend of Anti-Semites
This is not just a “fail” in the conventional sense, but a failure of Bernie Sanders as a person. Bernie gets a pass on hobnobbing with anti-Semites because he is ethnically Jewish. However, Sanders himself claims to be an atheist. He has no affinity with the Jewish faith, and the relationship between him and known anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Linda Sarsour works well as a smokescreen for both sides. They get to refute being labeled as anti-Semites because they support Bernie (because they love his progressive socialism), and he gets to claim “broad intersectional support” from those three. As David Harsanyi wrote:
Well, for one thing, as Trotsky correctly indicated, socialism tends to corrode all other religious and cultural affiliations. Secular Jewish progressive groups posing as faith-based organizations, for example, have long worked to conflate their ideological positions with Judaism by reimagining the latter to make it indistinguishable from the former. It’s one of the great tragedies of the American Jewish community that they are succeeding.”
For Omar, Tlaib, and Sarsour, politics trumps race. Bernie, political buddy of Jeremy Corbyn, the now-ousted British Labour leader, sees no issues with his associations with anti-Semites. Even after today’s horrific news, Bernie, like other leftists, spouts platitudes that they scream about when mass shootings occur.
I’m outraged by the knife attack in Monsey. We must confront this surge of anti-Semitic violence, prioritize the fight against bigotry, and bring people together – instead of dividing people up.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 29, 2019
Start by cleaning your own house, Bernie, if you want to actually fight anti-Semitism.
Did we miss a campaign fail? Let us know in the comments if we missed one! Bernie’s heart attack doesn’t count.
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Bud Wiltfong says: These are very well written and tell a message while keeping it extremely interesting to read. Thank you.
mhw says: Bernie once supported better immigration controls but in the first Dem Prez debate he supported govt paid medical care to illegal immigrants and also decriminalizing illegal immigration.
That probably plays at 8% vs 92% in polling.
Kevin says: Minimum wage workers making 31k a year would see a tax increase of 3% on 2k. That’s 60 bucks for comprehensive health insurance per year, health insurance they probably don’t already have or costs even more per year (the lowest option I have costs much more than that at my job).
The rest of the arguments are pathetic. If this is the best the right wings got, Bernie will win the nomination and defeat Trump handily.
William says: I agree. This article is really reaching. Calling a Jew anti-Semitic? Really?
Marta Hernandez says: That’s not reaching. It’s accurate.
Joshua says: If you think it’s anti-Semitic to criticize the israeli government for 1). Their dehumanizing treatment of Palestinians and 2). Their lobbying power over the US government than you’re simply an idiot. There’s no way around that. Sanders criticizes the israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians too. Disgusting humans like you would be 100% ready to call Sanders anti-Semitic if he weren’t already a religious Jewish man.
Secondly, Medicare for all would provide universal coverage and would be paid for by everyone through a progressive tax system. It would reduce the US’ health spending by half like every other major country in the world, provide universal coverage like every other major country in the world, and save people making $75000 or less thousands over what they pay currently like every other major country in the world. All of your other points are standalones that don’t need to be taken down. They showcase your idiocy perfectly. The dude is a senator at the age of 78. That’s well past retirement age where experts say you need 1-2 million to retire. Bernie also believes felon’s should be paid a living wage as well. Do you have a problem with abolishing slavery? Lastly, Bernie Sanders campaign has afforded its campaign staff with one of the strongest union contracts this nation has seen. Every worker is now making 15 an hour at minimum with full benefits and healthcare. Try again, troll.
Scott says: “Secondly, Medicare for all would provide universal coverage and would be paid for by everyone through a progressive tax system. It would reduce the US’ health spending by half like every other major country in the world, provide universal coverage like every other major country in the world, and save people making $75000 or less thousands over what they pay currently like every other major country in the world”
Please offer citations to back up those claims (campaign websites don’t count”. kinda like this..https://www.factcheck.org/2018/08/the-cost-of-medicare-for-all/ OOOH, wait, that one kinda debunks your claim… ok, how about this one? https://fortune.com/2019/04/24/medicare-for-all-plan-costs/ .. What? That one proves you’re full of crap too??? ok, let’s try this one.. https://nypost.com/2019/09/21/the-real-cost-of-medicare-for-all-could-be-american-lives/ … Hmm, that looks like three strikes… guess you and your BS argument are out.. or, as the saying goes, Prove me wrong!
Rebecca says: This is totally misleading. There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll just focus on the most dishonest posts. The majority of Americans will save a ton under Medicare for All. That person that makes $15/hr will pay a 4% payroll tax on $2,200 worth of income. This comes out to $7.33 month for comprehensive healthcare where they can see any doctor they choose. Someone who makes $100k year will pay $236.67/month. I dont make that much, and I pay $530/month, so please sign me up for the 4% payroll tax so I can finally not have to avoid going to the doctor because I cant afford the deductible or co-payments on top of the $530 monthly premium I pay.
Next, Bernie never paid anyone less than minimum wage. His employees are salaried, so when he found out they were working so many hours, he reduced their hours. Their salaries/pay did not change. Just to be clear, Sanders employees are union, have full employer paid medical benefits, and were in negotiation when that fake news story broke. They had already turned down a raise. You’re basically straight up lying on this one, and it’s not a good look.
Bernie believes that ALL people have the right to live in dignity and peace. He believes in humanity and the idea that if we are all willing to fight for someone we don’t know, we can take on the establishment and create a government and economy that works for everyone, not just the 1%
Scott says: Wow! You really need to quit swilling the koolaide / smoking crack!. They’ve run the numbers, and if every millionaire in the country was taxed at 100% it STILL wouldn’t be enough to pay for “medicare for all”..https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/10/high-cost-warren-and-sanderss-single-payer-plan/600166/..
Then you say ” so please sign me up for the 4% payroll tax so I can finally not have to avoid going to the doctor because I cant afford the deductible or co-payments on top of the $530 monthly premium I pay.”.. Of course, that’s assuming that a doctor in the specialty you want is actually available in your area (no question that the number of doctors will decrease-Why would they go through the time and expense to become a doctor when the govt will set artificially low payments for them- Don’t believe me, check how many doctors in your area are accepting new patients, but not medicare ones.. as well as the number of hospitals / clinics that would close under such a plan).. and even if there does happen to be the right kind of doctor in the area, you’ll end up on the waiting list, and depending on the specialty, hopefully you’ll survive the possibly years long wait to get in to see him / her / it… Of course, then there’s the fact that if you’re deemed too old, sick, whatever to make it “cost effective” to give you the treatment you need, you’ll just be told “sorry, we’re not doing that, it’s too expensive”, and sent off to your fate (again, don’t believe me? Look at Charlie Gard, the baby in the UK that was not only denied treatment, but also denied the right to travel where? OOOH, that’s right THE US to get possibly life saving treatment, because the govt knows best.. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/03/terminally-boy-denied-potentially-life-saving-treatment-nhs/
Please feel free to try your trolling again when you’re better informed on the subject..
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