Ten reasons to reject Bernie
Look, I supported Bernie in 2016, with high hopes for real change. But Trump represents an existential threat to democracy and we must defeat him. We can’t do that with someone who alienates and denigrates the party that stands between Trump and totalitarianism.
Bernie has not yet been fully vetted. And vetting is important because these are the things that will be used against him by the Russian/Republican spin machine and social media bots. The TV ads will write themselves.
Together, all of the reasons outlined below show that Sanders is not what he seems and can’t deliver what he says he will.
1. He’s not a democrat and disavows the democratic establishment and its voters, the people who he needs to get elected. The election will not be decided in California or Brooklyn, or anywhere on the barricades. It will be decided in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. States that moderates and progressives can win, but that self-declared socialist Bernie cannot.
2. He has dark money support from Our Revolution PAC, a spin off from former Sanders staffers that endorsed 107 progressive candidates in 2018 elections, of which only 12 won their general elections. Control of the house was won by moderate Dems, many of whom had military or national security backgrounds.
3. He had a heart attack and refuses to release his full medical records after saying that he would. Sound familiar? He’s medically unlikely to fulfill his first term and we have no idea who would be his running mate and when we do — it will be too late.
4. He has close ties to Tulsi Gabbard, the only Dem to not vote to impeach Trump, and a history that is controversial at best. She introduced him at the 2016 convention and is on the board of the Sanders Foundation, which by the way is run by Jane Sanders’ son.
5.And let’s talk about Jane Sanders. As president of Burlington College, she was investigated by the FBI when a shady real estate deal she was involved in bankrupted it. Though not indicted, it’s not a good look on her. Especially when you find out that she had the college subcontract her daughter’s private woodworking school to the tune of $500k.
6. Bernie chose as his 2016 campaign manager, Tad Devine who has close ties with Paul Manafort and aided in the subversion of democracy in Ukraine. Bernie paid Devine $10 million dollars from the peoples’ $27 donations. And Jane Sanders and her daughter were paid almost $100,000 for the onerous task of purchasing TV ads.
7. His main surrogates announced that they would not support Hilary Clinton and thus helped elect Trump in 2016. I’m talking about the toxic Nina Turner, campaign co-chair and Briahna Joy Gray, the press secretary who recently compared requests for Sander’s records medical records to birtherism and lied about Bloomberg having a heart attack.
8. He surrounds himself with other toxic people, like champion of disenchanted men Joe Rogan and Dem critic David Sirota, who support the toxic engagement of many of his supporters (maybe even some bots) that Bernie has only recently denounced.
9. He’s the one Trump can beat. Trump and republican leaders like Kevin McCarthy have issued statements that support Bernie — and they love to claim that he’s treated unfairly (sound familiar?). They would like nothing better than to run against a socialist because in America right now, they know that a sociopath beats a socialist any day. And they have all kinds of video of him praising communism and drinking vodka shirtless, singing with Russians. If you can only follow one link, read this latter one. It outlines a laundry list of smears that Sanders will face if he’s the general election candidate, including being a dead-beat dad and a millionaire with three homes.
10. Bernie is as likely to get us Medicare for All, as Trump was to make Mexico pay for the wall. After 30 years in Congress, he’s had very little effect. If you lived through the fight for the ACA, then you know that the idea that the medical industry in this country is going to roll over for Bernie is a fairy tale. Even if the Dems would be able to take the Senate with Bernie at the head (fat chance), the majority of Dems are not behind ACA and he would never get a bill to sign. Realists know this and are working on ways to build on what was hard fought and won with the ACA. Many support a public option as an achievable first step towards universal health care.
