Progressive Political News

We recently wrote about many of the reasons Bernie Sanders lost the 2020 Democratic Primary and one of the most prominent reasons for his defeat was his reluctance to be much tougher on his rivals, which they were with him. Sanders sustained a slew of attacks from his competitors in the Democratic field, most of the attacks were based on fear-mongering about the high price for his policies. Virtually every candidate attacked Sanders on the cost of Medicare for All, using the 'huge cost' of such a policy to scare voters into being against the policy, consistently screaming "it costs $30 trillion!" The price tag is actually somewhere around $17 trillion, also conveniently left out are the facts that this is the cost over ten years and that Medicare for All actually costs substantially less than the current American healthcare system. Medicare for All is estimated to save anywhere from $303 billion to $2 trillion over the course of the next ten years, if implement...

MSNBC's "The Last Word" host Lawrence O'Donnell describes his politics as a "practical European socialist", which essentially boils down to being a nordic-style social democrat, usually in favour of a mixed economy with a generous welfare state and has defended his positions on MSNBC news shows that typically frown upon stepping outside the neoliberal bubble. O'Donnell is no progressive hero in the context of american politics, sometimes scolding progressive politicians whenever they mildly criticize the Democratic Party, such as when Bernie Sanders tweeted about having to take on the Democratic establishment as well as Republicans, O'Donnell decided to concern troll Sanders by claiming that the Democratic establishment wouldn't pass Sanders' proposals if he wasn't nice to them. Over the course of the last few months an old video of O'Donnell explaining how to move the Democratic Party further left and how the party treats the p...

Unless someone is able to invent a way to travel back in time, preferably to around the time of the Nevada Caucus, we will unfortunately never experience a Bernie Sanders presidency. A variety of reasons were offered for Sanders' surprising exit from the 2020 Democratic Primary, including the ridiculous claims that his campaign staff, particularly Briahna Joy Gray and David Sirota, were primarily responsible or the laughable assertion that Sanders didn't portray himself as "patriotic" enough, supposedly Sanders not wearing an American flag pin is one of the main reasons for his defeat. However, there are more rational reasons for Sanders defeat. The most prevalent reason offered was Sanders reluctance to get dirty and push back, much like his previously mentioned campaign staff did. Throughout the primary Sanders annoyed his supporters as he would constantly refer to Joe Biden as "my good friend, Joe" after arguing that Joe Biden's policies wer...

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have long been seen as friendly competitors vying for the same base of support, with Warren entering the race being seen as a tough blow to Sanders' presidential aspirations. However, as the race has heated up Warren has repeatedly attacked Sanders for supposedly not being a unifying figure within the party, has gone after his supporters and their supposed bad behaviour online and has more recently said that she would be a better president than Sanders as she would be able to get more done while in office. The Primary race first begun with the two rarely saying a bad word about each other, referring to each other as friends. Warren repeatedly claimed that she was with Sanders on all of the big progressive issues such as Medicare for All, getting money out of politics and a Green New Deal. This is mainly due to the fact that for much of the race both Sanders and Warren had to attack the front-runner at the time, Joe Biden. Biden was the targ...

A recent ninety minute recording of a meeting President Donald Trump had with Lev Parnas - an American businessman who is currently under fire regarding the Trump-Ukraine situation for allegedly surveilling and making threats against the US Ambassador to Ukraine - has been leaked and one of the topics they discussed was the 2016 election and Bernie Sanders. During the conversation, which was recorded in 2018, there was a segment regarding the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton's VP pick, which we now know was Tim Kaine. The recording starts off by one of Trump's guests stating: " They rigged it, Bernie would have beaten Hillary " to which another guest agreed because their wasn't the same level of public repudiation towards Bernie Sanders as there is towards Clinton. More can be heard, as another guest saying that " millenials were right there for Bernie ". Now in jumps Donald Trump to state that: " If Bernie would have been Vice President...

The Iowa caucuses are finally here and Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, currently sitting atop the RealClearPolitics polling averages in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which are the first two states to vote in the Democratic Primary. According to the RCP polling averages in both states, Sanders has an average lead of 4 points in Iowa and 9 points in New Hampshire. Sanders support fluctuated in late 2019 after a minor heart scare which led to several pundits claiming that Sanders was done and he would soon be dropping out, but of course we now see that Sanders has become even more invigorated. In the caucuses, any candidate that does not reach 15% of the vote in the first round of voting will be eliminated and their voters will then be able to back another candidate who has reached that 15% threshold. This is extremely good news for not just Bernie Sanders but Joe Biden as well as the only candidates who are currently polling above 15% are: Bernie; 24.2%, Biden; 20.2%, But...

At a recent Bernie Sanders campaign rally in Iowa, Sanders surrogate Rashida Tlaib caused controversy when instead of quieting a crowd that was booing Hillary Clinton when she was mentioned by name, Tlaib instead stated: " No we're gonna boo, we're gonna boo. When we win the haters will shut up. " This angered the media class and voters that wouldn't have even supported Sanders in the first place. The 'Very Serious People' of online Democratic discourse slammed Tlaib, claiming that she was being divisive and harming Sanders chances in the upcoming primary. Some went a step further, claiming that Tlaib wasn't a true ally to women and their struggles if she was jabbing at Hillary Clinton, while others made videos screaming " f*ck Rashida Tlaib " into the camera for their Twitter bubble and others want her to be primaried and removed from Congress. This has come after Hillary Clinton has spent the last few years trashing Bernie Sanders at ...

Bernie Sanders supporters have a multitude of criticisms of cable news shows, ranging from them being the supposed gatekeepers of the establishment to the networks being in cahoots with the corporate interests that fund their shows, hence the apprehension to actual progressive politics and the likelihood of both a higher tax bill and losing of their stranglehold on American politics. Chris Matthews, host of 'Hardball' on MSNBC is one of the premier anti-Sanders pundits on what is considered the premier anti-Sanders news network. Matthews has previously asked Joe Biden surrogate John Kerry " how big of a threat would Bernie Sanders be to the country ?" However, Matthews has well and truly outdone himself now. While Matthews was on another MSNBC show, Morning Joe, he proposed the ridiculous question of which Democratic Primary candidate would get out of their car and help you should you be involved in a car accident. Matthews stated: " It's sort of like...

Detractors of 2020 Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders often point to his online supporters and their apparent harassment of people on Twitter. You often hear the phrase " I like Bernie, I support his policies, but his supporters really put me off ." This has been a running theme since the 2016 election with constant focus on supposed 'Bernie Bros' apparently harassing anyone who dare say a bad word about him. For the majority of the time it follows a very similar pattern. Sanders is constantly criticised, sometimes fairly of course, but the majority of time you'll find it to be a prominent liberal saying something outlandish about Sanders, claiming him to be a russian plant, a sexist, racist, having policies that 'only benefit straight white people', a communist and is repeatedly compared to Trump. This is when Sanders supporters push back, this is the supposed 'harassment' - responding to bad faith criticism such as Sanders being compared to ...

Healthcare has been listed in several polls as the key issue heading into the 2020 Democratic Primary and subsequent general election against sitting President, Donald Trump. The ten remaining Democratic candidates all have differing policy ideals when it comes to healthcare, ranging from Sanders 'Medicare for All', Joe Biden favouring "building on Obamacare" - whatever that actually means is anybody's guess - or Pete Buttigieg's 'Medicare for all who want it', which is effectively a fancy, means-tested way of saying that he's in favour of a public option. Buttigieg's whole facade is that he's the young and intelligent moderate, a young Joe Biden, supposedly. His supporters love to scream about the fact that he would be the first gay president or that his wonkish and convoluted views on policy are exactly what's needed in order to break congressional deadlock, especially on healthcare policy. His plan - 'Medicare for all who ...

Jim Messina, a former President Obama and UK Conservative Party adviser has recently come out against Bernie Sanders and claimed that the Vermont Senator would not be able to win a general election against sitting President Donald Trump and further mentioned that Democrats would "struggle" if Sanders was the nominee. So, who exactly is Jim Messina and why should we trust his opinion? Messina was hired as Obama's national chief of staff in 2008 and was key in his election victory that year as he controlled a $750M budget and also worked for Obama's 2012 campaign but subsequently left in 2011 and begun giving paid corporate seminars and speeches to companies such as Apple, Facebook, Zynga, Google, Microsoft and DreamWorks. Furthermore, in August 2013, Messina signed on as a paid consultant to the UK Conservative Party to work for both David Cameron's and Theresa May's campaigns in 2013 and 2017 respectively. Seemingly, Messina's advice didn't seem ...

Recent reports have been released, supposedly from people within the Warren campaign, claiming that during a 2018 private meeting over dinner between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Sanders told Warren that a woman could not win the presidency in 2020. According to the releases, the two discussed their 2020 plans and both agreed that they both planned to enter the presidential race and Warren mentioned if she thought a female candidate could win the presidency, to which Bernie supposedly told Warren that a women wouldn't be able to win in 2020. Hours after initial news reporting on the subject Warren released a statement in which she stated that Sanders told her that a woman would not be able to win the presidency, leading to claims of sexism and news reports claiming that Sanders has always had a "gender problem". Sanders camp, specifically campaign manager Faiz Shakir, spoke to reporters, saying that this was a lie, Sanders did after all encourage Elizabeth...

Jason Johnson, who contributes to MSNBC and The Root, has spent the majority of the 2020 election cycle going to war with Bernie Sanders supporters on Twitter. Johnson is repeatedly negative towards Sanders and his presidential aspirations, garnering obvious pushback from Sanders' supporters. Following this, David Doel, host of progressive Youtube show The Rational National, recently produced a video of Johnson's comments about Sanders in early 2019 and the beginning of 2020. The video begins with Johnson's remarks about Sanders while on Morning Joe on the 2nd of January 2020, in which Johnson stated that he believed that Sanders supporters were not supporting him for policy reasons, just that his supporters saw him as some kind of Democratic saviour, also claiming that his supporters couldn't be convinced with policy arguments as all of Sanders' supporters are just "Bernie or bust type people". Now, I could tell you from personal experience that t...

Sanders and his supporters have many criticisms of the mainstream media - I know this seeing as I'm a supporter myself - with some suggesting a general apathy or dislike towards Sanders meanwhile others paint an image of powerful news barons in a smoke-filled back room menacingly twisting their mustaches, choosing not to cover Sanders fairly and at times dismissing his candidacy all together. Few criticisms are as evident or obvious as this one, however. Three different news outlets were found to have deliberately attributed Sanders recent debate response to Elizabeth Warren, which is easily disputable when a transcript of the whole debate is easily accessible online via the Washington Post, or you could have simply watched the debate last week. The first instance of false attribution is the one pictured above in which NBC claimed that Warren was the one who slammed those on stage for their defence of a broken healthcare system, which was followed by the misattribution of th...

Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib endorse Bernie Sanders for President. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are three quarters of a group of relatively new and incredibly popular Congresswomen known as "The Squad", and they dominated the news cycles during Tuesday's Democratic Primary debate when it was announced that they would all be endorsing Bernie Sanders' 2020 Presidential bid. Ayanna Pressley, the fourth member of "The Squad" has said that  she is not endorsing any Democratic candidate  just yet. The news broke when CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked Sanders a question about his recent health issues - this was after the debate moderators hadn't called on Sanders for an answer to several questions, such as gun control and the opioid crisis - to which Sanders responded "I'm healthy, I'm feeling great, but I would like to respond to that question." He then proceeded to give ...

After President Trump and his administration's provocation of Iran led to the shooting down of an unmanned drone near Iran's airspace, several politicians have shown us where they stand on this administration's efforts to force a regime change war in Iran and remove the Ayatollah's from power. There were obviously a vast spectrum of opinions, from war hawks who pretend the drone was merely minding its own business by flying in and around Iran's airspace, do-nothing Democrats whose only problem with Trump attacking Iran being that he must abide by the rules and ask Congress nicely first, to anti-war politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ridiculing Trump's obvious attempts at goading Iran, which he will then use as reason for the American military to invade Iran and take out the Ayatollah's. Elizabeth Warren was recently asked by an attendee during a Florida town hall at Florida International University if she would go to war with Iran ...

One of the main talking points used against Bernie Sanders and his supporters is that their lack of enthusiasm and support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 directly led to Donald Trump becoming president, with Sanders supporters being labelled as privileged and sexist for not backing Clinton, and yes that includes you misogynistic Jill Stein/Green Party voters! However, our favourite anti-Bernie Democratic loyalist, Sally Albright, now insists that it isn’t pivotal that you support the Democratic nominee in order to defeat Donald Trump, should Sanders win the 2020 Democratic nomination. Albright recently claimed that “ 4 more years of Trump would be better in the long run ” as opposed to a President Bernie Sanders. This comes after the “moderate” wing of the Democratic Party have spent the past three years suggesting that apathetic Sanders supporters are the cause of every terrible Trump decision and we’d be in a utopia if us sexists would have just fell in line behind Clinton. In ...

Progressives have claimed that POLITICO’s latest hit piece on Bernie Sanders and his net worth could be considered anti-Semitic and it’s hard to disagree with the evidence shown. Sanders recently released his tax returns which showed that his net worth could be up to $1.9M, and many anti-Bernie Democrats and cable news hosts - *cough ERIN BURNETT cough* - suggested that this would make Sanders a hypocrite, given how often you’ll hear Bernie railing against the 1%. Instead, what would make Sanders a hypocrite was if he suddenly changed his tune on rich people paying their fair share in taxes, but, spoiler alert, he hasn’t changed his message. This also makes him much more credible given the fact that his tax proposals would now actually affect his own pocket. POLITICO recently ran a story attempting to delve into how much money the supposed ‘Champion of the Poor’ has. However, the trope of Jews secretly hiding their illicit wealth was extremely prominent during the Nazi era, ...

If you were to believe recent polling figures in regards to the Democratic Primaries, Joe Biden is by far and away one of the most popular political figures in America, with his 2020 poll numbers giving him a 37 and 32 point lead over Bernie Sanders in the recent past. There has however been issues with some of the polls that have been undertaken and given Joe Biden his huge lead, such as the one pictured above, which shows Bernie leading Biden by 2% (27%-25%) among non-white voters, but you wouldn’t know that if you watched the MSNBC segment regarding the poll, in which Biden magically gains three percentage points in order to go ahead of Bernie in these demographics. Here’s another poll (CNN) that was used in order to show Sanders “plummeting support” and as you can see the poll includes zero respondents of anyone under the age of fifty. The problem being that Sanders base of support is largely made up of younger voters, so to not include any in a poll on Sanders is simply di...