Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.

“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview.

The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.

“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”

Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.

  • TWeaK
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    1171 year ago

    Lmao the Guardian source article made me double take on the first paragraph:

    That big B looks as if it doesn’t just apply to the first line.

    Bernie Sanders sweeps into his state office in Burlington, Vermont, Bitching to get on with our interview. When I try to break the ice by Basking the US senator how he is, he replies gruffly, “Good,”

    • @[email protected]
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      161 year ago

      You should know, anyone that says “genocide Joe” unironically isn’t fooling anyone. It’s generally seen as a conservative dogwhistle round these parts.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        Genocide Joe is a nickname coined and used by progressives.

        Calling it a dogwhistle is generally seen as IDF propganda around these parts.

        • @[email protected]
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          71 year ago

          no progressive use that term. you’re being intentionally disingenuous and it’s obvious to anyone. plus I see your username making dumb and controversial comments all the time. high time I block your trolling ass.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            Label us whatever you want. I voted for Biden in the 2020 general election and I won’t be voting for him again. The label is irrelevant, all that matters is if you think you need my vote. If you don’t think you need it then ignore me. If you think you need it then start fucking paying attention.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    21 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.

    The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.

    Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy.

    The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.

    He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in the speech that took place near Valley Forge and on the day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.

    Biden also said that Trump’s false claims about “the 2020 election never could stand up in court.”


    The original article contains 319 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 48%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Verdant Banana
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    1 year ago

    then what about Silent Joe

    the one who quietly sat in office while people starved on empty promises made to raise minimum wage, protect human rights and safeguard the ones we do have, to not increase funding for the military industrial complex, bolster environmental protection, reign in a militarized police force keeping the citizens trapped under their boots and citizens suffered physically and mentally in cages, expanding healthcare, journalist being silenced, and sure the list goes on and on in silence

    “Not Being Trump” is not a qualification to run a country let alone move it into the current century

    • Skeezix
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      121 year ago

      What about. What about. Are you saying trump is a better choice?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        I actually love the “Silent Joe” line, because Trump is a notorious loudmouth. It even sounds like some playground nickname he’d come up with. Yeah, Biden doesn’t do nearly enough to achieve things, but the alternative is explicitly going to make shit much, MUCH worse. Things can be unequally bad, and the gulf has only gotten bigger with an overtly fascist movement as a major player.

        Do the Democrats suck shit? Yeah, no one’s really denying it. But I’d rather fight against some milquetoast liberals than, I can’t stress this enough, literal fascists. Democrats can be dragged kicking and screaming to do something after they feel the winds changing. Republicans will be intentionally trying to make shit worse for the vast majority of people.

  • Philo
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    21 year ago

    Do people still listen to the old birdie Bolshevik?

    • Cethin
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      1 year ago

      Lol. Some people still think communism or socialism is inherently bad.

      • Philo
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        41 year ago

        no, some people know comrade birde is inherently badinsky.

        • Flying Squid
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          111 year ago

          He’s not even a socialist. He’s literally said he isn’t a socialist. He’s a social democrat. You don’t even know the difference, do you?

        • Cethin
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          91 year ago

          For someone named for a philosopher, especially a philosopher who tried to create a system combining two disparate ideologies, this is a really shit take. You can’t come up with an actual reason other than “I know he’s bad.”

    • @[email protected]
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      61 year ago

      Sanders’ name appears in a headline, and both centrist Democrats and Republicans start using identical talking points.

  • @[email protected]
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    121 year ago

    The U.S. was never a democracy to begin with. The Constitution decreed that only rich white males had the vote. Excluding a majority of the population makes it an oligarchy, not a democracy.

    • TechyDad
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      131 year ago

      I’d call it a “flawed democracy.” The ideals behind it were sound, but the execution left much to be improved upon. And we’ve made many improvements (though we still have a ways to go).

      Still, even a flawed democracy is preferable to Dictator Trump.

    • Uglyhead
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      11 year ago

      Never a democracy

      I hear this more and more all over the place. Promoted everywhere seemingly to say it doesn’t matter if everything gets torn down and the US Constitution ripped up— because it’s all BS anyways, right?

      The US is a Democratic Republic. Simple As.

    • @[email protected]
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      91 year ago

      Really they intended land owning men to elect a handful of people to go to the capitol and get together and elect a leader, hopefully respecting the votes of those back home.

      So not really oligarchy. Citizens United and Bush v Gore means this system is a joke and the rich and powerful decide who leads, luckily Trump is neither.

      If Trump had any influence he could have launched a single successful recount challenge or court case with ANY evidence of fraud or election misconduct. He couldn’t, so he relies completely on a fervent cult-like group of followers.

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
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        1 year ago

        Yeah but he’s planning to purge the people that stopped him from winning his challenges.

        Came down to Mike Pence. He refused to get into the car with the Secret Service because they were planning to kidnap him. He refused to adjourn the session after the putsch. He said “clean the shit off the walls, turn those machines back on, bring those people back in here, and let’s start the transition.” Then he stepped over that foolish dead girl and reconvened the session, and obviously if he wasn’t going to go along with it neither was the Senate, not in that moment.

        Without that, we’d have been fucked. The Joint Chiefs letter was a week later and it voted the certification as grounds to remove Trump from the Whire House on January 20 if he didn’t go willingly. He already says he regrets leaving and that he should have had his supporters literally fight the military.

        Without that, statehouses would have been demanding to send new slates of electors.

        They had a whole plan to seize the Supreme Court and State Department. That was only thwarted because the Capitol Police refused to let the crowd into the mall without metal detector screening, despite Trump’s orders.

        Next time, Trump isn’t going to have a VP who refuses orders. That’s kind of the whole thing with fascists and cults.

  • PugJesus
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    1811 year ago

    He’s right. Of course, this won’t stop “BOTH SIDES” fans, who want fascism in America more than anything else in the world.

    • @[email protected]
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      01 year ago

      They are moving away from “Both Sides” and starting “Biden supports genocide.” It’s just a new way for below average people to think they’re smarter than everyone else.

      • mozz
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        01 year ago

        Biden does support Genocide, in this particular instance. Giving him hell for it and trying to do what people can in order to save all the innocent people getting bombed and shot right now, is fine.

        Trump is still infinitely worse. If you think 20,000 dead Gazans is bad, wait until you see what Trump wants to do. Last time around, he fucked up the response to a global crisis that’s currently killed over a million Americans, and that was without even trying; and without any of the vengeful things he’s itching to do this time around if he gets in.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          The salient point here that so many people are missing is that allowing Trump to be elected because of some misguided ideological purity will absolutely do nothing to protect or liberate the Palestinian people, so why even pretend to care about that, if you aren’t a right wing troll? Allowing far right demagogues to usurp control of western nations will, in fact, cause untold suffering of billions. Palestinians included.

          If you are an actual leftist, then it is your duty to consider this moral liability, and soak in the discomfort of the situation with the rest of us. Ideological purity does not cleanse you from this, not matter how much you wish that.

          • @[email protected]
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            01 year ago

            People for whom support for genocide is a dealbreaker exist whether you understand them or not.

            If Biden wants their votes, he cannot continue to support genocide.

            No amount of insults or accusations will change that.

            • mozz
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              01 year ago

              Those people are going to share some responsibility for the much worse genocide that Trump ushers in, then. They can claim it’s not their fault if that happens, but they’ll be lying.

              • @[email protected]
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                01 year ago

                No we won’t. We didn’t want Biden in the first place. The blame lies with every piece of shit who voted for him in the 2020 primaries.

              • @[email protected]
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                01 year ago

                Preemptively blaming them for the loss that centrist Democrats would prefer to having to abandon support for genocide hasn’t changed the situation:

                If Biden wants the votes of people for whom genocide is a dealbreaker, he cannot continue supporting genocide.

                • mozz
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                  11 year ago

                  Good luck in the hellscape that’s coming, then. You’ll have the comfort of your explanation for why it’s not your fault.

      • @[email protected]
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        01 year ago

        Whoa people are mad that their president is funding a genocide?? :0

        Smh they should just stfu and vote. Who cares about foreigners dying

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          Trump didn’t care about US citizens dying, or did he apologize for fucking up his covid response yet?

          • @[email protected]
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            01 year ago

            Lmao did you think I was suggesting he’s somehow better?

            I just find it funny that Americans pretend like their bourgeois “democracy” isn’t just a poorly veiled oligarchy where you get to “choose” between the genocidal zionazi party and the fascist party.

            Neither of whom give a fuck about the working class, though one is a bit better at pretending like they do.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 year ago

              One side is clearly better unless you do false equivalence, look at the mortality rate of mothers in states with abortion bans and without etc.

              I know this is not as edgy of a take as your both sides cuntery but there is clearly a better and worse choice for the US regardless what kind of zionazi epic words you want to use from your basement setup.

              It’s not like Americans don’t know their system is broken, but it’s not like they can fix it one day to the next, they have an election coming up where they have to choose between a shit candidate and a straight up fascist who tried to overthrow their election

              • @[email protected]
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                01 year ago

                Yeah I do agree people should probably still vote for the genocide party, as long as they’re organizing outside the system and building class consciousness to eventually overthrow it.

                Just that they shouldn’t pretend like they’re not voting for a genocidal zionazi.

                what kind of zionazi epic words

                Are “genocide” and “nazi” also “epic words”? It conveys the fact that Biden is a zionist and a nazi quite well, no? Specially when I’ve linked him admitting he is one.

                • @[email protected]
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                  01 year ago

                  He’s backing Israel because it’s what they’ve always done. It’s a strategic alliance. It’s Nathan yahoo dropping bombs on cities

              • @[email protected]
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                01 year ago

                How is what Americans pretend to do relevant here?

                Ah sorry, were we talking about African elections?

                did you think I am American?

                When did I say you were?

                • @[email protected]
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                  01 year ago

                  Oh so you just went on some rant about Americans as a reply to me even though it’s not relevant at all, gotcha

    • @[email protected]
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      111 year ago

      The requirements to run for president are pretty clearly laid out in the constitution, you must be 35, born in the US, and have not participated in an insurrection against the United States

      If someone throws away their vote on someone who is ineligible, that’s their choice

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    If all it ever took was one bad president then democracy has already ended and it was always just a matter of time.

    This reminds of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when it describes a planet ruled by reptiles:

    [It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…" “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.]

    👆 This Douglas Adams bit is the exact situation we find ourselves in now.

    • SmokeyDope
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      11 year ago

      SCP-682’s home planet. It all makes sense now! Douglas Adams canon when, writers?

    • Alien Nathan Edward
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      41 year ago

      It’s just a matter of time til we all die, too, but that doesn’t mean we need to kill ourselves now.

    • TechyDad
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      231 year ago

      One big lesson from Trump’s presidency was that many of the rules we thought constrained politicians were only “Gentlemen’s Agreements.” They held up because everyone agreed to abide by them. When Trump walked in, refused to abide by them, and wasn’t immediately struck by the political equivalent to lightning from heaven, all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.