= new reply since forum marked as read
Psssstttt
Bernie & senator whitehouse are on the same side
It’s not an either/or situation
Sanders was neither a sponsor nor a co-sponsor of that bill.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4217/committees
The Senate version failed to make it out of Senate Commerce Committee. Joe Manchin doesn't sit on that committee, but Krysten Sinema does. She voted to advance the bill.
Currently hearings are being held on the bill in the Senate Banking Committee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neither did Sanders write or co-sponsor a similar anti-price gouging bill that was introduced in March. `
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3920/cosponsors
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe political influencers on twitter should start hectoring the Democrats who actually write and introduce the bills to do a better job.
that money will go into the Government's bank account not our pockets, the ones getting ripped off.
How about an Executive Order ... no overseas oil sales until inflation or Ukraine/Russia is under control?
How about a "Reverse Tariff"? Say $10 for every gallon of gas big oil sells overseas, $100 for barrel of oil?
Make oil & gas un-affordable to other countries.
Gas pump prices is the only issue that will hurt us in the midterms, we need to get them under control,
and the sooner the better.
When paying at the pump, people aren't going to think "WOW I just saved .18 cents a gallon thanks to
Biden/Democrats" it'll be more along the lines of an "extra $2 a f@@king gallon!"
We really need to nip this in the bud as Barney would say. Surely there's something that could be done
on a national level, I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how to reign in Capitalism that's run amuck.
IQ4.5 would issue an Executive Order if it made him look good and let the lawsuits and appeals
play out in the courts.
based on a misreading of the novel. Pip is a working class boy who becomes an insufferable snob after having been corrupted by money and the influence of flatterers.
based on a misreading of the novel. Pip is a working class boy who becomes an insufferable snob after having been corrupted by money and the influence of flatterers.
So they search out his statements, expecting him to speak to them. After all, how often does he fail to use any issue or other opportunity to keep antagonism focused on the wealthy, relevant to the issue or not? He's been doing a high-wire balancing act since 2020, joining Democratic-establishment leaders to fight the Republicans' authoritarian takeover and simultaneously trying to keep an ANTI-establishment populist following.
But, class resentments have reportedly also been rising on the right also since 2008 or so, hot-burning fuel to add to the trumpists' huge grievance mentality. So I assume these constantly repeated messages are still intended to reach receptive populists on both left and right.
We should wonder if in future tRump's authoritarian populists lose faith in him as a strongman and some of them turn to Sanders. (!) They've always competed for a lot of the same people who could go either way, witness the Sanders voters who moved to tRump in 2016 and 2020. Sanders also projects a fair amount of the strongman certitude authoritarians need.
And sure, there's nothing new or unique in what he says, but he long ago trained those who want to hear it, and much of the media, to associate it with him alone.
that he could unite some RW with LW populists with calls to class resentments and economic anxiety until a stronger RW strongman arose and mostly swept the board.
A lot of people forget, in focusing on white-power factors, that most RW populists are varying mixtures of socially conservative (batshit on fire these days) AND economically progressive. The RW mixes are very heavy on social passions, but they absolutely want their government programs. (Remember, both populist leaders ran for president promising to replace the Democrats' ACA with a new plan with much better coverages for much lower cost.)
So Sanders' populists also tend to be those mixes, with heavy emphasis on economic justice (progressive or socialist); they are far more liberal on social issues than RW populists but average both more conservative socially and whiter than liberal Democrats. (That populist reality is a reason why Sanders couldn't woo America's black voters nearly as strongly as Biden, who was appealing to much more diverse liberal Democrats.)
But my big concern is this: That uniting of movable trumpists with LW populists, only some of whom accept Sanders' leadership, could seriously disrupt the Democratic Party's efforts to save democracy if it began putatively under the Democratic label.
I think all the dark forces would like and take advantage of that. Many anti-Democratic leftists already claim to be us in order to disrupt the party and sabotage our identity, just like the RWers tricking everyone they can into seeing us as a destructive threat they must stop. Strong populists on both sides also look forward to the collapse of our party and our government as both highly desirable in themselves and necessary to their own ends.
Have a nice day. 
That should be repeated a lot. We saw it played out blatantly, in can't-miss actions by both sides in 2016, many of them the same tactics of course.
Those who try to define populism as an ideology usually seem to be trying to give whatever organized negative energy they're talking about a kind of validity and moral standing that don't exist. As you say, it's a method for gaining power -- employed by leaders of almost all ideologies, to create almost any type of replacement power structure by inflaming and directing the signature antagonistic negativism of those they draw -- and specifically aggressive anti-establishment resentments. Populist passions are proven to be loosely related to ideology at best, witness those Sanders "socialists" who switched to tRump's white nationalist authoritarian movement. True that most of the switching may be one way, but not entirely -- and any movement can shift trajectory.
I am grateful to Sanders at least for joining the Democrats to fight the RW takeover after 2020. He of course knew that it would cause many among the dominant populist energizers of his movement to reject his leadership. His aligning with a despised Biden would also at least lessen his LW authoritarian appeal to some of his strongest loyalists.
So true that he couldn't continue forever to appeal to both those committed to democracy and to antiestablishment populists, but no replacement LW populist leader has appeared. And let's face it, many who support him don't understand that populist passions are inimical to our democracy. Many don't realize what they are or that they're involved with them. He also draws idealists who see him only as a leader who will strive for "more" than (he tells them) Democrats will. And of course they don't worry that what they don't see could slip his, and their, control altogether.
I believe you vastly underestimate their capacity for grievance in imagining that class-based enmities can't coexist and even synergize well with racial and factional enmities. And maybe you forget the Kochs' impressive accomplishment of deflecting the culture-and-Social Security-anxious teapartiers to caring about deficit spending? (!)
RW populists/authoritarians can also easily outperform the comparatively weak-tea hostilities of most of their counterparts on the left, most of whom wouldn't foresee what they'd become part of until it happened. These are the kind of people who made Hitler their Fuehrer, after all.
But who knows? Maybe they'll storm Charles Koch's mansion and burn it down. They're the type who'd leap to it eagerly, tossing poor white ruling class male Charles into the flames as enthusiastically as they would Nancy Pelosi. And a tRump out of control and needing red meat to throw to his followers really could point them at wealthy people who crossed him.
