Meet Bernie Sanders' 2018 challenger

[DanTex]

177. I agree with some of your criticisms of Obama.

But I still think he deserves high marks in general. People forget that we only had a filibuster-proof senate for about 2 months, and that even when we had it, it included people like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. Could Obama have strong-armed them into a public option? Possibly but I doubt it.

Obama's biggest failing IMO was losing all those seats. And you're right, that can't be blamed on the left or the Greens. That was a tactical failure of the Democratic Party. But I see no evidence whatsoever that moving further left would have made things better.

When you talk about "middle of the road moderate candidates", who do you mean? A lot of people on the left consider Obama and Clinton to be middle of the road moderates, which is plainly inaccurate. There are some actual moderates in our party, like Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, but they come from red states where really we can't do any better.

I also think you are mistaken when you say both parties are continuing us on the wrong trajectory. Obama put us back on a good trajectory. Sure, there are limits to what he accomplished, but that's because of congress, not because of his unwillingness to propose progressive policies. He proposed raising the min wage, jobs programs, infrastructure investments, etc. But with Paul Ryan as speaker, there was no way forward through congress. So instead he did a lot through executive orders.

In particular, with respect to climate, it's possible that we will look back decades from now and think that the only reason that the human race survived, despite Trump's efforts to destroy the planet, is because of what Obama did before him. The investments he made in green energy, fuel standards, the clean power plan, and building international consensus.

But one thing I have no doubt that we will look back on is the insanity that has gripped the far left over the last two decades, to the point where they intentionally try to elect Republicans to the presidency in order to punish the Dems for lack of purity. Especially when it comes to climate. They even emphasize that time is really running out for us to curb climate change, and they what do they do? They help put Republican after Republican in office, knowing full well what that means for the environment. Just imagine where we'd be now if Nader hadn't helped W win in 2000. I mean: no Iraq War!