Seen posted in GD:P [View all]

[kjones]

Found this interesting...and amusing.
Someone posted this Sanders political video -

Now, what I find amusing is how it tries to draw assumed parallels of
Bernie and FDR/JFK. As many of Bernie's ads (either those put out
by the campaign, PACs, or supporters), it demonstrates his forward
thinking with...nostalgia throwback.

More importantly though, it draws on an extreme contradiction between
the image Sanders and his supporters want to cast of himself, and the
rhetoric they use to attack Clinton.
Sanders and his supporters would like to assume the mantle of figures
like FDR/JFK. At the same time, they portray Clinton as wealthy and
connected, and thus a tool of the 1%...because all people who fit
that description are tools, right?

There's the weirdness though, FDR and JFK were fabulously wealthy
(JFK, of course, much more so than FDR), and both came from background
of tremendous power, privilege, and political connections. Their families
were in the thick of the 1%.
Yet they are still the heroes of American progressive liberalism, and rightly so.
As much as Sanders can hitch his wagon to them, they are the perfect arguments
for why wealth, power, and connections don't make you a tool of the 1%. Apparently,
being a member of the 1% doesn't even make you a tool of the 1%.

So, when I hear Bernie folks name dropping FDR or JFK right before attacking Clinton,
what I really hear is that they don't actually know much about any of the three of
them (or for that matter, much about Bernie).