Feel The Bern

“Crazy like a Bernie”
Over the weekend Senator Sanders launched his first campaign rally in Brooklyn New York – He was introduced by his wife Jane Sanders and a parade of sincere advocates who shared their stories.
Then it was off to a packed warehouse in Chicago where Bernie again made his case for worker’s dignity and fundamental economic change.
Today we are going to address two challenges you’re likely to hear against Bernie Sanders.
First – He’s old.
•His ideas are even older – they date back in America to the early 1900’s as an antidote to the great depression and a check on anarcho-capitalism.
•He’s 77 years old, but we have video of him making the exact same arguments when he was only 45 years old. I’d rather have somebody who’s been saying the same thing for over 30 years than somebody who had different positions 30 months ago.
•Hillary Clinton is 71 years old. Donald Trump is 72 years old. Joe Biden is 76 years old.
•The purpose of age is it assumes the candidate represents younger generational interests. But Bernie has more millennial support than candidate in history.
oIn the 2016 primaries Hillary got 766K voters under 30 years old,
oTrump zoomed past her with 830K
oBernie Sanders got over 2M votes by people under 30 years old.
oBernie got more youth voters than Barack Obama did in his 2008 campaign, making him hands down the most supported candidate by Millennials in voting history.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.768ca9f4c8db]

[https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11818320/bernie-sanders-barack-obama-2008]
Second – Trump WANTS him to win.
•A recent poll has Sanders ahead of trump by 11 points in Michigan [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/mi/michigan_trump_vs_sanders-6768.html]
•In 2016 Sanders was ahead of Trump by 20 points in Wisconsin [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_sanders-5735.html]
•Trump wants Bernie because he likes attacking socialism as a boogeyman, but he underestimates how many 2016 Trump voters Bernie takes away.
[Clip from The View]
Quote of the Day:
Bernie concluding remarks at the campaign kickoff rally in Brooklyn New York

Write into the show: [email protected]

“Boss Bernie”
$10M in less than a week
1M volunteers

The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian runs a segment called “unfiltered” in which she tells it like it is.

Quote of the Day:
Bernie at the CNN Town Hall this week responding to a question asking him to explain Democratic Socialism – with a little help from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s State of the Union speech in 1944 in which he outlines the “Second Bill of Rights”

“Maduro Madness”

Venezuela Summary:
•Public unrest and systematic dismantling of democracy have lead to massive protests against the current elected President Nicolas Maduro. His oppressive hold on power and suffering of the people have come to a head with opposition figure Juan Gaiado announcing that he is self-recognizing as a the President, which America and other nations swiftly acknowledged.

•Is Venezuela socialist? Yes, kind of. Hugo Chavez made the oil companies which fuel the countries economy public and the nation has since had strong public programs. Maduro encountered runaway national problems and applied a strong-man anti-democratic approach with poor economic management. Most experts agree Venezuela’s biggest problem isn’t socialism, its political polarization and destabilization.

•What makes this more complicated? Venezuela has oil. The country began the OPEC organization and is the western hemisphere’s Saudi Arabia. But they sell their oil to China, Russia, and other specific non-American interests. America and Venezuela have a long history of our country attempting to overthrow their country’s government because – oil.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/world/americas/noticias-venezuela-protests-maduro-guaido.html


Trish Regan – Fox News Business
Recap the problem: Florida Democratic party – lead by Rep Debbie Wasserman-Shultz – has made statements indicating they are dumbfounded that Bernie Sanders will not “denounce” current President of Venezeula Nicolas Maduro as a dictator. Rep Donna Shalala of Miami is the loudest voice saying “He is not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. He has demonstrated again that he does not understand this situation, I absolutely disagree with his imprecision in not saying Maduro must go.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/21/bernie-sanders-venezuela-maduro-1179636

•First, of the 10 declared democratic presidential candidates, 3 have used the word “dictator” to describe Maduro – Harris, Gillibrand and Warren. 70% of the field hasn’t used the word, in part because they believe Trump will incite a military action in the region in a desperate attempt to save his presidency.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/venezuela-juan-guaido-donald-trump-2020-democrats_us_5c520bd0e4b04f8645c745f4

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/23/venezuela-maduro-democrats-2020-1182427

•Second, Bernie stated his position at length

https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/1088573769243914240?lang=en

•Third, Venezeula is a real crisis – but Democrats should not play with republican ‘regime change’ fire.


Quote of the Day – Bernie Sanders with Chris Hayes on MSBNC this weekend

Questions, Comments, Concerns (offers of help): [email protected]
Want to share the pod with others? www.FeelBern.com

Washington Post

4 Op-Eds since Tuesday attacking Bernie – owned by Jeff Bezos
Amazon - $11B in earnings, $0 in taxes https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18231742/amazon-federal-taxes-zero-corporate-income

528 – “Never Hillary”

Article claims 25% of Bernie’s voters merely voted against Hillary.
Notes that these voted against her twice in primary and general (or didn’t vote in gen) https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-was-helped-by-the-neverhillary-vote-what-does-that-mean-for-his-chances-now/
“Roughly one-quarter of Sanders’s support in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2016 came from #NeverHillary voters: people who didn’t vote for Clinton in the 2016 general election and who had no intention of doing so. (The #NeverHillary label is a little snarky, but it’s also quite literal: These are people who never voted for Clinton despite being given two opportunities to do so, in the primary and the general election.)”
Let me explain why that happened:
Debbie Wasserman Shultz
Hillary’s racism assault on Bernie (despite his pacificism towards her “damn emails”)
Hillary’s “Bernie Bros” assault on Bernie (Russian Bots) https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18231742/amazon-federal-taxes-zero-corporate-income


Chris Cilliza’s arguments

Democrat field is getting full
Crowded fields favor outlier candidates
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everyones-running-and-that-could-be-dangerous-for-the-democrats/
Democrat Demographics are Changing
According to Quinnipiac in December:
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2591
African Americans (55-26) and Latinos (52-26) like Bernie, Young people really like Sanders (57-29), Women like Bernie (46-38) Democrats like Sanders (74-13)
but he’s slightly underwater (43-45) with whites, faring especially poorly with white men (40-51) and working-class whites (38-44).

QOTD – Chuck Todd on Meet The Press tells it like it is

24 hours

6M dollars in donations

250,000 small donors

0 super pacs

300,000 volunteers signed up

To quote Van Jones on CNN “I’ve never seen anything like Bernie Sanders”

NPR Politics – Doesn’t take him seriously

CBSN – Staring at Joe Biden hungrily

Kamala Harris – “I’m not a democratic socialist”

John Delaney – “This primary is going to be a choice between socialism and a more just form of capitalism. I believe in capitalism, the free markets, and the private economy. I don’t believe socialism is the answer and I don’t believe it’s what the American people want. I don’t believe top-down, government only approaches are the right answer”

Quote of the Day: Bernie Sanders Vision 2020

Why Bernie Can Win

1.Crowded primary means you only need 30% to take it all. Other crowded primaries produced atypical candidates: (528) https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everyones-running-and-that-could-be-dangerous-for-the-democrats/

2016 Republican 17 Candidates: Trump
2008 Democrat 10 Candidates: Obama
1976 Democrat 16 Candidates: Carter
1972 Republican 15 Candidates: McGovern

Current 2020 Democratic Candidates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Declared_major_candidates_and_exploratory_committees

Corey Booker – Sen NJ
Elizabeth Warren – Sen MA
Amy Klobuchar – Sen MN
Kamala Harris – Sen CA
Kirsten Gillibrand – Sen NY
Tulsi Gabbard – Rep HI
John Delaney – Rep Maryland
Pete Buttigieg – Mayor South Bend Indiana
Julian Castro – HUD Sec under Obama, Mayor of San Antonio

We WANT Joe Biden to get into the race, just like in 2016

2.Bernie is Popular - Bernie raised $4MM dollars in 4 hours. Kamala Harris raised $1.5MM in 24 hours. http://time.com/5533134/bernie-sanders-2020-4-million-raised/

In October Bernie Sanders had a 53% approval rating and 88% of the country know him by name. https://news.gallup.com/poll/243539/americans-maintain-positive-view-bernie-sanders.aspx

3.Socialism is popular

Socialism is less popular than Atheism (50% vs 40%) – https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-socialism-still-an-effective-political-bogeyman/?src=obbottom=ar_5

Each item in the Sanders platform is trending in popularity

Welcome to the Feel Bern Podcast - the place for all things Bernie Sanders 2020! In this episode we hear from Senator Bernie Sanders as he announces his 2020 Presidential campaign and we introduce you to the Feel Bern Podcast! Please subscribe and SHARE! FEEL THE BERN!